Lorna’s Silence starts out as a clinical study of socioeconomic desperation, and gradually turns into something much more involving and haunting.

The latest drama from Belgian social realists Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne follows an Albanian émigré (Arta Dobroshi) who has a crisis of conscience when her green-card marriage to a clinging Belgian junkie (Jérémie Renier) reaches its built-in expiry date.

In the title role, Dobroshi’s a terrific discovery, shifting between almost ruthless pragmatism and wide-open anguish. Renier, from the Dardennes’ La Promesse and L’Enfant, turns his character’s despairing need into a cri de coeur, always reminding Lorna of the human cost of her arrangement.

The Dardennes being the Dardennes, things get awfully complicated, but this time around the action takes an unexpected turn in the last act, moving beyond the filmmakers’ customary simple lines into something that’s either quietly mystical or completely insane.

However you choose to interpret the last act (I go with “Bressonian” myself), it points to the directors’ willingness to break new creative ground and keep things interesting.