“Fast Color” is not the Gugu Mbatha-Raw movie we’ve been waiting for. After breaking through five years ago withexceptional performances in “Belle”and“Beyond the Lights,”she has beenrelegated to supporting rolesand other parts that haven’t capitalized on her range or appeal. This film, at least, puts Mbatha-Raw out front, where she belongs, but the character she plays is mired in depression from start to finish.

“Fast Color” is not a success, in that it’s not enjoyable as entertainment. It doesn’t hold an audience. For long stretches, it’s boring, and yet it’s more interesting than most failures. It has what could be called the audacity of hopelessness. Few movies dare to be so utterly bleak, and for good reason. The spiritual exhaustion depicted on screen turns the movie into a desolate murk, to the point that we don’t care if the characters can get out, so long as we can escape the theater.

It takes place in the future — an uncomfortably near future, in whichglobal warming has advancedto the point that it hasn’t rained in eight years. Early in the filmRuth (Mbatha-Raw), looking scruffy and forlorn, checks into a cheap motel. The room isn’t expensive, but she has to pay an extra $26 for half a gallon of water. That’s all she has to wash with, to drink — it’s amazing that she looks as healthy as she does.

This eight-year drought notion — the movie’s central concept — is interesting enough to make us wish it were more fleshed out. Yes, it’s a mistake to be too literal when watching movies, but when a story draws us into its world, the mind can’t help but wander. As in, what’s going on with toilets? If there’s no running water, there’s probably no plumbing, right?

So what are people doing? Where are they going? And when they gave her a jug of water at the hotel, why didn’t they also give her a shovel?

Director (and co-writer) Julia Hart doesn’t worry about this. Instead, she works to create in “Fast Color” a sad, dreamy atmosphere, in which the action feels suspended, floating a few feet off the ground, real and yet not earthbound. Ruth goes into her hotel room, notices her hand shaking and immediately braces for an earthquake. This is her gift/curse — she causes earthquakes wherever she goes. This is why the government is after her and why she’s on the run.

In this way, “Fast Color” — a movie that is original in its atmosphere and tone — is actually a blend of two of the most popular current genres. It’s a postapocalyptic survival story, and, in the saddest, most dejected, inconsolably miserable way imaginable, it’s a superhero movie.

Not only does Ruth have a superpower, but also her mother (Lorraine Toussaint) can dissolve and reassemble matter just by thinking about it. Alas, having such powers in a paranoid environment is dangerous, and so the family is determined to lie low. As Ruth puts it to her precocious daughter (Saniyya Sidney), “Our abilities mean s—. It’s just a terrible world with terrible people.”

Impotence, pointlessness and a sense that problems can’t be solved and that the wisdom of the collective cannot be counted on — it’s hard not to see in “Fast Color” a reflection of the current national mood. But there are winning and losing strategies for doing such reflection, and a static story about static characters is inevitably a loser.

Actually, if you want to see a movie that reflects the times, that shows sad, struggling people and yet finds ways to energize its story, see another film opening this week: “Little Woods.”

K“Fast Color”:主演Gugu Mbatha-Raw和洛林杜桑。Directed by Julia Hart.Theaters and Showtimes