Written and directed by Virginia Gilbert, Reawakening is one for the contemplative and reflective, telling an emotional story that’s fuelled by the pure character commitment of the talented Jared Harris and Juliet Stevenson. The pair play John and Mary, a married couple who’ve existed in an amalgamation of grief and self-doubt for the last 10 years, after their only daughter, Clare, had run away from home at 14-years-old, and there has been no trace since.

Opening with a black screen with white titles, and something of a child-like lullaby being sung, it sets us up in a space of eerie emptiness, as we listen to a voiceover of John (Jared Harris) sharing a description of a young woman, which leads into the first visuals and realising we’re at a police Press Conference, where they’re talking about their daughter, Clare Reed, and this is the 10-year-anniversary of her going missing, last seen at Kings Cross Station, and a new police chief has chosen to give the case a renewed push into the general public consciousness.

While they show mock ups of what the girl might look like now, the camera turns to the open room, which is barren aside from a few press members. It’s a low turn out, notwithstanding the sorrow on display from John and Mary (Juliet Stevenson), and they offer a desperate plea for any new information or, if she’s listening, ask Clare to please come home. It’s an experience we’ve seen times before in day-to-day life, yet this deception gives you the impression there’s not much hope of locating her.

After this, we head home with the couple, watch them have a normal evening meal and discuss everything and nothing, but the home is bleak and there’s a noticeable vacuity, with a lack of life around them, in amongst brief silences. There’s also an early hint that John might be of a controlling persuasion, but it’s difficult to pin down because loss affects people in different ways. This disconnection within the house is backed up by John watching Mary speak to her daughter in her old bedroom, sat on her bed, but Mary isn’t speaking to anyone and clearly needs the catharsis of believing in hope or, at least, a positive distant memory of a better time. Only flashbacks, with clever work from Editor Derek Ryan throughout the film, give us a brighter past when Clare was younger.

There’s sadness unresolved for both characters. While Mary struggles with waking up and remembering what has happened, although she does have a day job at a school to keep her busy, John spends his spare time visiting local homeless shelters with a weary hope that someone, somewhere, may have seen her. Some places know him and are helpful, while other homeless youngsters on the run are suspicious of his intentions and, if you’ve an understanding of that so-called life, then they have a right to be.

And then, after the television appeal, and unexpectedly… Clare (Erin Doherty) returns. First waiting outside the house for Mary, and then later revealed to John when he gets home after work. And as much as Mary is astonished and happy, John nearly has a panic attack because… after all these years, has his daughter finally returned? Upon meeting Clare, it’s obvious that John is sceptical, it’s in his eyes and he runs off out of the house, in a mix of disbelief and intense fear to the situation.

While he does return home later, it’s beyond clear that he doesn’t believe it’s actually his daughter, despite her looking so remarkably similar, or comparable to what she might look like 10 years later. Mary is apparently convinced, and not concerned, and they’re in a quandary. Where has Clare been? What happened? We do learn she had a drug problem as a teenager, and what happened are surely connected, but how do we even know it’s her – and do we believe John or Mary?

What’s clever about Reawakening is how it places us in the middle of the dilemma. While there’s a slight ‘John’ leaning, and his personal journal into his internal debate, it lets you try to decide what might be real and what isn’t. It’s not heavily melodramatic though, it’s oddly well-mannered in many ways. It also feeds you doubt and switches it, whereas we hear Clare recall a story from her childhood, but does that really prove anything? Could this person have found those things out somewhere else? It’s clear John has a temper; did he do something to make her leave – did something happen? These questions drift in the ether, eager to be resolved in a scenario of rising tensions.

Alongside bleakly shot housing estates and worn cafés from Director of Photography Giles Harvey, there’s a slight essence of Ken Loach in this grounded story, and within its piano motifs from the film score (by Torquil Munro) which falls as deftly as the droplets of endless rain they feel in their lives. All this comes together with intensely sad and strong performances from the key three actors involved. Juliet Stevenson is exceptional as the initially broken, but then hopefully optimistic Mary, with Jared Harris lost in deep melancholy but captivating in his character study – and also enough to sell a query over who he ‘is’ or if there’s a past we might not know. Erin Doherty also plays it smartly, keeping us in the grey over whether she’s the genuine Clare… and with the story to be revealed, and I won’t spoil any truths here.

This is a representation of the lives some of us choose to sell ourselves. Reawakening is slowly paced yet powerful, with the key to the compelling nature of the film being Jared Harris, trapped in-between the cracks of the unknown story beyond the central sadness.

Reawakening is in UK cinemas now