Tenderness

It opens, predictably, with a tender kiss, before we’re introduced to the film’s trio of seriously depressed players: a mixed-up teenage girl, Lori (Sophie Traub); a semi-retired cop (Russell Crowe, sleepwalking); and an unhappy lad, Eric (Jon Foster), who may or may not have slaughtered his parents. When Eric is released from prison, Lori (who, it transpires, is besotted with him) joins him on a road trip…

When the soundtrack isn’t bracketing the depressing emotional scenes with airy strings, it’s all eerie and tense, as if to imply that something awful might occur. But after 80 minutes of plot holes, ambiguous meanderings through the New York countryside and some of the most inconsequential dialogue ever uttered, you’ll be gasping for some action.