Chase Hutchinson

There are many promising pieces here and some great performances, though little in the way of actual meaningful insights.

Even a lesser Kore-eda is still at least interesting, even frequently insightful, about the ways that we move through a world of pain and loss. It’s just a shame that, for a film that’s ultimately about the power of imagination and our ability to tell stories as a way of enduring, this one was unable to dream bigger.

Thankfully, even when sudden exposition about past trauma lands clunkily, the rest of the film remains light on its feet and properly fun as we observe the couple being tormented by whatever is drawing their corporeal forms together.

Serving as the anchor to a drama that otherwise frequently holds you at a distance, Melliti gives an understated yet riveting performance as a young woman finding her way in the world. The film lives and dies on her shoulders, making it all the more exciting to see her carry it with such nuance.

As Finley manages a last unassuming gut punch, it strikes painfully true. It provides one final drop of mundane dread that reveals how the most comprehensively exploitative of systems can become terrifyingly normal. Good thing that’s only science fiction.

Benjamin provides just the right balance of sincerity and snark to hold this dark action-comedy together. When combined with bloody good action choreography, the film mostly knocks any flaws aside.

Returning directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett show they have an eye for immersing us in well-constructed set pieces that earn their terror and are all distinct from each other.

It makes for an entertaining watch in which the attention to detail in every technical element helps smooth over the scattered and superficial story’s many residual shortcomings.

For all the fun that the cast seems to be having with Dicks, it’s never as creative in execution as it needs to be. There are chuckles to be had, but the overall experience is defined by narrowness rather than naughtiness.

[Bartholomew] gives us insights into her character more naturally than some of the occasionally forced dialogue, showing us glimpses of her increasingly fractured mind through an embodied performance. Even when the film doesn’t fully capture the spirit, the spell she casts gets awfully close.

The film does pull out all the stops for the finale but, for nearly every moment it stands tall in this conclusion, it also stumbles and falls in the getting there.

It may not always come alive in the way Heller, or us, would entirely hope for, but one can still be glad “Nightbitch” exists, especially with Adams there to lead the way. In every facet of her performance, she paints a full portrait of a character herself figuring out who she now is.

It’s the exact type of film that you could see a new generation of kids finding and causing them to fall in love with movies.

It is her performance that ensures every tonal shift lands as it goes from playfully comedic to delightfully dark and back again. Despite how overstuffed and unwieldy it gets, seeing Kidman work her magic at every turn will never not be a joy to see.

There is just enough magic that it discovers by the end to give it a closing spark, but there is a mighty long road to get there, ensuring it all just remains merely okay as opposed to comprehensively good.

Where a lesser film could fall into feeling like it is just hitting issues without exploring them, Young Mothers always grounds the bigger issues in real characters. It finds genuine emotion in capturing how this is not something abstract, but a reality with which they’ll have to contend.

That there is a genuinely clever current running through it about the cinematic history of sharks and the fear they hold in our imagination is just a little added bonus that offers a bit more to chew on.

The performances are all giving the necessary punch even when the writing is not. It may frequently get lost in its own narrative woods, but Bana manages once again to bring it all back to humanity.

Out of Darkness is an often jaw-dropping horror debut that arrives at a more substantive conclusion that makes everything more interesting in retrospect.

After pushing up against the confines of a conventional musical biopic, it does end up mostly operating within them, hitting all the notes you’d expect it to hit, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t ring mostly true when it counts.

Indy is a delight who can do no wrong. Though the film around him is not always as assured, he is a star who has earned all the pets and treats a dog could dream of. After all the nightmares he had to endure this film, he more than deserves it.

Even with Fiennes and Chastain giving it their all in a manner that makes the story far more engaging than you would expect, they can’t carry it all on their own. The most ambitious and audacious performances in the world can’t overcome storytelling that is otherwise safe to the point of being timid.

It is a thriller that frequently flirts with becoming an out-and-out horror film only to never quite arrive there. The result is a middling work that is occasionally interesting, as we see how it attempts to strike a balance between these two distinct ideas. Regrettably, it ultimately can’t hold itself together when it counts.

For all the ways Botet and company put their hearts into giving it some life, the film is persistently defined by death of not just its characters, but of creativity itself.

It seems like Over Your Dead Body is caught between deconstructing itself and just going through the motions.

It is a film you won’t fall head over heels for, but one you can’t help loving many parts of. You’ll just have to do your best to fondly recall the good parts, namely Quan and Lynch, while hopefully forgetting all the rest.

For all the anticipation about this being a star turn for Styles, the lack of depth in his performance and of the film itself ensures it won’t leave nearly the impression it set out to.

It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley doesn’t do much of anything new with the documentary form, though still excavates plenty of interesting details within a familiar package.