Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara give an impeccable performance in David Lowery's Ain't Them Bodies Saints

Ain't Them Bodies Saints is a gripping drama from a rising star of American indie filmmaking, David Lowery.

Ain't Them Bodies Saints, Roadshow films Picture: Supplied

AIN'T THEM BODIES SAINTS [M]

Rating: Four stars

Director: David Lowery (St. Nick)

Starring: Casey Affleck, Rooney Mara, Ben Foster, Keith Carradine

A single title card precedes Ain't Them Bodies Saints, a refined and resolutely gripping drama from a rising star of American indie filmmaking, David Lowery.

That card reads: "This was in Texas."

In terms of hard information, that's all that Lowery is prepared to hand over to his audience.

The rest will still be fanning flames of intuition, perception and speculation by film's end.

The opening scenes are dominated by a fateful shootout at a farm shack, during which the pregnant Ruth (Rooney Mara) wounds a local policeman, Patrick (Ben Foster).

The father of her unborn child, Bob (Casey Affleck), tells the cops he fired the gun, and is sentenced to life in jail. Ruth vows she will wait for him.

Bob writes every day, and tries to escape at least once per year. Eventually he succeeds, and begins an arduous trek across several states to be reunited with Ruth and their infant daughter.

Needless to say, things have changed back home since Bob's been away. Sure the law is after him in a big way. But so too are the demons that plagued him as a younger man.

Bob's long-awaited return is all that Ruth has ever wanted. But it could also destroy all she has achieved in his absence.

Both impeccably acted (Affleck and Mara are mesmerising in their romantic intensity) and filmed (the cinematography of Bradford Young ranks as the year's most atmospheric), Ain't Them Bodies Saints is a unique and complete movie experience.

If you were looking to nail the elusive tone of the film, you could possibly do so by triangulating a position somewhere between Terrence Malick's early masterpiece Badlands and the recent Southern storytelling classic Mud.

That may read like lofty company to film buffs, but Ain't Them Bodies Saints is more than worthy of the comparison.