Boyd van Hoeij

It is unlikely that a lot of viewers come to see a Step Up film for convincing dialogue or psychological insight into a group of young things trying to make it big in a ruthless industry. But there’s barely any humor that doesn’t feel third-rate and most of the plot threads are so thin that All In occasionally feels like a satire of a dance film.

Though the political background is fascinating, what finally resonates is that Schirman manages to humanize both Yousef and his Israeli handler, Gonen Ben Yitzhak, who would become an unlikely friend and ally.

Never a full-on character piece or even an exploration of the titular sentiment, Jealousy instead offers moments of quiet tragedy in some seemingly innocent throwaway moments

Though perfs and dialogue remain somewhat theatrical, the combined acting prowess of the trio ensures the emotions are heartfelt.

This is another solid and provocative feature from Ostlund.

The screenplay... seems to generally lack a throughline or focus, coasting from party scenes full of drugs and alcohol to work-related drama but rarely managing to get inside the head of the self-destructive character the designer had become by the 1970s.

The rock-solid bond between the film’s two drifting 17-year-olds... is the film’s undeniable highlight but the true depth of their friendship crystallizes quite late and is too often obscured by a subplot involving minor characters caught up in a cross-border drug running operation.

Despite a slightly grating tendency to resist any kind of subtlety, the honest and convincingly played central romance does finally linger.

The Players is an odd beast that, like all omnibus films, is only as strong as its weakest link.

Recognizable human behavior is not this film’s forte -- which wouldn’t be a problem if something else would take its place but Punch never finds the right tone for the heterogeneous material, with sweetly melodramatic scenes alternating with high drama, some light action and farce.

Patterns emerge by virtue of repetition.

Beguiling in its strangeness, yet also effortlessly evoking recognizable emotions such as loneliness and the feeling of being stuck in a dead-end town and life, this moody and gorgeous film is finally more about atmosphere and emotions than narrative -- and none the worse for it.

The film’s beauty lies in its carefully observed details and the larger story’s got nowhere particularly surprising to go.

Because Sono tries to set the manga’s storyline, with its stylized violence, in the very real, post-earthquake/tsunami disaster area, Himizu struggles to find a coherent tone.

There are too many twists, insignificant literary references and drawn-out scenes of sex and violence to sustain either the pic’s running time or its ideas, with Sono’s message obscured in the final reels by an ambiguous treatment of his leading ladies.

Quillevere, co-scribe Mariette Desert and editor Thomas Marchand struggle to keep audiences fully involved in the story... Thankfully, the performances are all first-rate.

The main point of the film remains its style, which is so constantly and loudly reinforced that it’s often hard to concentrate on the story.

Ingrid’s complex and flawed psyche finally does come into view in the home stretch but it feels like Vogt’s kept his narrative cards too close to his chest for too long. It’s a shame, especially because Petersen (Troubled Water) is terrific in a very tricky role.

Though the screenplay, based on Laurence Benaim’s biography, is all build-up and no payoff, there is just enough emotional insight to compensate for the lack of narrative fireworks in the last half-hour.

A more mature work from actor-director-producer Zach Braff that feels like a Garden State for grown-ups.

This is a sprawling yet intimate narrative, constructed almost entirely of in-between moments rather than the big turning points and tragedies.

[A] sleekly assembled and intriguing if clearly very commercial proposition.

With jokes that fall flat so often, the film’s cardiograph flatlines before the first five minutes are over.

The directors have brought onboard the entire original cast. This makes their job much easier, as countless performances have perfected the timing and tone of each single line.

So full of explanatory flashbacks and animated sequences visualizing the characters’ invented yarns that their real dramas are indeed almost obscured.

Nicloux is unable to instill the material with any tension.

The main problem of Mr. Morgan’s Last Love is a structural one, as it is really two films in one.

A snazzy, fast-paced pic that’s nonetheless somewhat enslaved by the get-rich-quick and crime-doesn’t-pay cliches that finally trip up the lowlife protags.

Though the script... is underdeveloped and pic is assembled in workmanlike fashion, it does feature some nicely modulated performances.

Sophisticated cutting brings out the story’s complex emotional undercurrents, though “Breakdown’s” less convincingly scripted second half sputters more often than it shines.

Beautifully played and impeccably lit and composed, this high-quality family drama takes its time to introduce its flawed but human protagonists and then steadily builds toward a payoff that’s at once cathartic and artfully restrained.

A quite absorbing but never riveting or revelatory overview of Armstrong’s career and testy personality.

Like in all of the director’s work, psychologically reductive readings of the characters are absent, though intriguing performances give audiences a way into the material.

This is essentially an absorbing and intelligent exploration of queer desire spiced up with thriller elements.

Though a lot of it is well written and directed and, quite often, funny or poignant, the individual scenes rarely become part of a larger whole.

Two minor problems in the closing reels hold the film back from instant-classic status.

A nail-biter that’s actually quite light on action but so well-scripted and shot, it’s nonetheless edge-of-your-seat material.

Les Coquillettes never comes off as an elaborate in-joke; instead it feels like a sincere attempt to convey what the very particular rush of a film festival, rarely seen onscreen, can feel like from inside the bubble.

The film frequently privileges art direction over emotion, and a constant sense of wonder based on visuals alone proves impossible to sustain over the lengthy 130-minute runtime.

[An] intimate and dexterous debut feature.

Though complementary, the pic’s images and voiceover never quite fuse into a single whole.

Jean-Francois Laguionie’s consistently enjoyable, inventive and beautifully crafted tale is a color riot suitable for all ages.

There are no big surprises in store in terms of where this setup is headed...But the pic’s pleasures are nonetheless numerous, starting with its talented cast.

The unknown cast is aces, and Moshe inscribes his loquacious film in the Western tradition without overdoing the references to the classics.

A gossamer debut feature that compensates for its lo-fi look with glimpses of profound humanism.

Mikkelsen impresses here as a warm-hearted man who finds himself caught up in a situation way beyond his control.

A mostly slick, entertaining and emotionally involving recombination of fresh and familiar elements.

Perhaps Qu’s near-passive tone is meant to suggest that women don’t have much of a voice in society. But the story's almost complete lack of emotion also negatively impacts the viewers’ interest in the women’s plight. What does come through loud and clear is that Angels Wear White paints an unflattering portrait of not only how women are treated but also of how men try to protect their turf at all costs.

Legrand's decision to leave things intentionally unclear early on so he can draw the audience into the family’s problems and consider them from various sides finally works against the third act’s cold hard facts.

While the film as a three-hour whole feels unbalanced, a few heart-to-heart conversations between Daniele and Ze cut directly to the core of the material, exploring the uses of fiction and lies in situations like these.

The film’s first hour and last reels are now a not completely organic fit, taking things from an intimate and personal level to a global scale while skipping over an awful lot of things in between.

There is no denying that, initially, Transit’s story might feel excessively oblique. But as the film slowly puts its formalistic and thematic cards on the table, it becomes clear that its storytelling technique is really just a reflection of its core themes.

For this critic, the events in the home stretch finally feel too much like concessions to the necessities of the laws of fictional drama, with first an unexpected twist followed by a melodramatic one.

A highly political movie that's also a personal story of two men going head-to-head while the women around them are left to pick up the pieces, this gorgeously shot and classily acted feature might be a reel too long but is nonetheless a fascinating piece of work.

What we are thus left with is a film that's made with an impressive level of craftsmanship but with exceptionally dubious politics, as if 21st-century moviemaking magic had been let loose on a terribly conservative and hopelessly blinkered 1980s relic of a script.

Eccentric and occasionally hilarious, this is yet another uniquely Bozonian creation, which this time explores the transmission of ideas between teachers and students and the tricky notion that our good side might not necessarily be our best side after all.

Though it is convincingly played and sensually shot, the film has about as much narrative as the characters have parts of their bodies covered on the beach.