Post-traumatic stress disorder is a slippery condition to pin down and portray. Cinema in general struggles to convey the depth and nuance of mental illness, especially when it stems from trauma. We’re often left with frenzied flashbacks, bombastic sound design, and overripe performances that skirt dangerously close to parody. A mental illness is like a haunting, which may be why genre cinema – especially the horror genre – has recently found such success exploring the topic. Luckily, Hearts and Bones begins with a sequence so brutally efficient in its devastation we need no further convincing of Daniel Fisher’s (Hugo Weaving) ongoing condition. It takes up no more than five minutes of screen time, but this tragedy signifies a tipping point in the war photographer’s lifelong balancing act between observation and culpability.