Cute is the title of the feature debut by Norwegian director Marlene Emilie Lyngstad, screening in the New Directors section of the San Sebastián International Film Festival. Let's be clear: watching it is a highly challenging, at times unpleasant, experience. But it is also, and this is no less important, remarkable for its audacity and its willingness to confront the darkest side of human sexuality: paedophilia.

Richard (Jan Gunnar Røise, in an astonishing turn) is an apparently ordinary man, seemingly in a normal relationship with a woman. But we soon realise that this veneer of normality is far from real. In a scene where the protagonist has to bathe his girlfriend’s seven-year-old daughter, we detect in him an unhealthy interest in the little girl. He is aware that the feelings he harbours for the child are wrong, and his demeanour betrays a palpable self-loathing. Richard ends the relationship to distance himself from his torment and seeks refuge in his elderly mother’s house.

Once there, Richard meets Stella (an equally outstanding Gina Jaqueline), his mother’s carer. She is a peculiar woman whose behaviour, gestures and way of dressing suggest a certain immaturity and infantilism. He soon discovers, almost by chance, her double life as a sexual camgirl with a Lolita persona. This appears to offer the perfect salve for the protagonist’s torment, and it doesn’t take long for the two to strike up an emotional and sexual relationship in which they play the roles of father and daughter. None of what we are shown is easy to watch, and Lyngstad, bolstered by the fine craft of cinematographer Thomas Dyrholm, manages to stage sex scenes that are never erotic. Far from it: revulsion and discomfort are the prevailing feelings throughout. But there is something more: in the protagonist’s awareness of how despicable his feelings are, and in his struggle to flee his impulses, the director pulls off the feat of making us feel empathy for him.

Richard’s dilemma - but also the gruelling ordeal we endure as viewers - is magnified when his ex’s daughter contacts him, wanting to reconnect. And of course Richard is thrown into absolute turmoil, but so are we, unable to help being intrigued by how events will unfold and what this pitch-black triangle will lead to.

It is impossible to watch Cute and not feel emotionally and intellectually distressed and churned up by what it depicts. Watching the movie, and even thinking about it afterwards, is, to some extent, unpleasant. But the nerve and conviction with which the director and her leads devote themselves to shedding light on an exceptionally dark and frightening reality are also admirable. The power and the value of the work lie in this very ambivalence.

Cute is a production by Nordisk Film Production A/S, Nordisk Film Production AB, Film i Väst and Amarcord. Trustnordisk handles its international sales.