"What brought Mike and me together is that we were both interested in a kind of inarticulacy, which is quite unfashionable in drama," Swinton says.

The thought picks up again...

["Thumbsucker" director Mike] Mills says: "I don't think she identifies herself as an actress so much. I think she's found a way to be sort of an emotional activist. She's always trying to create a world where it's okay not to always know what you're doing, it's okay to be unsure, it's okay to be all different kinds of people. She's making a vote for being permissive, for not being judgmental, and for being more human in the sense of being less perfect."

I like that passage because it brings into relief the challenge in art to clearly describe the point before the epiphany, before understanding - verbal or otherwise - has emerged.