Bridgend

When single-dad policeman Dave (Steve Waddington) returns to Bridgend, Wales after an absence of many years, he's got his teenage daughter Sara (Hannah Murray) in tow. If he seems just a bit reluctant about the relocation, there's a reason for it: The teens of Bridgend have been committing suicide en masse, and no one understands why, or what to do about it.

As Sarah starts to fall in with the town's tight-knit group of teens (who are given to frolicking in the woods, skinny-dipping in the lake, and dancing in a makeshift disco), the same spell of danger and unease that affects them starts to work on her. Soon she's flirting with all sorts of troubling things: A bout of rough near-sex with Thomas (Scott Arthur), who is the leader of the pack; participation in the group's online memorial celebrating their dead friends, thanks to the slightly brutish site curator Danny (Aled Llyr Thomas); the flowering of a romance with Jamie (Josh O'Connor), who serves as altar boy at the local church and who seems perpetually downcast and angsty. Even her friendship with the seemingly well-adjusted Laurel (Elinor Crawley) seems tinged with darkness (and no wonder: The mood is heavy and bleak, thanks in part to cinematographer Magnus Nordenhof J�nck).

But it's not all wistful innocence and youthful larks: Soon enough, Sara is along for the action when the teens decide to wreak havoc on the gas station run by father of one of their suicidal mates, and as her father begins to drift away from her, consumed by work and a new sexual affair, she becomes engulfed in the miasma of despair and rage that grips the town's youth.

Director Jeppe R�nde turns the real-life events of the suicide cluster that beset Bridgend County between 2009-2012 (and continues still) into a thriller that sometimes feels like a suspense movie ("You call it suicide?" one disaffected teen snarks to Sara's dad; why? Would this kid call it murder? If so, who's behind it all?) and sometimes takes on the chilling overtones of a supernatural mystery (R�nde's camera treats the woods as a place of magic, where specters might lurk and ancient forces impose their dark purposes; it's a very David Lynch, "Twin Peaks" sensation).

Once in a while there's a glimmer of something mundane, yet still sinister, that might account for the rash of suicides. After the opening scene -- in which a hanged boy is discovered in the woods by his dog -- the vicar (Adrian Rawlins) delivers an anguished sermon: "To find comfort in these difficult times, we must turn toward God." But is God watching? Could it perhaps be the very man of the cloth who is in some way responsible?

Maybe it's simpler than that. We get a whiff of the "absent parents" genre (which includes high water works like Nick Cassavetes' based-on-real-events "Alpha Dog," from 2006, and Larry Clark's controversial 1995 film "Kids"). It's not just Sara's dad who's receded from his child's life; in Thomas' home, his mother deals (or rather doesn't deal) with Thomas' disabled younger brother by turning to sex for solace and leaving Thomas to look out for his sibling.

In the end, we're left with a haunting final image that suggests Purgatory, or Hell, or perhaps the darkness and fire of a pre-christian underworld. The suggestion is that moral rot and inadequate churching is at least partially to blame, and yet the film's overtly naturalistic, pagan strains -- shirtless boys dancing with each other as well as with the girls, group chants that call out for the departed -- are the glue that form the bonds between the teens. It feels unfair to suggest that all these kids need is adequate (and Christian) after-school supervision.

A 2013 documentary film of the same name by John Michael Williams seems to suggest that the phenomenon of the suicide cluster in Bridgend (79 suicides in a period of just over four years) is down to a sort of group hysteria, but socio-economic factors might also play a key role. Beyond that, a little online research indicates that it's thought so-called "suicide clusters" can result as a kind of chain reaction when traumatized teens copy the actions of friends who have killed themselves. On a wider scale, media reports about suicide are thought to have some impact on impressionable (or maybe suicidally inclined) teens.

Other groups are affected, as well -- through this film doesn't acknowledge it, not all of the suicides in Bridgend County were of teens (at least one suicide victim was over 40), and research into suicide rates among various demographics show that people facing the stress of discrimination (racial and sexual minorities, for example) are more prone to suicide, as are U.S. veterans who endured multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Violence and trauma must figure into it somehow, whether it's the horrors of war or the grinding abuses of poverty.

Perplexingly, however, recent years have also seen an uptick in suicide rates among white middle class Americans -- a class of people who, on the global scale, are in the world's upmost economic stratum. Theories abound as to why. Is it the result of recreational drug use? A side-effect of prescribed drug use and/or abuse, including hormone replacement therapy and similar age-combatting interventions? Environmental pollutants? A lack of opportunity and upward economic mobility, or the fear of economic and social backsliding? A breakdown in societal integrity, leaving more and more people feeling isolated and without support?

"Bridgend" keeps it focus narrow and tight, telling the story from Sara's point of view and creating a visceral sense of unease. Overall, this is a wiser choice than trying to explore the conundrum from some sort clinical or global perspective. The result is an effective psychological thriller that would remain dramatic and suspenseful were it placed in another setting, or if the locale were left vague. That the filmmakers have not done so -- and that their movie feels so artful -- leaves another uneasy sensation: That this film is ever so slightly exploitative of a tragic situation.

In theaters now and also available digitally exclusively on Fandor