A teenage girl meets an older man and he methodically grooms her to do not-so-good things in the quietly powerful Palm Trees and Power Lines, a mesmerizing feature length debut for director Jamie Dack and a troubling tale that establishes how quickly things can spiral out of control.

Starring Lily McInerny and Jonathan Tucker, the movie examines how emotional isolation can lead to poor decisions that lead to even worse consequences. Lea (McInerny) isn’t friendless, but she’s unsatisfied with the emotional maturity of her friends; when much older Tom (Tucker) befriends her, she appreciates the attention and his more experienced perspective on life. Of course, Tom isn’t looking to be a father figure.

A gorgeously dark drama featuring a pair of stellar performances, Palm Trees and Power Lines is sublime. It has a power that creeps up on you, building layer upon layer as Tom crafts his emotional and physical traps. McInerny is explosively raw as the story’s Lolita, while Tucker absolutely nails his role, depicting a two-faced character that is both convincingly sincere and disturbingly sinister.

Dack, who co-wrote the film with Audrey Findlay, takes the film to even darker places in the third act. There’s something that feels slightly incomplete about all that happens, though the unpredictability of the film’s final scenes and the disturbing implications for what’s to come next make for otherwise satisfying conclusion.

Palm Trees and Power Lines is a commanding debut for Dack and a powerful depiction of the dark threat that lingers in real life, often not even in the shadows.

Review by Erik Samdahl unless otherwise indicated.