Alex Thompson’s new feature, “Rounding,” is a horror movie in its trappings, if not in its story. There are, admittedly, narrative byways that touch upon the otherworldly and moments grisly to behold. A viewer could also consider the psychological and physical toll that comes with pursuing a career in medicine as, if not out-and-out scary, then intimidating and strenuous. 

A great Spanish artist, Francesco Goya, stated that the sleep of reason produces monsters. Mr. Thompson proposes that the lack of sleep breeds its own set of devils.

Mr. Thompson co-wrote the film with his brother, Christopher, basing the story on the latter’s experiences as a medical student. Medicine is the Thompson family trade: Dad is a pulmonologist and family dinners are laden with conversations about diseases, treatments, and Thompson the Elder’s daily after-work summation, “I didn’t kill anyone.”

Dad worked behind the scenes on “Rounding,” making sure that Covid protocols were followed and helping out with rigging duties. Still, Mr. Thompson’s goal was to make a movie along the lines of those he saw as a budding cineaste, as a kid who grew up with a “cereal bowl in my lap, too-close to the screen with the volume turned way down.” The stark scenarios, low budgets, and shady characters of any number of B-pictures helped cultivate the director’s taste for “scrappiness.”

Just how scrappy is “Rounding”? The budget may have been modest and the cast bereft of big names, but Mr. Thompson has crafted a rich entertainment, a movie whose production values are of a piece with the character study at its core. The director of photography, Nate Hurtsellers, wraps the proceedings in an ambiance that is part documentarian grit and part Rembrandtesque chiaroscuro. The score by Quinn Tsan and Macie Stewart is similarly moody, being insistent but not overpowering.

At the center of “Rounding” is James Hayman (Namir Smallwood), a doctor-in-training who transfers to a hospital out in the sticks. This new Rockwellian setting, Hayman hopes, will help him to recover from the travails and traumas he suffered at a big-city medical center. His new boss is Dr. Emil Harrison (the estimable Michael Potts), a forbearing man wise to his new ward’s difficulties, shortcomings, and, not least, promise.

Hayman and Harrison come into conflict over Helen Adso (Sidney Flanigan), a woman whose repeated visits to the hospital nags at the young resident’s conscience. The charts, the tests, the diagnoses — they don’t add up. Hayman, for whom no rigorous winter-time jog can dispel an overriding sense of guilt, takes an interest in the case that increasingly tests the limits of professional propriety. That, and he’s prone to blackouts, lapses in memory, and injuries to which a less haunted physician might be inclined to heal himself.

The narrative arc the Messrs. Thompson set into motion ends up in a run-of-the-mill cul-de-sac, the surprise of which is cleverly contrived but oddly lacking in emotional resonance. Disappointing, you might think, but “Rounding” is a grounded venture that leaves a heartening afterglow. 

Credit Mr. Thompson’s directorial acumen — he’s particularly good at gauging the relationship between character and locale — and an excellent cast with a special nod to Mr. Smallwood, an actor whose intelligence shines through a difficult, and sometimes difficult to like, character.