The Gulf War forms a subtle backdrop of malaise to Canadian filmmaker John Greyson’s inventive new adaptation of the novel by Dale Peck. Set in 1991 in the provincial town of Sarnia, Ontario, The Law of Enclosures is a twice-told tale of a marriage and its apparent failure. Sweet-natured Beatrice (Polley) meets Henry (Fletcher), who suffers from an odd, egg-shaped tumor at the base of his neck. After successful surgery, the couple begins a life together. In an uncanny parallel story, Bea (Ladd) and Hank (Sean McCann) try to recoup their squandered life together by building a dream home. The Gulf War has a narrative presence in the life of another couple the film follows, whose story we also see in foreshortened temporality. Direct casualties of the wider conflict, their own betrayals and disappointments bubble up like oil rising to the surface.