Alissa Simon

Much more accomplished and watchable than Hormann’s previous film about a real-life crime, “3096 Days,” “A Regular Woman” owes much to its fine cast and impeccable technical package.

Gorgeously shot for the big screen by multihyphenate Gilles de Maistre, it thoughtfully explores what makes the globe-trotting chef-businessman tick.

Being Maria is a flawed but fascinating look at the turbulent life of actor Maria Schneider.

The screenplay by Matthiessen and co-writers Martin Pieter Zandvliet and Anders Frithiof August is compelling up until the melodramatic, credulity-straining final act, although the characters, apart from Emma, feel underdeveloped.

While the production package is merely workman-like, the commitment, honesty and heart of the main interviewees makes the material compelling.

Unfortunately, the glowering, non-pro Gyemant twins, who seem to have only one facial expression (and oddly anachronistic haircuts), continually break the spell woven by the other performers.

Fast-paced, entertaining and informative.

Fascinating backroom politics circa WWII are undermined by banal marital melodrama in Danish director Christina Rosendahl’s The Good Traitor, resulting in a so-so period drama that raises more questions than it answers.

It’s an engaging, mostly well-acted tale, full of surprising twists, even if some seem a bit too on the nose.

Like “Boogie Nights,” Miss Lovely offers a visually stunning evocation of a disreputable subculture, although it lacks that pic’s rooting dramatic interest.

Six Minutes to Midnight, helmed by Andy Goddard, wants to be a Hitchcockian thriller, but merely manages a familiar pastiche peopled with stock characters that should divert less-discriminating viewers.

An earnest, over-stuffed infomercial for the potential and benefits of practicing mindfulness.

The catharsis feels fake and unearned. Moreover, the film lacks the warmth and respect for all of of its characters displayed in Langseth’s previous work.

It’s filled with risible dialogue, a visual style more suited to a Côte d’Azur fashion video (the slow motion, the tasteful, slightly obscured sex scenes), and plastered with an undistinguished score by Brian Byrne (“Albert Nobbs”).

More compelling on a visual level than a narrative one.

Unfolding with the disjointed logic of a bad dream, the pic never catches emotional fire — though not for lack of trying by fast-rising young star Lea Seydoux, who shows her range in a defiantly unglamorous performance.

In addition to the highly relatable situations shot in a style of heightened naturalism and the Robert Altman-like overlapping dialogue, the drama gains further conviction from setting the action in the actual apartment lived in by the director and his wife, who, along with their real-life son, play the host family.

For the first time, older characters are at the heart of a Sláma film, and Kronerová and Nový repay the helmer-writer with warm, dignified turns that require both soul- and flesh-baring.

[A] delightful, droll, and intelligent comedy, which captures the absurdity and tragedy of a complicated political situation with a consistently light touch.

An involving adaptation of Yasmina Khadra’s elegant literary fiction.

The result of a nine-year labor of love from a Norwegian-Latvian team, it combines distinctive cutout animation with family photos and archival footage to forge a look at an authoritarian society through a young girl’s eyes. It also encompasses her eventual realization of the painful history repressed beneath the platitudes and propaganda of her school days.

The result of long years of research, Love It Was Not is remarkable not only for its unusual central story and unique creative execution, but also for its extensive eyewitness testimonies.

Its consideration of how storytelling and visual images can be weaponized makes it a tale with great resonance for these times.

While Spall looks like he is having fun launching some clandestine military tactics, the comely Rumpf, known for her fierce work in French and German films such as “Raw,” “Tiger Girl” and “Soul of a Beast” is rather underserved here. But on the bright side, the part at least proves that she speaks fluent English and that the camera loves her no matter what she has on.

While the multiple ellipses may annoy the more narratively-driven viewer, others will thrill to the mood Ayub creates and the way she plays with audience expectations.

What’s missing, however, is a clear picture of where the apparently vulnerable Hilu lives, how he has supported himself and what has happened to his family.