Laura Drake (Evan Rachel Wood, THIRTEEN) works for her father William (Denis O'Hare, THE PYRAMID) at a cleaning agency by day and engages in rough sex with dangerous partners by night to deal a traumatic past. She establishes a questionable friendship with Eva (Julia Sarah Stone, THE SPACE BETWEEN), the musically-talented sixteen-year-old daughter of a client (Maxim Roy, BAD BLOOD). When Eva fights with her mother over her decision to move them away to live with her latest boyfriend, Laura convinces her to run away and move in with her. At first, the pair have fun with each other, Laura assuaging her loneliness, and Eva feeling like she is being treated like an adult by being allowed to smoke, drink, and go out to clubs. The seriousness of her act sets in for Eva when Laura reveals that she has lied to the police about knowing her whereabouts; but Laura uses guilt as a means of maintaining a hold on her, and even locking her in a closet when Eva wants to go to the police while promising not to say anything about Laura's involvement. As Laura's fragility reveals itself to Eva, the younger woman feels obligated to care for her, but Laura's emotional and physical control over her becomes smothering, and Eva no longer knows what to believe about Laura's past and her professed need for her companionship. ALLURE does intrigue as the audience questions just how impulsive or deliberate, sometimes alternately, are Laura's decisions, lies, and confessions, and what will come of her mental deterioration; however, the film's deliberate pacing and low-key-verging-on-mumblecore-monotony approach may be off-putting early on, regardless of how much former child actress Wood wants to show us that she is an adult. Some critics have labeled the film as an "erotic thriller," and it can be described as such in the European mold rather than the expected mix of skin and film noir cliches one expects from the American example.