The premise of Glazer's film, based on the Michel Faber novel, is sketched with the roughest of outlines. After pilfering clothes from a young dead woman, Johansson sets off in a white van to pick up random men from the streets of Scotland. Back at her place she traps them in a strange fluid, suspended like bugs in amber. They’re slowly drained — of energy? Of their organs? It’s not entirely clear — until there’s nothing left but a floating bag of skin. Johansson’s curiosity about the people she’s hunting grows, however, and after letting one victim free she ends up on the run with a mysterious motorcyclist in pursuit.

If that sounds a bit bizarre and confusing that’s because it is, but Glazer has created a film that is impossible to reduce down to plot points. It’s a true piece of experiential storytelling, conveying its thoughts and feelings not with clunky exposition and conventional story beats but with textures and mood. The film moves forward with a deliberate, almost meditative pace, lingering on single shots or the tiniest of actions so the viewer can take in the world in all its nuance. First-time composer Mica Levi sets the stage with a score that is both hypnotic and horrifying, overwhelming the audience with atmospheric crescendo at one moment and then trapping them with nothing more than an unsettling drum beat as Johansson lures a victim to his doom.