At the risk of diving into the annoying and frankly nonsensical discourse surrounding nepotism in the film industry, Amy Redford’s sophomore feature “What Comes Around” represents a curious object. Directed by Robert Redford’s daughter, starring Joaquin Phoenix’s sister Summer Phoenix and Casper Van Dien’s daughter Grace Van Dien (not to mention a cameo appearance by Phoenix and Casey Affleck’s son Indiana), this little IFC Films thriller has more than enough tangential associations. Diving headfirst into a story about emotional and sexual abuse with all the nuance of a Lifetime movie, “What Comes Around” feels a bit like its title — hinting at a complete narrative but only really giving us a half-formed idea.
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The ‘what’ of the title is Eric (Kyle Gallner), who, at the start of the film, has already begun an online flirtation with Anna (Van Dien), a seventeen-year-old high school student with a love of Emily Dickinson. Having met on an online poetry forum, the two videos call each other every night, geeking out over lines and interpretations. When Eric unexpectedly shows up at Anna’s house, despite her never giving him an address, the red flags start to go off. For the audience, that is because Anna, after some initial hesitation, doesn’t seem to ask too many questions.
We know where it goes from here. Anna’s mother, Beth, is very against the idea of her hanging out with a stranger, and her soon-to-be sheriff step-father Tim (Jesse Garcia), is shockingly passive, considering that a creepy older guy is hanging out with a teenage girl. Suppose the title didn’t give it away. In that case, Eric obviously has some connections with Beth, which is revealed about midway through the film and would destabilize our understanding of the characters if the twist wasn’t so needlessly pronounced and the characters felt fully realized. 
In fact, Tim’s characterization is in line with several issues in the film, where Redford and screenwriter Scott Organ attempt to subvert the standardized tropes of these types of thrillers (the overprotective father) but never give a compelling reason for doing so, making all of the characters’ decisions feel out of place. It doesn’t help that “What Comes Around” is being released on the heels of another squirmy portrait of grooming that didn’t need genre trappings. Last year’s “Palm Trees and Power Lines” film never blinked in its seedy portrait of the manipulation groomers use or felt the need to leave its teenage protagonist’s point of view. 
“What Comes Around” works from the opposite end, first focusing on Anna before slowly giving way to Eric, shading in a backstory that may help explain why he chose Anna but never really giving us insight into his characterization, despite a number of monologues Gallner is asked to perform. Gallner, as always, is giving his all — even if his twisted portrait feels of a piece with most of his other work going all the way back to “Veronica Mars.” He confidently transitions from menacing to fragile as the film progresses. The same goes for Van Dien, whose wide-eyed optimism slowly curdles the more she finds out about her mom and the deeper she falls in with Eric.
But Redford and Organ are too locked into their own schematic design to know what to do with these performances, relishing in the reversals that come as the backstory is doled out. Yet every twist feels telegraphed, which wouldn’t be a problem if the film had something more interesting to say about trauma and abuse other than “hurt people hurt people,” another aphorism that could pass for a title. Despite featuring two worthy performances by Gallner and Van Dien, once the film rushes towards its conclusion, it’s both shockingly obvious and, ultimately, unearned. [C-]