Buddy Boy

You'd have to go all the way back to ERASERHEAD to find a more hellish vision of waking-life-as-nightmare. Toss in a dose of Polanski-strength paranoia and you've got something approaching the utter weirdness of writer-director Mark Hanlon's debut feature. Each morning, devoutly Catholic Francis (Aidan Gillen) zips up his windbreaker and rides the bus to the convenience store where he works developing photos. Each night he returns home to his impossibly dingy apartment; his slovenly, alcoholic stepmother Sal (Susan Tyrell) and his favorite pastime: peeping at Gloria (Emmanuelle Seigner), the pretty French vegetarian who lives across the way. Gloria soon notices him...