The new boy (Aswan Reid, electric) is delivered to the Christian mission at night, tied in a hessian sack like a wild animal. And that’s how the white world of 1940s Australia views Indigenous Australian kids like him – as feral, unpredictable creatures in need of civilisation.

Through the lens of her fervent faith, Sister Eileen (Cate Blanchett) can see that there is something special about the child – he picks up snakes the way other children collect pebbles; he can soothe a fever with just his hands. And he can create a floating spark of light – a plaything and comfort for him in the long, strange nights in the mission dormitory. But the boy’s otherness is alarming to her, something that needs to be contained and reshaped.

The latest film from Warwick Thornton (Samson and Delilah) is strikingly beautiful, its widescreen vistas rendered in a scorched palette of dust and ochres. But the pacing is languid to a fault and it all gets rather bogged down in allegory.

• The New Boy is in UK cinemas now and on Binge in Australia.