Early in David Lynch’s INLAND EMPIRE (he prefers the title be capitalized, and if we’ve indulged him so far, why stop now?), two men speak in an ornate room in a house in Lodz, Poland. “I am looking for an opening,” says one. “Do you understand?”

Guy Pearce is in virtually every scene of Mark Fergus’ First Snow, which is fortunate for Fergus, and for you if you’re going to be seeing this mostly nifty little potboiler. Pearce gives most of these scenes a charged energy and, increasingly, a sense of emotional depth you don’t often encounter in genre movies.