Bastard Out of Carolina is one of the rare instances of a film being every bit as good as the original book. Adapted from Dorothy Allison's unflinching tale of child abuse in rural 1950's South Carolina, first-time director Anjelica Huston preserves the power and ambience of the original work by refusing to sanitize it. It's a gruesome, depressing story, but one that needed to be told.

Jon Brooks