Blame | What to Watch

As writer, director, editor and star of this heady and absorbing high-school drama, Quinn Shephard is clearly a talent to watch

As writer, director, editor and star of this heady and absorbing high-school drama, Quinn Shephard is clearly a talent to watch.

Aged 22, she also had a hand in several of the songs on the soundtrack.

When the story opens, her misfit character has just returned to school following some kind of nervous breakdown, which makes her an easy target for the resident mean girl (Nadia Alexander).

However, her nemesis becomes even more spiteful and jealous after the school's handsome new drama teacher (Chris Messina) casts Shephard in the lead role of Arthur Miller's The Crucible, echoes of which resound as events unfold.

Blame isn't perfect and its ending is a tad abrupt, but Shephard is very good at capturing the hothouse atmosphere of high school, with its rivalries and resentments, crushes and cruelties, and the performances are fabulous.