First Snow

Aroview: Fateful neo-noir thriller stars Guy Pearce as a shyster salesman whose life is sent into a paranoid tailspin after a trailer park palm reader makes a loaded prediction.

Unsettlingly unpredictable for the first half, before undercutting its fatalistic premise with fickle attempts at redemption and largely spelt-out philosophising, this registers enough suspense to redeem a fairly straightforward storyline. Pearce proves a more than adequate anti-hero, while the spacious outdoor imagery eerily imparts a sense of limbo when not put in the service of clunky symbolism.