Very few filmmakers have conjured on-screen yearning to the degree that English director Andrew Haigh has. Since his debut, 2011’s Weekend, Haigh has been adapting literature into simmering, intimate dramas, and now, his follow-up to the BAFTA-winning All of Us Strangers (based on a novel by Taichi Yamada) transforms acclaimed Irish writer Colm Tóibín’s novella A Long Winter into a melancholic coming-of-age story: A Long Winter is now showing as a Special Presentation at Toronto. For this adaptation, the director swaps the novella’s original setting in the foothills of the Catalan Pyrenees for 1950s USA.

On a farmstead somewhere in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, a family of four is about to split: one of the siblings, Tommy (Kit Connor), is off to do his military service, leaving his shy brother Mike (Fred Hechinger) behind but in the safe hands of their taciturn parents, Lester (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and Louise (Caitríona Balfe). They both present as mysterious, but Louise most of all, with her regular shopping trips into town that nevertheless leave her empty-handed. All of this happens under the watchful gaze of Mike, who becomes an unwitting accomplice to her harmless crimes – of sneaking out and drinking as a means to escape her lonely housewife days.

Early on, cinematographer André Turpin introduces the switch between point-of-view shots and observational angles to bring the viewer closer to Mike’s adoring perspective. We, like him, lack an understanding of her actions, and the slow burn of A Long Winter guides us gently onto his journey of self-discovery.

One day, Louise disappears, and the search party has to cut its work short owing to a snow storm. Yet, what seems like a plot device brings the storyline to a halt, and instead allows Haigh, Turpin and editor Jonathan Alberts to work together to sculpt a sense of timelessness that one longs to stay lost in. It’s Mike’s introspection and the film’s well-adjusted, lulling rhythm of searches, pauses and bewitching sequences of stunning landscapes that keep the viewer company on what is otherwise a hopeless quest. The inevitability of loss, a theme so prominent in Haigh’s films, is alleviated thanks to Hechinger’s soulful performance: he is stoic, fighting his anticipatory grief, but what he projects onto the world is a captivating sense of purpose, which can be mistaken for naivety.

At its beginning, A Long Winter is like an open wound with emotions spilling out from everyone but Mike. It’s only when the wound starts to heal and the reality of a family forever fractured can set in that the film’s self-searching protagonist allows himself to face the scars. It’s a simple truth – grief cuts you up and stitches you back together – but leave it to Haigh and his “feeling-telling” (as opposed to storytelling) to make you feel held by a film, unconditionally.

A Long Winter was produced by The Bureau (UK) and Nomadic Pictures (Canada), in co-production with MUBI (UK/USA) and Film4 (UK). The Match Factory holds the rights to its world sales.