Teo Bugbee

Both Lysette and Clarkson are naturally magnetic actors, and they don’t waste the attention they’re given on excess sentimentality.

Chile ’76 is a sly genre exercise, an example of how political repression can squeeze a domestic melodrama until it takes the shape of a spy thriller.

Fiennes brings the fire, yet the air around him remains unmoved, even by his embers.

It’s a style so minimalist, it approaches maximalism — and this combination of pulp and precision creates an arresting and unique work of film noir.

The images portray a weightless crisis, and the film’s emotional narrative feels similarly insincere, with the balance of fate seeming to sway on the placement of a well-timed prayer.

Shipka ably handles the responsibility of leading the story, but the director Matt Smukler has a harder time balancing the charming and empathetic ensemble performances with the script’s constantly judgmental tone.

This lived-in quality to the filmmaking supports equally relaxed performances from both veteran and emerging actors, making for an even-keeled and easy viewing experience.

Lonesome demonstrates a mature use of sex in cinema, a treatment that communicates narrative purpose without diminishing sex’s animalistic, physical side.

To the film’s credit, the central relationship remains realistically drawn — a teenage courtship that’s marked by misunderstandings and mood swings. The characters aren’t always sweet, but they never feel phony.

Ironically, the film mirrors the callow cinematic dynamics it critiques: It titillates, even as it scolds.

Salle’s approach leaves the physical details of Mathieu’s escape foggy. It’s not always clear how long Mathieu spends in hiding, or how he acquires the tools needed to sustain his flight.

Martone’s depiction of crime is at once expressive and economic, a world of danger boiled down to pregnant pauses and minute gestures.

The consistency limits the ability of the directors to lean into their own style, leading to a movie that feels narratively scattered and stylistically inhibited.

The film is moving for the intimacy it depicts, an archive as unlikely as the love story itself.

Lears clearly feels earnest sympathy for her subjects and passion for their cause, but the film often replicates for viewers the same atmosphere of hopelessness that makes climate activism a hard sell for voters.

The documentary reminds its audience that it’s impossible to truly know people based on their responses to medical interviews. But this approach unfortunately prevents the film from achieving either catharsis or understanding.

The film ‌is‌ gentle ‌yet indistinct, l‌‌eaving us to discern figures through a fog.

This is a comedy that takes a vicious, over-the-top look at family greed, and fortunately, the cast members are game to play their characters’ attempts at flattery in the most unflattering manner possible.

The film’s ironic tone largely defangs the transgressive films it parodies, but Kramer does broaden the scope of the queer leather canon.

These are characters who are frustrated in love, prevented by law and by their own emotional repression from asking for what they want in their relationships. The stately treatment of their plight leads to a film that buckles under the weight of purgatorial disappointment.

The light provides wordless, and conveniently apolitical, explanation for why a person might endure nearly three decades (or in cinematic terms, nearly three hours) without action.

The trouble with this cinematic Trojan horse is that the superficial blandness dominates the frame. It’s hard to feel the story’s stakes when the images are always indicating no danger ahead.

Writer and director Valerie Buhagiar makes the wise decision to orient her film toward what’s pleasurable rather than what’s logical. The Maltese countryside sparkles in the sunlight, and McElhone delights with a charming and slightly loopy performance as the irreverent spiritual leader.

With a sprightly wit and an all-star cast to bring it to life, the movie manages to be a loving parody of theater gossips, postwar London and Christie’s murder mysteries all at once.

If this erotic drama doesn’t break new cinematic ground, it also doesn’t cede its conviction in portraying relationships as a matter of serious consideration.

There is a flatness that feels apparent in every shot — and not just because the movie is filmed in bright, low contrast lighting. The film’s experienced cast punches their lines in search of jokes that never materialize, leaving the comedy to nosedive.

It’s an earnest film, one that glows with pride at Aboriginal resilience. But the impression it leaves is didactic, a saints and demons fable that meanders to foregone conclusions.

This is a candid look at one person’s experience with coming out, a humane document that shows the bravery and resilience of queer people who seek relief from the categories that are imposed on them.