Quicken

This is one of those tense little family dramas where you can never quite work out what's happening, but it feels cold and desolate all the same.

Two "free-range" children live in the house by the sea with their mum and grandad. They seem to be the only two who communicate. Grandad sits and stares into space and, at a pinch, could already be dead, while the children torment him. Although - and possibly because - he doesn't bat an eye, it's hard to discern if any of this is going on. Mum, meanwhile, is seen doing the sorts of things that always give audiences a feeling of disquiet - plucking chickens (fiercely) and wandering a windy beach.

It is the children who make this film. What it lacks in plot, it gains in atmosphere. And the children's boredom and playfulness, bordering on cruelty, is neatly captured.