In the wake of a school shooting, a mother reckons with her neighbors in ‘Eric LaRue’

As America’s plague of school shootings continues unabated, a steady stream of movies has cropped up in response to the ongoing tragedy. These films have run the gamut — sometimes focusing on the survivors, sometimes on the shooters, sometimes on the parents — and likewise their strategies have varied, either promising catharsis, hope or insight. So perhaps it’s fitting that the most recent addition to this sad subgenre is the numbest. After all, who needs catharsis, hope or insight when these killings keep occurring?

Based on Brett Neveu’s 2002 play, which he adapted into a script, the brittle drama “Eric LaRue” reflects the intense, earnest style of its director, Oscar-nominated actor Michael Shannon, who makes his feature debut behind the camera. The film derives its title from the name of a teenager who decided one day to shoot dead three of his classmates, devastating a small town in general and the parents of both the victims and the shooter in specific.

Shannon, who doesn’t act in the movie, focuses on one parent: Eric’s mother, Janice (Judy Greer), who has lived her life since the murders in a fog. She doesn’t know how to act and she doesn’t know how to feel. It’s a testament to Shannon’s direction that he fully commits to submerging us into Janice’s unimaginable emotional stupor, even when that gutsy approach ultimately proves to be the film’s undoing.

Greer leverages her considerable appeal to play someone who would like nothing more than to be left alone. Smoking a string of cigarettes or blankly watching whatever’s on television, her face a canvas of exhaustion and depression, Janice is struggling to pick up the pieces. Tellingly, the film never specifies how long ago the shooting occurred. All we know is that the trial is over and Eric is in prison, and that he’s been there for enough time that Janice’s ineffectual, awkward pastor Steve (Paul Sparks) is surprised she hasn’t yet visited him yet. “Eric LaRue” lays out only the barest of backstories — we learn Eric wasn’t popular — but unlike a similarly mother-centered drama, “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” the killer’s motivations aren’t meant to be unraveled. Eric murdered those boys and has been sent away. All Janice can do now is wonder what happens next.

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Most movies about school shootings, including “Elephant,” “Mass” and “The Fallout,” tackle the shock, sorrow and horror that ripple through communities. But Shannon’s starchy tone, accented by Jonathan Mastro’s mournful score, allows no room for emotional theatrics or pat psychological breakthroughs. Instead, “Eric LaRue” critiques society’s (and maybe also Hollywood’s) need to make sense of senselessness. Everyone around Janice is trying to find ways to come to terms with what happened, but Janice unflinchingly wants no part. The problem is, she’s not quite sure what it is she does want.

Eric’s act has driven a wedge between Janice and her husband, Ron (Alexander Skarsgård). Both characters are religious, but after the shooting, Ron drifted away from Steve’s Presbyterian church, seduced by Bill (Tracy Letts), a charismatic (and regressive) pastor who tells the fragile Ron what he wants to hear about putting his faith in a Jesus who will wash away his pain. Janice, who is unwilling or unable to open up, is not nearly as needy as her spouse, who starts espousing biblical platitudes with the desperate certainty of a drowning man grateful for any life raft.

Although Greer is a terrific comedic actress, she only shows that side occasionally in “Eric LaRue” and very subtly, once Janice starts to react to Ron’s empty philosophizing. There’s an integrity to Janice’s prickly resistance to soothing herself with touchy-feely God talk, although as she watches Ron find solace in Bill’s drivel, we sense hints of envy: At least he can sleep at night.

Banal balms surround Janice, slowly driving her mad. Whether it’s at the hardware store where Janice works — an insipid motivational poster hangs on the boss’ wall encouraging passersby to “Commit to change! Change to commit!” — or Steve’s own clumsy attempts to bring Janice and the victims’ mothers together for a meeting so they can “heal,” Shannon laments how little genuine assistance there is for people caught in the crosshairs of tragedy.

“Eric LaRue” is best when its quietest points strike loudest. Janice’s superiors advise her against returning to work — it’s bad for employee morale, they explain — and yet, no one at Ron’s office job, including Alison Pill’s flirty HR director Lisa (a fervent follower of Bill’s), bats an eye about having him around. Such insidious sexism appears throughout “Eric LaRue” as Janice unknowingly places herself inside a metaphorical cage because she won’t follow an unwritten rulebook about how a grieving mom is “supposed” to behave. Withdrawn and caustic, Janice is a raw lump of unresponsiveness bombarded by those determined to “fix” her. But when the psychological wounds cut so deep, how can she possibly know what fixing herself would even mean?

Longtime Shannon collaborator Jeff Nichols serves as an executive producer and “Eric LaRue” echoes that filmmaker’s careful attention to unexamined pockets of American life, specifically, the uneasy tension between God and guns. Unfortunately, the film lacks Nichols’ graceful portrayal of the everyday. Despite its respectful restraint, “Eric LaRue” can be smothering in its solemnity, leaving Janice feeling one-note rather than a woman lost in her tangle of emotions. And some of the supporting performances are simplistic, with Sparks’ Steve unbelievably hapless as a spiritual guide and Skarsgård’s Ron a cartoonish imagining of blind religious devotion.

But just when the film’s missteps start to frustrate, the story lands on a stunningly understated moment that suggests the potentially rich character study underneath. Eventually, Janice will visit her son, played provocatively by Nation Sage Henrikson. The ending shouldn’t be spoiled, but even at its finale, “Eric LaRue” refuses to provide clear-cut clues on how to feel about this mother or her boy. There will be more school shootings and inevitably more movies confronting this epidemic. Shannon laudably offers no easy solutions, although his sincerely crafted dead end feels insufficient in its own way.