In the 90s, I grew up with stories from relatives and the few adults outside family, who were brave enough to be out of the closet, about the AIDS epidemic. To my mind, it was as if the world had come to an end. Somehow, some of us survived. Some with wounds that never healed. Around that time, my brother began using drugs, and I shared my room with him when he found his way home.

Julie Ducournau's Alpha is a fable about AIDS, drug abuse, trauma, and the body horror of growing up. It encapsulates the fear that one day all of this will be gone. It hit close to home more than once. I suspect it will do the same for millions.

In the film, the world weeps blood. People turn to marble from an unknown sickness no one dares to call by its name. Hospitals are empty of staff as doctors are too afraid to treat their patients. Those afflicted, or with loved ones withering away before their eyes, grieve in isolation. The world has turned away in terror.

Alpha (Melissa Boros) is 13 and deeply traumatized by things she can't even comprehend yet. She wants to act out, fool around with her would-be-boyfriend, play hooky, and be a teenager. But in a world coming apart at the seams, there is no childhood. It's hard to get skinned knees or pass around a can of beer with friends when there's a chance it will kill all of you within a year.

The mother (Golshifteh Farahani) tries to keep Alpha safe, but between her work and her ailing, drug addict brother (Tahar Rahim), her strength and attention are growing thin. One day, a drunken Alpha comes home with a tattoo. She has no memory how it was made, or with what, but the implications are devastating. Is she ill? Contagious? Already doomed? What will happen next?

Dreams fold within dreams, memories turn elusive, and the world shifts in its axis. Farahani does everything in her power to keep her brother alive, even as he's set on self-destruction. Rahim captures the ticks and self-loathing of an addict with horrific accuracy. He's gaunt, almost skeletal, yet dangerously charming. You can see why he's got away with so much despite better judgement. In another life, he'd light up any room he enters.

Boros, as Alpha, is mesmerizing. It's an immensely difficult part, yet the young actress handles it without a single false note. At first, Alpha comes off as an aggravating mess. A teenage nightmare ready to implode. The more we learn, the more we empathize with her situation. Boros channels heartbreak and longing beyond her years. I haven't seen a performance like hers in years.

Ducournau, as well, has matured as an artist. She's even more assertive than before. More trusting of her audience and more daring to go into more lyrical and fantastical places than before. In a bravura sequence, Alpha and her uncle escape into a night of pained release to the tune of Nick Cave's The Mercy Seat. The camera swirls around them in a cramped night club, and Alpha gazes up at the slow, defiantly macabre dance of a dying patron. It is painful, haunting, beautiful, and soul-crushing all at once.

The final act, where Ducournau goes all out with her fable, isn't as successful as I'd want it to be. There are moments that over-explain themselves, while others are frustratingly oblique. I struggled to make sense of them logically, even as my heart understood them better. Sometimes, that's enough. There is no clear mathematics to grief, especially when it feels like the world is ending. All we can do is let go and weep.