"I like creepy guys."

So says Kate (Sophia Myles), the love interest at the center of "Mister Foe." She'd better, because the guy she's flirting with is one of the creepiest.

Seems that troubled teen Hallam Foe (Jamie Bell) has been stalking Kate ever since running away from his rustic home in the Scottish highlands to Edinburgh. Lately, he has been hopping, Spider-Man-like, from roof to roof, peeping at Kate through her apartment's skylight and with a pair of binoculars from the clock tower he lives in across town.

Sorry, did I say Kate was the woman at the center of this movie? My bad. It's really Hallam's dead mother, whose recent suicide has traumatized the lad and whose uncanny resemblance to Kate -- well, honestly, they could be twins.

Wait a minute. Ewww.

That's right. Hallam's got the hots for Mummy, who he's convinced was murdered by his dad's (Ciaran Hinds) new bride, Verity (Claire Forlani). And I don't even want to tell you what went on between Hallam and Verity before Hallam left home. Suffice it to say it could have made for some awkward family dinners.

But back to Edinburgh.

Hallam and Kate's relationship is, as they say on Facebook, complicated. It's also, for filmgoers fed up with formulaic movie romances and cookie-cutter characters, a breath of fresh air. Even if that air is slightly tinged with the smell of a corpse. (Then again, that could be Hallam. It's hard to shower when you live in a clock tower.)

Thanks mainly to Bell's abundant charisma, Hallam makes for a strangely likable antihero. Bell's acting chops have also grown considerably since he burst onto the scene in 2000's "Billy Elliott." As Hallam heals his damaged inner man-child, maturing into the, er, slightly less damaged Mister Foe of the title, it's a coming of age you can believe in.

-- Michael O'Sullivan (Oct. 10, 2008)

Contains sexual situations, nudity and strong language.