PIERCING Midnight

Reed (Christopher Abbott) is a seemingly normal guy struggling to channel some dark urges involving an ice pick. To keep his family out of harm’s way, he checks himself into a hotel and orders a prostitute, with the secret intention of taking his methodical violence out on her. But when call girl Jackie (Mia Wasikowska) arrives, things go disturbingly off-script. Nicolas Pesce’s wicked black comedy PIERCING perfectly balances on a tonal tightrope of kink, delight and depravity, all while summoning an aura of anonymous ’70s sleaze. Abbott and Wasikowska play brilliantly off each other; he as a closeted psychopath whose depressed exterior hides a world of torment, she as a childlike soul whose desires and agendas are more cutting than meet the eye. – Beth Hanna