For Ellen – review

A tremendous performance by Paul Dano is the central virtue of this surprisingly tender film about a separated couple and their fight over their small daughter. As a deadbeat dad, Dano's Joby Taylor is an unusual one: a tattooed and nail-varnished rocker, inarticulate, self-obsessed and heartbreakingly vulnerable all at the same time. Taylor arrives in a snow-covered small town to sign divorce papers, but has a last-minute pang for the six-year-old it dawns on him he'll lose access rights to. Director So Yong Kim tells this story with flashes of sly humour, as well as a keen eye for the wintry landscapes; and her low-key, detached camera style makes for a beautifully unforced naturalism. Jon Heder, unrecognisable from Napoleon Dynamite, is good as Taylor's sensible lawyer – but this is Dano's film, and he gives it his all.