Alan Zilberman

Marie Noelle fills the story with passion, debate and human contradiction. If the material ultimately eludes the director’s grasp, wandering off on unfocused tangents, it’s because of its ambition.

O’Reilly’s ambitions notwithstanding, “Moscow” is uneven because of the inescapable nature of such interlocking narratives: some land better than others.

"Farewell to Europe” is a little like Zweig himself: smart, overly fastidious and remote to a fault. By avoiding Zweig’s inner life, his eventual collapse seems all the more perfunctory.

Biography, at its most useful, disabuses us from myth, but Churchill has no such ambitions. As both history and entertainment, it’s a drag.

The cumulative effect is closer to a didactic after-school special for troubled parents.

Malek’s talents serve a much more personal, ultimately touching story.

O’Shea follows his twisted premise to its inexorable conclusion, so his film is ultimately more unnerving than sad.

Guaglione and Resinaro strive to find meaning in Mike’s struggle, even when the script and its conclusion all point to a message that is more senseless, even bleak.

Few films are both genuinely erotic and off-putting enough to inspire the occasional walkout. Raw succeeds at both.

This is not a film about Neruda’s life or controversial death. This is a film for folks who are unfamiliar with the writing of Neruda, or maybe even skeptical about poetry in general. They may not cherish every word of the poet’s most heartbreaking lines, but they’ll understand the man who wrote them a little better those who already do.

The idea is unabashedly silly, yet Monster Trucks is more involving than it sounds. Characters and conflicts are sharply defined, and director Chris Wedge handles the action with clarity.

Despite flashes of brilliance, Why Him? is perfunctory and boorish, the sort of film that already has begun to fade from memory before you’re too annoyed by it.

By observing the struggle of the miner with a mix of resignation and resolve, the movie hints that this struggle is the struggle of every worker.

By showing animals in all their mundane splendor, Seasons makes a case for conservation.

What elevates the film is not just its beautiful setting in the French Pyrenees but also how the beautiful mountain exteriors serve as a metaphor for characters’ inner lives. Téchiné keeps his distance from his subjects, allowing their emotions to reveal themselves and delivering a payoff that is ultimately a delicate one.

Mottola and LeSieur seem to have actively avoided the pursuit of wisdom, settling for broad gags — and the occasional explosion — instead.

This earthbound tale has a poignant political message — and not a subtle one.

Demon is not a horror film, exactly, although it can prove disturbing. Wrona jumbles several genres together, including dark comedy, to illuminate larger, more ambitious themes.

Kicks is gritty to the core, and its commitment to verisimilitude is its undoing. All of the characters are selfish, and their sense of loyalty is purely circumstantial.

All of the actors are pitch-perfect.

My King brims with intimate details, adding to a sense of authenticity that is rarely found in films.

What makes Miss Sharon Jones most captivating is how its subject, in spite of hardship, remains a magnetic stage presence.

There’s nothing wrong with tackling romantic miscommunication, but Birbiglia’s script leaves little room for surprise or depth. Paradoxically, Don’t Think Twice feels both dramatically thin and overstuffed.

D’Souza may wish to tilt the election, but he’ll be lucky if his fans can make it through his film without falling asleep.

Even DeMonaco seems bored by the sieges, escapes and gun battles. Silly one-liners are the only saving grace, and that's because such acting veterans as Williamson know how to sell them.

Although “As I AM” sometimes gets lost in the weeds of the club scene and Goldstein’s personal entanglements, it approaches the central irony of his life with both clarity and sadness, honoring its subject with a frankness he would have appreciated.

Pelé: Birth of a Legend is too earnest and single-minded to be hagiographic, and the final moments are moving in spite of their predictable trajectories.

Absent any self-awareness by its protagonists, the best thing about Sundown is that it’s too dumb to be offensive.