Things between employer and gardener get tense when Norma (Sigourney Weaver) asks Narvel (Joel Edgerton) to take on her young grand-niece, Maya, as an apprentice.
Maya does well in the job and when she starts getting threatened by a drug gang in her tough neighbourhood, Narvel’s own secret past in crime rises to the surface as he sets out to protect her. “Gardening is a belief in the future,” Narvel preaches, but it’s the character’s shocking past that forms the beating heart of this edgy drama from writer-director Paul Schrader. Weaver’s crackling grande dame imperiousness adds another layer of brilliance.