Australian theater director Benedict Andrews makes his film debut with “Una,” an uneasy adaptation of David Harrower’s play “Blackbird,” about a young woman who had a sexual relationship at age 12 with a 40-year-old man who went to prison for four years for his crime. Harrower’s play dramatizes the disturbing way these two people were originally drawn together and the aspects of their sick bond that they cannot let go of.
“Blackbird” was most notably done on Broadway earlier in 2016 with Jeff Daniels and Michelle Williams, and both Daniels and Williams are histrionic virtuosos when it comes to this kind of punishing and self-punishing material.