Director Heidi Greensmith crafts a short and polished thriller from Nuala Ellwood’s 2017 dark psychological novel. But it’s a story that could have done with more than a meagre 82 minutes to hit home its themes of trauma and the sins of the past.

Jenny Seagrove plays Kate Rafter, a war correspondent struggling with a recent painful loss in Baghdad who returns to her childhood home in Herne Bay following the sudden death of her mother. Unwisely opting to stay in her mother’s house, Kate struggles to connect to her sister Sally (Anna Friel), as she’s dogged by flashbacks to the conflict and increasingly haunted by visions in the present.

Greensmith and writer Naomi Gibney don’t hang around. Within 10 minutes, we’ve seen Kate suffer two deaths, had her difficult relations with her family sketched out and even dropped by her therapy sessions. It’s a pacey start for a film that soon settles into long scenes of immaculately composed reflections. Amid the delicate pacing, an impressive cast is almost entirely given too little to do.

As Kate’s therapist, Olga Kurylenko plays a strangely static role in scenes often left purposefully hanging. The ever-brilliant David Bradley is a welcome presence, but he’s mostly a shadowy figure waiting step in from the wings to help solve the big mystery at the right point. Ben Miles, equipped with a lilting northern accent, is a reliable constant in the background as Paul, but his relationship with his wife Sally, is barely sketched out. Despite having far too little screen time, Friel makes the most of Sally’s broken, addicted, and self-destructive personality.

The majority of the trauma, however, falls on Sally’s older sister. We spend most of the time with Seagrove’s Kate as her trauma manifests in the past and the present. And as the secrets of her distant and recent past are peeled back, Greensmith effortlessly conjures up the sense of deeper twists forming and darker secrets waiting to be uncovered.

The major issue is that it’s just too beautiful. A huge amount of care has gone into creating a lovely picture, sharp sound design and effective transitions as the story flits between Iraq and the Kent seaside. It’s an effective and eye-pleasing space for viewers to draw their theories about how these elements combine, but when it comes to the third-act revelations, it leaves things wanting.

The elements of trauma and horror passed down through the family are clear, but the haunting moments are too ethereal. Given the dark revelations that tie up the threads of abuse and trauma, it needed a little more grounding to make the pay-off work, and a bit more time to sell some of the more inexplicable character actions. Come the climax, viewers are likely to think the twists are left a bit too obvious, the misdirection a bit too soft.

It’s a shame, given the considerable production values. With such a short run-time, My Sister’s Bones had plenty of room to inject more substance to match its style.