Subtext and violence – Yes, it’s star Ryan Gosling and director Nicolas Winding Refn again.

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A lot of viewers will go into Only God Forgives expecting another Drive. Don’t. Yes, it’s star Ryan Gosling and director Nicolas Winding Refn (Bronson) again, but this Bangkok-set morality play has little in common with that surprise critical hit from 2011.

For one, though he is similarly silent in this picture, Gosling’s new role of Julian is less of a blank slate protector and more of wounded, hollowed out lost son. It’s not a matter of hero versus anti-hero. Julian, a young drug kingpin who runs a boxing ring, is actually the victim. When his violent, scumbag older brother is murdered by a mystical police lieutenant who dispenses his own form of justice in the form of a samurai sword, Gosling’s mother arrives from the States to collect the body, remind Gosling of just how worthless she thinks he is, and demand that her more introverted son get revenge for her older favorite.

An icy Jocasta (the mother of Oedipus), Kristin Scott Thomas is revelatory playing against type and injecting this methodical, syrup-drip of a film with a lot of energy, even if it is pure vile. Caught between the omniscient, god-like specter of the police officer and the wicked hooks of his devil mother (who quite clearly has abused her sons emotionally and, most likely, physically) Julian must choose which path he will take. Will he let his mother push him into more violence, or find some way, even at great cost to himself, of escaping this cycle of sin.

Early reviews have been harsh on the film (it was booed at Cannes), and much has been made of the violence in the film, but unlike a Tarantino flick or a blockbuster movie like Pacific Rim, at least the violence here always serves a thematic purpose rather than just existing in order to thrill the audience. No, there are grand themes of suffering, justice and redemption at work here, which makes the picture honorably ambitious even if it is not a complete success. In Refn’s hands, Gosling is under threat of becoming a mannequin in the director’s diorama, all style and composure but very little life to the performance. Sure, he’s playing a shell of a man, but we still want to see glimpses of vibrance, of energy, of something unpredictable breaking through.

Like Julian’s dilemma and his personality, the values of this film are rendered with complete subtly as a wash of beautiful images rushes by. Do they drown in the wash? Some themes are perhaps too subtle or else obscured by sudden spikes of blood, but it is some consolation that the film’s languid pace there is plenty of time for contemplating them.

Only God Forgives has been in the works for years, but after the critical and pop culture breakthrough that Drive became for the director, Refn revisited this project, but with a new leading man (Gosling) and a renewed interest in narrative minimalism; an obsession with letting pictures and music and the powerful moods the combination of both can convey to build his story rather than swinging wordy dialog or intricate plot points at his audience. And the music here is indeed stunning. Cliff Martinez is one of the most talented film composers today, and this soundtrack, like that of Drive, is no exception.

“I continued to minimize [Only God Forgives] and scale it down to just a waterfall of images that would create a story,” Refn told Collider recently. “I shoot films in chronological order, so I could really control it, as much as possible, along the process.”

The result is a dark, otherworldly poem of a film that vacillates between dream and nightmare with images that bewitch the brain even as the actions on screen turn the stomach.

Only God Forgives is in select theaters now and also available on iTunes for rent and purchase. Watch the trailer below: