Angie Han

With its vivid footage, sometimes captured from breathlessly intimate proximity, you might be able to believe, just for a moment, that you could really reach right through the screen and touch her.

Family Movie is a project that seems to exist entirely because the Bacon-Sedgwick clan just thought it’d be fun to collaborate on something, and that’s being released for the rest of us entirely because the Bacon-Sedgwicks are the Bacon-Sedgwicks. For some fans, maybe that’ll be enough. I think I preferred the actual home movies of the actual Kevin, Kyra, Sosie and Travis that play over the ending.

The impression Pretty Lethal leaves behind is one of unfulfilled potential, an exciting premise executed as a fitfully fun but mostly forgettable distraction.

A sci-fi-action-comedy-thriller loaded with zippy style, upbeat humor and sneaky heart.

It’s an earnest mash note to the power of music that resists over-sentimentalizing its sacrifices, or overstating its rewards.

Here I Come still comes out ahead, in the end, delivering enough of the good stuff to keep a fan yelping and laughing and cheering throughout.

If its exploration of these ideas is ultimately too incomplete to feel fully satisfying, its performances are strong enough to draw attention throughout.

I find it hard to wish Riley would rein himself in when the excess is so much a part of the film’s joy.

If the concept has a way of grabbing one’s attention, however, the execution proves too uneven to leave a lasting impression. Though Good Boy gets by for a while on the strength of its performances and the sheer oddness of its plot, the flimsiness of its characters drains the film of energy long before its 110 minutes are up.

For Worse isn’t all bad; bits of it are intriguing and the rest is too anodyne to get worked up about. But it’s hard to shake the disappointment that this is just an okay movie, when it seems like it should’ve been a good one.

The feature debut by writer-director Nastasya Popov is certainly messy, a mélange of contrasting tones and contradictory ideas. But darned if it isn’t bursting with enough personality to charm you all the same.

Though its unflashy style and delicate emotionality are unlikely to sweep viewers off their feet, its eye for fine detail and bittersweet tone make it an absorbing experience worth seeking out.

It’s a romantic comedy, and whatever its flaws elsewhere, it works best where it counts most — in the chemistry between the two leads.

The film leans into action-comedy, and for a while, coasts by on the pre-sold likability of its cast.

As an appreciation of birds and our connection to them, it’s engrossing and endearing — a fresher take, certainly, than yet another weepie about dog or cat owners. But as an exploration of grief, it’s hindered by a 128-minute run time that spreads its emotional potency too thin.

A forgettable blend of unearned saccharinity and unacknowledged sourness, the Michael Showalter-directed dramedy capably proves that Mom is the true angel of the season but falls well short of proving that Christmas is worth all her fussing in the first place.

Even when the explanations don’t pass muster, the pictures strike a chord.

While there’s something to be said for the communal experience of absorbing an album surrounded by dozens of likeminded fans, what’s actually being served up on screen is more filler than killer.

The comedy never quite settles into a comfortable rhythm, and eventually backs itself into a corner so far away from any recognizable reality that it threatens to undermine the very message it wants to send.

Only once we’ve gotten the full picture, near the end of the movie, does Charlie Harper finally start to come into its own. The film’s last scenes are its finest.

While the Hulu release ultimately adopts a tone of triumph, its themes of empowerment ring hollow coming from such a thinly written script. It’s most persuasive as a portrait of the frequently toxic culture surrounding those apps to begin with.

Ballad of a Small Player has plenty of flash, as befits the story of a man whose everyday wear consists of jewel-tone velvet suits and silk ascots. But there’s not much substance to be found underneath the consciously cheap glamour.

In Hamnet . . . the two always go hand in hand: joy and fear, love and loss. One feeds into the other in a cycle as old as life itself, and unavoidable. But just as her William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) turns the pain of being caught between the two into the masterpiece that is Hamlet, Zhao harnesses those elements into something gorgeous and cathartic.

Unicorns traces their twin journeys toward self-acceptance with empathy, curiosity and a refreshing disregard for constricting labels.

It’s not entirely a bad time, as things involving Allison Janney and Bryan Cranston tend not to be. But it’s not exactly a satisfying one, either.

Elio feels just a tad too familiar in its sights and story beats to seem totally fresh.

When a movie is so dire you begin to suspect you’re in for a bad time before the title card drops, you cling to what tiny scraps of fun are to be found like shards of wood in a shipwreck.

As a mood piece, the Samir Oliveros-directed The Luckiest Man in America is plenty evocative, full of retro flair tinged with dread or dreaminess. But as a character study or a narrative, it’s too rooted in its particular place to extend its impact beyond it.