The new film by renowned American director Thom Fitzgerald confirms his special talent for portraying intimate human relationships full of tense undercurrents and unhealed wounds. Splinters takes place against a backdrop of the Nova Scotia countryside; Belle left this place some time ago, unable to find common ground with her mother, who couldn’t accept her as a lesbian. She returns, filled with anxiety, to attend her father’s funeral. The mood between mother and daughter is tense right from the start. Because of her complicated past, Belle doesn’t want to tell her family that she’s been seeing a man. She’s concerned about getting their hopes up, and about making the long and hard struggle for her identity meaningless. Thom Fitzgerald’s intimate film is based on a play by Lee-Anne Poole. He skillfully juxtaposes the dilemmas that the characters have to confront—conflicting values, attachment to tradition, generational differences—with the sensuous surrounding landscape.