At a concise hundred-one minutes, first-time director Mark Fergus’ First Snow, which he co-wrote with Hawk Ostby, is concentrated not only through the constant presence of actor Guy Pearce as Jimmy Starks but also through the indifferent humbling presence of desert around Albuquerque and silences backed by low-volume solo guitar. A stark film -- for theme rather than low budget -- it flashback-circles back to where it began in presenting the ancient irresoluble conundrum of fate, free will, and character.

The Old Testament, Sophocles, Chaucer, Milton, Thoreau, James, Hardy, Hemingway, Arthur Miller, even Ernie Pyle, along others, have mulled the same problems of prudence, trickery, implacability, preparedness. Even so, the present film manages to come off okay. Reputedly inspired by a friend’s upsetting session with a New Orleans fortune teller, it presumes no answers but leaves the aftertaste that, no matter how hard a man runs from destiny, there is no escape. In his strongest performance, Australia’s Pearce is a human being unraveling, a loud not likeable go-getter forced to peel away cocky outer layers to face his real self and the chance to attempt whatever improvements are available.

Now or to come, an end will arrive to all, and, technically a thriller albeit a subtle ungory one, the film embodies the overused existentialist idea that, in conquering fear of death, an individual is freed to live for however long or short time left. Once Jimmy is able to stop running, and to step steadily in the direction of what awaits, he is finally a good person, which may be all that humans can ever hope for, and clock-calendar time becomes irrelevant out there on endless Southwest highways.

Quintessentially American as a fast-talking salesman, long-haired Jimmy glad-hands, drinks with coworker friend Ed (William Fichtner) and others, and dispassionately fires assistant Andy López (Rick González) for the same creative bookkeeping he had taught him. But with a glib story to cover any situation, he knows this phase is only temporary. Big things loom in the future, specifically with plans involving selling to bars classic Wurlitzer 1015 jukeboxes like the one in the faux-Spanish subdivision home shared with girlfriend “Dee,” Deirdre (Piper Perabo).

Essential to the line of work requiring a “performance,” Jimmy’s car overheats near an isolated trailer town. Beyond his control, it will take hours to repair, just as neither money nor bravado can convince nearby psychic Vacaro (J.K. Simmons), a “performer,” too, to continue beyond a mention of past troubles and fears, a local basketball game, and a financial windfall coming by way of Dallas. Laughing that better efforts have come in fortune cookies, Jimmy is shaken when the Wolves do win their unwinnable game and, thanks to Big D, money becomes available for his jukebox brainstorm. And so, childhood, the past, and fears return -- some from repressed guilt over memories of the inseparable boyhood friend Vincent (Shea Whigham) who served three years when Jimmy panicked, lied and turned state’s evidence.

Only later are the joint crime, incarceration and now-paroled prisoner’s ambiguous feelings revealed, but it is Jimmy’s reactions that make things go. His character is in no small sense his fate, as for the first time in years he visits the former bosom buddy’s dying mother Maggie (Jackie Burroughs), confronts Andy at his home and drives far to break into Vincent’s, wallows in paranoia and, unable to find the fortune teller again, hearkens to a patently inept one (Gurudarshan) at a local mall.

SPOILER ALERT

Vincent’s calls are now open and sound menacing; the police are stymied by Jimmy’s withholding information; and, losing his grip, the hero strips himself of job, friends and girl. He retreats into himself, finds and apparently makes peace with what is there, and in a hokey bit steps out onto virgin snow to confront the past and future in the present. Putting right what he can, he agrees to face Vincent -- his own demon -- the following night. A fly to the wanton boys who are the gods of fate, he cannot control but only prepare and set his house in order. If not all, indeed, such readiness is yet the best a fellow can manage. 

(Released by Yari Film Group Releasing and rated "R" for languange, some violence and sexuality.)