Boyd van Hoeij

It’s an ambitious and auspicious debut, even though not all of its frayed edges seem to be intentional.

The narrative’s second layer, which is buried underneath the first, suggests why the characters do what they do, even if they don’t necessarily address it explicitly.

This is a bittersweet comedy-drama that manages to be hilarious in one scene and extremely touching in the next.

Lifshitz never demonizes those that don’t understand or oppose Sasha’s desire to be who she really is and they remain almost entirely offscreen. Instead, the director chronicles, with immense warmth and generosity, the toll this outside opposition takes on Sasha and her loved ones and how much love, care and attention is needed to compensate for the fact she’s not simply accepted like all her peers.

Overall, Saint-Narcisse is a wild ride that’s enjoyable in all its B-movie glory — the production design that’s just a little too kitschy, the dialogue that’s just a tad too ripe — while also titillating the intellect.

There’s no doubt Mirica can film the hell out of a location or a character’s face, but as for telling a fully gripping and involving story? The jury’s still out on that one.

The hushed closing reels are unusual in Noé’s oeuvre in that they generate straightforward empathy and emotion without falling back on gimmicks, trickery or shock tactics.

The lack of light irony, refined humor and spontaneity and freshness in the dialogue makes the film feel much more heavy-handed than a tale like this should be. For most of the nearly three-hour running time, it all plays as droningly serious, which makes the already long film feel much longer.

This relaxed sense of naturalism also extends to the film’s numerous sex scenes, which can be sensuous but also funny or awkward, depending on the circumstances.

Perhaps it is precisely Dumont’s point that satire and the real world have been converging for a long time, but this alone is not enough insight to sustain a movie that’s over two hours long and contains a protagonist few will warm to. for such a high-powered auteur/leading-lady collaboration, France feels decidedly unspectacular.

While Titane wants to shock and surprise — two things a lot of contemporary films seem to have forgotten how to do — it also wants to tell the strangely affecting story of two royally f***ed up human beings who, despite all the odds, and lack of shared DNA, share a father-son like bond.

One in a Thousand’s lack of narrative focus and conflict results in a drawn-out, almost non-rhythm that at least mirrors the lazy summer days it depicts.

The acting from the central four actors is quite soulful, but we don’t get enough access to these characters’ inner conflicts. Too often, the narrative’s configuration feels like an intriguing second draft instead of a ready-to-shoot script, something that someone with an external eye might help finesse into something truly captivating.

Though the final product isn’t quite a home run, it is nonetheless a very intriguing work that again suggests Ben Hania is a talent to watch.

The camera often seems to capture seemingly quotidian moments, but Koberidze’s painterly eye elevates them to intimate flashes of poetry and delight.

By concentrating too much on the physical hammer’s adventures in the closing reels, Mielants loses sight of the might of the hammer as a metaphor.

As he did in Lilting, Khaou in Monsoon finely sketches the complex inner lives and identities of a small group of characters and plugs them into a narrative that unfolds gradually but precisely, so audiences have the time to consider the work's larger thematic concerns.

This eye-catching and sadly topical . . . film features a fearless performance from nonprofessional actress Vicky Knight in the central role.

This is a deliciously entertaining and perceptive take on Cardin’s life and how he shaped both the silhouette of fashion and branding in the fashion world and beyond.

This captivating hybrid of a movie mixes fairy-tale and storytelling elements with a vividly drawn backdrop of heightened realism — no one would mistake this prison for a luxury resort — and relies on images and sounds as much as the human voice to tell its multiple stories.

Chastain is utterly convincing in another tough-as-nails role. If audiences stick with the movie, it's largely thanks to her movie-star charisma, which almost compensates for the increasingly ridiculous plot. Malkovich and Farrell seem to understand they are A-list talent in B-movie roles, and relish the opportunity.

A delicate miniature that’s magnificently humanist, occasionally amusing and shot in a palette of rich, saturated nighttime hues, this is the kind of really small movie that is actually really great.

This is an exciting new direction for Runarsson, who proves that making a film about Iceland today doesn’t necessarily require a three-act narrative structure and characters with carefully calibrated needs and desires and neatly constructed backstories.

Here, the story and the characters' supposed naiveté and the almost-too-obvious stylistic flourishes aren't just nods to his younger, less-refined m.o. They are actually part of a master storyteller's tools to seduce a grown-up audience into considering how youngsters not only experience their own lives but also how they process and talk about them.

Intended as a 90-minute nail-biter, the movie starts off strong but loses steam about halfway through and never quite recovers.

Very knowing about female friendships and the different possible reactions to forced social change, this is a lovingly acted film that, unfortunately, derails in the third act; the calamitous events depicted work fine as a blunt metaphor for where the country found itself or was headed, but doesn't convince on a narrative level or in terms of its psychological impact on the characters.

Clearly Diaz wanted to make a sotto-voce exploration of a difficult and heavy topic — instead of a histrionic melodrama — but in trying to rein in the emotions, he seems to have practically scrubbed them out completely. The screenplay, also by Diaz, is so predictable that most of the characters simply seem to be going through the motions, with audiences remaining at an arm’s length even during the supposedly cathartic final moments.

Observant and wise about boys in puberty yet impish and carefree when necessary and never idealizing the cold and dreary countryside they travel through, Winter Flies is a lovely little film that’s as comfortable as an old sweater and almost as warm.