Jonathan Glazer has managed to both nurture a strong reputation as a film-maker - with only two credits to his name - and, somehow, remain most known for his work on a fifteen year old Guinness advert in which waves merged into galloping horses.


His latest film will do little to change the public perception of him, but continues to cement his status as one of the most intriguing directors currently working (though not currently working enough).


To be honest, if you don't know anything about this film I highly recommend you keep it that way. It would be interesting to hear the opinion of a viewer who has seen this film knowing nothing of the plot and hear what conclusions they come to. Because, with regards to this film, the slightest synopsis immediately casts a very specific interpretation over the events that perhaps dulls the intrigue and surreality of what's occuring.


However, this is a review, and I'm going to spoil things a bit, so if you're blissfully ignorant about this film's narrative, please, stop reading now, give it a punt and let me know what you think. Otherwise, carry on and don't say I didn't warn you...


Scarlett Johansson takes the lead role, we first meet her as she strips clothes from a dead woman in an all-white room. She dresses and proceeds to drive around Glasgow stopping to pick up lone men, tempting them, taking them to another mysterious room where they eagerly follow her, removing clothes, until a strange and mysterious fate befalls them.


Using a mix of guerilla filming and non-actors Glazer's film certainly creates a mundane yet otherworldly feel, as Johansson ambles around shopping centres, night clubs and later sodden woodlands. However, it also feels detrimental to the film as a whole, as if we're supposed to be thinking about this Hollywood star in amongst the "normal" people, there's a certain tacky voyeurism to it that's undoubtedly intentional.


The film has a contempt for people - which chime's with the protagonist's view - it revels, and laughs, at the cocksure swagger of the doomed men strutting towards an undressing Johansson, oblivious to their destiny. Glazer, teasing us as well, gives us ever increasing glimpses at their demise and the results are eerie, beautiful and grotesque all at once. However there are times when the film's gaze feels too critical, too heightened a look at a "reality" magnified by the filmmakers. Closer to late-night club-land documentaries in its selective viewpoint of humanity as ugly.


There are some scenes of mundane brutality that are near heart-wrenching glimpses into the simple cruelty of life; one sequence on a choppy beach is particularly memorable. Ultimately though the film's message rings hollow and facile, which I'm sure you could argue is intentional and apt.


It is an interesting and provocative film, deeply flawed, but an intriguing and experimental addition to Glazer's frustratingly brief C.V. thus far.