Hierro (12A)

Gabe Ibanez's debut film starts out promisingly as a variation on kidnap drama Flightplan.

Single mother Maria (Elena Anaya) is travelling by ferry towards the island of El Hierro when her five-year-old son suddenly disappears. Has the kid fallen overboard, or been abducted? On returning to the island to identify a corpse months later, Maria is drawn into a Hitchcockian web of suspicion, dread and mental disorder, though the longer it continues the less certain is Ibanez's own grip on the material. There's a strong sense of place – flyblown caravan sites, queasy underwater scenes – but nothing much to anchor the characters, despite a fine performance by Anaya as the tormented mother.