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There are lapses: the surreal fairground fantasy is a bit much, and the endless parade of vulnerable girls and women begs for a visit from a girl with a dragon tattoo. Toward the end, The Silence springs a fairly textbook surprise — then opens out one more time. What you'll carry away is the film's austere sympathy for the struggles of its benighted characters and its bleak conviction that justice and resolution mostly happen in movies.

This is not that kind of fairy tale. There are reasons why the story of the rapist and his companion may be read backward but never forward, and why almost everyone else in this disintegrating community has been standing still or running in place. "When does it end?," the unhinged young detective pleads with someone who has survived the worst a mother can endure. "Never," she says, and continues on her daily jog through the forest.