David (Oscar nominee Tim Roth) works for a nurse-staffing agency that supplies home-care to terminally ill patients in their final stages. His life is solitary and his only activity in life is to work – when he can’t do that, he follows (through Facebook) the teenage daughter from a marriage he fled many years earlier. The deep compassion and attention David provides to his patients sometimes cross a line that makes family members uncomfortable, yet David’s commitment to his work speaks to a deep personal need that almost no one can decipher.

The very deserved winner of the Best Screenplay prize at Cannes 2015, Chronic constructs its captivating, at times enigmatic narrative using only select scenes essential to enriching the film’s themes—and precious few of those scenes are of the sort that might be found in a more conventional film. Chronic’s brilliant structure and bold use of visual storytelling is mind-blowing, even as its content remains deeply troubling and controversial—a signature element of the work of Mexican master writer-director-producer Michel Franco (After Lucia). – Jaie Laplante