Alissa Simon

Director-writer-animator Ann Marie Fleming creates an entertaining, educational, and poignant tale about identify and imagination that is filled with stories and poetry.

Although dealing with weighty matters, Jarchovsky’s script (which is based on a real-life incident he experienced during primary school) is leavened with welcome humor and irony.... As usual, Hrebejk’s direction is smooth and the ensemble performances top-notch.

Each shimmering frame is composed of multiple layers of diverse drawing and painting techniques and washes of color combined with 2D computer animation.

A Man of Integrity is a tense, enraging drama about corruption and injustice, set in a small village.

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.

All This Panic is more remarkable for the way it looks than the actual, somewhat banal, girl-talk content.

Offering solid, middle-brow entertainment that borrows from Aristophanes’ “Lysistrata,” the film shows the relationships and tensions between different groups within Orthodox Judaism in Jerusalem, and provides a cautionary (and universally understandable) tale about religious fundamentalism.

Providing certain vivid detail but rather lacking in vitality, Ekvtimishvili’s screenplay is stronger on sociology than drama.

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.

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.

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.

This is the sort of quiet, well-observed comedy that is characteristic of Burman’s oeuvre, and it’s in ample supply here.

More compelling on a visual level than a narrative one.

Fast-paced, entertaining and informative.

As Hakonarson’s beautifully modulated film progresses, recurring images contrast and poignantly resonate with meaning.

The actors, some of whom have worked with Lafleur before, are entirely in tune with his intentions and display a beguiling chemistry.

Although it sports a few fresh moments, the tonally all-over-the-place drama is hampered by script and assembly problems.

The screenplay by Sher-Niyaz, Bakytbek Turdubaev and Kyrgyz culture minister Sultan Raev takes an “important moments” approach to Kurmanjan’s life, requiring the casting of four different actresses. Unfortunately, the result plays like an illustration of her Wikipedia entry rather than providing any psychological insight into her feelings.

While not equaling the depth of characterization of Farhadi’s previous films, About Elly takes the complexity of his storytelling to a fascinating level. However, the variable quality of the thesping also prevents the pic from being his best work.

Night not only conveys the almost unbelievable atrocities captured by the Russian, American and British camera teams and photographers, but also highlights the dedication of the team determined to document and disseminate this evidence and the changing policies of those in charge of postwar reconstruction.

Glen Campbell … I’ll Be Me blends intimate and unflinching medical details, poignant performance footage and a survey of its subject’s place in musical history through well-chosen archival footage and interviews with other iconic performers.

Boasting a narrative of extraordinary complexity and density, stuffed with irony, humor and tales-within-tales, the imaginative animated memoir Rocks in My Pockets merges a mini-history of 20th-century Latvia with that of helmer Signe Baumane and her forebears.

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.

The screenplay (co-written with Hollywood scribe Frank E. Flowers) boasts the stock characters and situations, sentimentality, foreshadowing and melodrama of soap opera. Yet by cleverly blending these ingredients with those of an action caper, the pic presents a fresher appeal.

A slender but polished dramedy.

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