In the same vein as Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan, The Moth Diaries is a dark brainteaser – a gothic psychological thriller that continuously challenges the audience’s perception of reality without coming to any definitive conclusions. Here is a film in which we cannot trust most of what we see or hear; we’re being toyed with, and whatever deductions we make stem entirely from what we personally bring to the experience. I know this is the case because many scenes are intentionally structured to be interpreted in two ways. That writer/director Mary Harron pulled this off without making it seem mechanical or contrived is something of a great achievement. We’re obviously being manipulated, and yet it’s done with such passion and cleverness that we find we don’t much care.

Adapted from the novel by Rachel Klein, it tells the story of Rebecca (Sarah Bolger), a sixteen-year-old starting a new semester at a very posh all-girls’ boarding school, which was a hotel over 100 years ago. Entries in her personal journal, coupled with very brief flashback sequences, reveal a deep personal tragedy, namely the suicide of her father, a published poet. When she first attended the school two years earlier, it was just after his death, and her personal life was still very much a mess. She found solace in Lucie (Sarah Gadon), who has since become her best friend. This semester, Rebecca feels lighter, freer, and generally much happier than she once felt. But things soon change with the arrival of a new student. Here enters Ernessa (Lily Cole), a quiet, dark-haired, pale-skinned young beauty.

Ernessa doesn’t seem unpleasant, not at first, although there are certain odd characteristics Rebecca notices. Why is it, for example, that she joins all the girls in the cafeteria yet never eats? She can’t be anorexic; physically, she looks like a normal teenage girl. One night, Rebecca wakes up, looks out her open window, and sees Ernessa pacing barefoot on the pavement. Lucie doesn’t seem to take notice of any of this. In fact, she’s quite taken by Ernessa, who helps Lucie study her German and Greek assignments. Lucie tells Rebecca that she’s not giving Ernessa a chance, and that although she has unresolved issues, Ernessa is a nice person once you get to know her. Rebecca doesn’t see it the same way. From her perspective, Ernessa is stealing Lucie away from her.

The new English teacher, Mr. Davies (Scott Speedman), is an outspoken admirer of Rebecca’s father. He even possesses a first edition of his book of poems. This, combined with his indisputably handsome features, leads to unshakable suspicions on our part, namely that he will cross a line with his students – or, more specifically, with Rebecca. There is one scene that clearly shows something physical, and yet the nature of Rebecca’s character soon gets us to wondering if that scene actually took place. But before that happens, he introduces his students to the world of gothic vampire fiction, which he says all contain sex, blood, and death. From this, Rebecca begins to suspect that Ernessa is herself a vampire. She looks at a group photo from 1907 and sees a figure that, although somewhat blurred, resembles Ernessa a great deal. She begins to smell something rotten emanating from Ernessa’s room, although no one else seems to notice it. When Rebecca sees Ernessa walking precariously on the ledge outside her window, it looks as if she reenters by literally passing through the glass without it breaking.

Rebecca’s world is repeatedly disrupted by a string deaths and gradual isolation from her friends. Ominous occurrences escalate in frequency. What are we to make of the scene in which Rebecca quite suddenly gets a nosebleed when Ernessa walks into the room … and Ernessa takes a small taste of Rebecca’s blood on her finger? Why does Ernessa’s room appear to be filled with thousands of moths, especially since a moth is central to a happy memory Rebecca has of her father? Lucie’s health progressively takes a turn for the worse, her energy draining day by day. Could it be that Rebecca is Ernessa’s real target? And what about the sudden appearance of a diary from 1907, in which a young woman vividly recalls a suicide?

The one question that’s never really answered is whether or not Ernessa is an actual vampire. It’s quite possible that Rebecca’s obsession with her, along with visions of incidents that have no rational foundation, stems from jealousy and the trauma of her recent loss. In a quietly tense scene, Rebecca toys with a razor blade – which, incidentally, came to be in her possession through unknown means – and wonders aloud if she carries the same “sickness” her father carried. Strange, how a film so untrustworthy in narrative can simultaneously be so intelligent and so absorbing. The Moth Diaries is an exercise in game-playing; we may not know what the rules are, or even if there are any rules, but we go along with it regardless out of sheer morbid curiosity.

Written by Chris Pandolfi