The first half of Return to Sender is a passable attempt at a sincere and sensitive look at the effects of sexual violence on a victim as she tries to reclaim her life and her home.

The second half, however, is a bizarre attempt to crowbar in ill-conceived plot twists which confuse its message and destroy all its good intentions.

Too heavily signposted, too determined to include ideas its writer came up with in a flash of “brilliance” and never questioned again, even the impressive cinematography only serves to indicate that Return to Sender is simply Gone Girl two-point-bleh.

Even Rosamund Pike is recycling her performance, and she knows it; it’s simply a Gone Girl rip off that will lose even the most forgiving viewer in the third act.

RATING: 2/5

INFORMATION

CAST: Rosemund Pike, Shiloh Fernandez, Nick Nolte, Rumer Willis

DIRECTOR: Fouad Mikati

WRITERS: Patricia Beauchamp, Joe Gossett

SYNOPSIS: After a nurse is sexually assaulted in her home, she writes to, and visits, her rapist in jail. What will his release mean for them both?