The scabs on his face and his threadbare coat suggest that life hasn’t exactly pampered George Hammond (an outstanding Richard Gere), the melancholy protagonist of deft writer-director Oren Moverman’s third film. We meet him at the moment he’s kicked out of a derelict and decaying apartment onto the street with all his possessions in tow. This impressive evocation of the life of a homeless New Yorker actively avoids all easily accessible, superficial interest in George’s rather dismal situation. Instead, observing from a distance, Moverman portrays the day-to-day survival of the man – who undeniably retains a certain weary charm (“You know, I’ve always been really very good with women”) – in an impassive, unsentimental, and highly authentic manner that does not forfeit esthetic considerations. Gere's nuanced, soulful study of a man whose long-estranged daughter represents the one hope of his desperate existence, is one of last autumn’s most unforgettable performances.