Certain independent-minded movies wear their bleakness like badges of honor. That seems true of Sleepwalking, a drama so dreary-looking that you know neither cast nor crew had to squander per diem on sunblock.

Produced by Charlize Theron, who also appears in the movie, Sleepwalking feels like the work of a writer who believes that only the poor, downtrodden and hopelessly dysfunctional have "real" experiences.

But a screenplay loaded with depressing ingredients - child abandonment, tyrannical abuse, money woes and parental irresponsibility - fails to carry the expected emotional weight. Couple that with slow pacing and you have a movie that's unlikely to awaken anyone.

The story - by screenwriter Zac Stanford - introduces us to a massively messed-up mother (Theron) who's unable to fulfill her responsibilities to her 12-year-old daughter, Tara (Denver's AnnaSophia Robb). After her pot- growing boyfriend is busted, Mom's forced to move in with James (Nick Stahl), her marginally functional brother. It doesn't take long for Mom to split, leaving Tara and James to fend for themselves.

At that point, the movie adopts a time-tested strategy: It takes to the road. James rescues Tara, who's been turned over to the state, and embarks on a slow journey that lands him at his father's ranch, the only destination he can think of when he runs out of money for cheap motels. Given James' obviously impoverished condition and the state of gas prices, it seems unlikely that he could travel far enough to fill 10 minutes of movie, but this road trip doesn't run on gas - it runs on the fumes of accumulated despair.

It should come as no surprise that Dad (a grim Dennis Hopper) lives on a ranch on which almost everything appears to be gray, and no exterior is unblemished by weathered, peeling paint. Even the horses look depressed.

Hopper's character, a hard old guy, soon turns odious and abusive. Ah, we're cued; this is why Theron's Joleen and Stahl's James are so emotionally crippled. They grew up on a ranch of horrors, with Dad presiding as ogre in chief.

Don't blame the actors. Robb acquits herself well, bringing welcome sparks of life to her character. No faulting Theron either, although it's difficult not to wonder when she's going to get sick of riding the lower-class merry-go- round that began spinning with Monster and continued with North Country.

Stahl bravely tries to portray a man of stunted growth and limited capacities. Hopper? He's not playing a character; he's playing the psychological explanation for the difficulties that both Joleen and James encounter.

Woody Harrelson, who portrays one of James' beer-guzzling co-workers, brings brief humor to the proceedings as Randall, a character whose IQ seems as low as the frigid temperatures in which most of the drama occurs.

But humor proves as rare as sunshine, with first-time director William Maher giving the movie a forlorn quality that's both wearing and emotionally anemic, as if swarms of American Gothic vampires have sucked the life out of it.

Sleepwalking

A bleak family reunion.

* Grade: C

* Rated: R

* Running time: 100 minutes

Robert Denerstein can be reached at bdeners@gmail.com or denersteinunleashed.com.