Lowe’s determinedly low-key performance is a marvel even through the film’s few lulls: She’s dry even when anguished, with flashes of wide-eyed mania that seem to channel Isabelle Adjani in “Possession.”
In her us-against-the-world relationship with her baby, in the isolation of her widowhood, in her obtuse dedication to revenge, in the burning dilemma of her questionable sanity, Lowe puts Ruth alongside both Isabelle Adjani in Possession and Michael Douglas in Falling Down.