When watching performers with years of experience and lengthy resumes, it’s easy to forget that they can still surprise. In Sean Durkin’s The Nest, Carrie Coon and a surprisingly-brittle Jude Law team up for one of the most fraught and moving dramas of 2020.

The Nest opens with an abbreviated look at life for the O’Haras, a nuclear family in Ronald Reagan’s America. Standard things like work and school routines don’t stand out, but husband/father Rory (Law) strains under the mundane lifestyle of a man out of work. When Rory quit as a Wall Street executive, Allison (Coon) took over the financial reins of the household. Double-fisting coffee and cigarettes at two jobs, Allison isn’t happy all the time, but she makes it work while Rory takes the kids to school and manages the house. Unbeknownst to Allison, however, Rory is wheeling and dealing the family from the U.S. to London.

Even though Rory left Wall Street, he still thinks like the predatory ruling class. The status quo isn’t satisfying enough. Several moves and smaller houses later from their penthouse days in New York City, Rory wants to shake things up. He has a boundless vision, but Allison is rooted firmly in concrete details, like how much everything costs. Moving to London means uprooting the kids, uprooting her horse-riding business and saying goodbye to her family. Allison acquiesces to Rory’s wishes, and, much like teens wandering into an old cabin late at night, seals the fate of her whole family.

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Durkin made one of the most disturbing thrillers of the last decade with Martha Marcy May Marlene and then took a nine-year-hiatus from directing features. In that delay, I expected the director’s next film to be more aligned with the paranoia-tinged MMMM. While The Nest isn’t that film, there is the specter of a malevolent force in the new O’Hara home. Although the house is beautiful, the empty and decaying interior is ominous. The camera lingers down long hallways, peeks through secret passages and then closes in on characters when they are alone. Only Rory seems unfazed. While the story is relevant in any location or decade, the chosen period adds resonance to The Nest. Needle drops from The Cure and the Thompson Twins, along with the brittle surroundings of 80s London, create a mood of longing and alienation.

Back in his old stomping grounds, Rory convinces himself he can sell the American way of life to London’s elite. Little do his former co-workers know that he couldn’t hack it himself. Once Rory’s word became meaningless in New York, he had to reclaim his status as breadwinner elsewhere. Rory pitched Allison on moving as a new opportunity, yet it’s a retreat. At a homecoming for Rory, it all becomes clear for Allison. The hairdo, the mink stole, the sports car — it’s a show for an audience that forgot his antics. In a discreet camera push, Coon lets her face do all of the scene’s work. Rory speaks off-screen, but the focus is on the almost imperceptible changes in her expression. As Allison listens, the faint smile she wore for the party disappears. It’s one of the least showy gut punches in a film filled with angst and rage.

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With all the feuding and betrayals, The Nest is Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? but expanded past a chamber piece. Here, the children look on as Rory and Allison wage war. Not immune to their pressures of change, Samantha (Oona Roche) and Ben (Charlie Shotwell) lash out in unexpected ways. Though, to be clear, this is Allison and Rory’s duel. Maintaining conflict through passive-aggressive character behavior, Durkin lets Coon and Law off the leash and inevitably creates a “for your consideration” moment for both actors. Rory lunges at Allison, screaming, “I deserve this. I had a shitty childhood, and I deserve this and a lot more.” In a desperate attempt to feel significant, he reveals just how small he is.

Nothing presented in The Nest will radically alter the viewer’s perception of the family unit, marriage or even greed, but Durkin’s film suggests that is indeed the point. These issues weren’t new in Reagan’s America or Margaret Thatcher’s England, and they won’t go away in the next century either. If left unchecked, the dream of having it all will eat families alive. As the O’Haras sit quietly in the wreckage they’ve created, the audience may hope vulnerability will lead to truth, and maybe peace. Still, in passing judgement on this fictional family, one should think deeply about what’s  gone wrong in their own lives.

Follow Colin Biggs on Twitter @wordsbycbiggs.