It's Thanksgiving, and an aunt who's had too much to drink botches the turkey. She doesn't screw up lightheartedly, with her dysfunctional presence providing comic relief and making the other characters seem put-together and coherent. She fails painfully, obviously, over and over; her misery (and the misery she provokes) is awfully hard to look at.

This uncomfortable, focused intensity is the central point of Trey Edward Shults's debut Krisha, a family drama with an astonishingly low budget that left audiences at the 2015 SXSW Film Festival stunned. With a cast composed of actual family members, plus a few professional actors sprinkled in, the performances are intimate, sometimes awkward, and deeply impressive. The film's pace mimics real time, conveying a Thanksgiving dinner, from food preparation to eventual meltdowns, in a little less than an hour and a half. If this seems short to you, trust me, it isn't—the stress of the film makes it an epic.

In a frenzy, the soundtrack combines classical music with the atonal, improvisational riffs that would fit perfectly into the background at a beatnik poetry reading. The clashes and clangs of cooking add to the confused, anxiety-ridden music and provide a score for the choreography of a large family gathering. The scenes in the kitchen, especially, are beautifully staged numbers: characters flitting into, out of, and around the central action, filling empty spaces and constantly shifting perspectives. A few minor themes emerge, including loudly performed masculinity (shouting at the game, arm wrestling) juxtaposed with the dance recital that the women create as they fulfill their familial duties.

But the startling rarity of Krisha is in its narrowness. These secondary themes are lightly drawn, and the film's focus is overpowering; the title says it all. Mimicking the one-track mind of addiction, this movie is about Krisha: her humanity, her fear, her actions (and their consequences). The director's love for this character, obvious at every moment, doesn't excuse or rationalize her behavior. That being said, anyone who finishes the film without being overwhelmed by heartbreaking sympathy is probably a cyborg. True, you won't enjoy Krisha, but you'll probably walk away without breath or speech. Don't miss it.