“My headache is coming,” Jimmy P. (Benicio del Toro) announces, as sure as a lycanthrope foretells a full moon. This time del Toro isn’t cast a wolfman and the reason behind the pending pain is a lot harder to diagnose in director Arnaud Desplechin’s fact-based, back-to-the-“snake pit” period account of a Native American vet wrongly sentenced to a “busted head” asylum. Half the show is del Toro’s bewitching dialect. With its near-Runyonesque emphasis on the wrong syllable, Jimmy P.’s talk of his “mudDER and fadDER” transforms the taciturn out-patient into the Menninger Clinic’s answer to Sky Masterson. After an hour, one feels like the psychiatrist, staring at the clock over his patient's shoulder and wondering when the session will end. Gorgeous to look at, but vivid camerawork and spot-on art direction can only buy so much good will in a film that otherwise provides little in the way of character insight. With Mathieu Amalric. (2013) — Scott Marks
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