“ Steal Away ” starts with intertitles that announce it as a tale of “two princesses.” The implied fairy tale trappings are appropriate for this metaphor heavy film. Director Clement Virgo adapts, with Tamara Faith Berger, the nonfiction novel “Steal Away Home” by Karolyn Smardz Frost. The book explored the relationship between an escaped slave and her mistress, whom she met when they were both young girls. Virgo’s film takes that premise and reimagines it as a twisty psychological allegory, laden with weighty themes. But “Steal Away” proves more rewarding to decipher afterward than to sit through.

Without establishing time or geographic setting, the film follows Cecile (Mallori Johnson), a young woman from the Congo who flees war in her home country and arrives as a refugee taken in

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