Elena Lazic

Monroe does a lot to sustain what tension there is during the more perfunctory moments, delivering a seemingly effortless performance as a dejected young woman who approaches both her confusing new circumstances and the mystery that occupies her thoughts with calm and pragmatic patience, as well as curiosity.

Like “Cruising” and “To Live and Die in L.A.,” to cite two of my favorite works by Friedkin, The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial does not stop playing with our heads when the credits start to roll.

It is a moving healing journey, but one that feels almost too smooth, a best-case scenario with few bumps in the road and, more significantly, very few surprises.

Far from a humiliating and cruel character assassination, this film is a study of the limits of perception that is tender and unsettling in equal measure.

Rather misjudged dips into the realm of fantasy likewise fail to lift up proceedings, but Rodeo is at its best when it stays down to earth, close to the pavement.

Lamb indeed is more of a slow build-up of dread than it is a real shocker, and Jóhannsson does know how to rack up the tension with long takes, long silences, and sparse set design.

The use of body horror allegories in cinema to address the physical, physiological, and mental changes brought on by puberty could hardly be called original. However, by delightfully and intelligently remixing symbols and metaphors Malaysian director Amanda Nell Eu refreshes the concept in her zesty debut feature Tiger Stripes.

Most remarkable about Deep Water is the fact that beyond being a sexy and gruesome thriller, it is also an absolute riot.

Garrel here delivers a witty and elegantly constructed film that joyfully draws parallels between acting and lying, being and pretending, while remaining breezy, fun, eminently accessible and even welcoming.

The Five Devils feels like the inevitable encounter of indestructible drives, which send sparks flying both when they are satisfied and when they are denied.

Neither an exciting thriller nor a satisfactory (“elevated”) horror metaphor for one of society’s ills, FRESH is certified meh.

A busy web of interpersonal dynamics, Love Life often feels more concerned about its characters’ storylines and the way they all fit into each other than about what the audience might be getting out of watching it all play out.

That is why, as over-the-top and broad as it sometimes is, Summer of 85 is also one of Ozon’s most moving films to date.

It is refreshing and endearing to watch as Gondry lets his protagonist, a version of himself, go to the end of his thoughts, even if they apparently lead nowhere.

More conventional than any of Aster’s previous work, Eddington is also more rigorous and explicit in its political engagement — the work of a maturing filmmaker eager to make it clear that his dark and scathing sense of humor is anything but an empty provocation.

More impressionistic and less definite than a diagnostic, our understanding of why the two protagonists behave the way they do builds up cumulatively rather than didactically. It generously makes space for the entirety of their lives and histories and allows for the possibility of change.

Through its complex structure, formed of different timelines and split realities, uncanny dreams and blurred memories, “Alpha” viscerally teases out the binds of love and trauma.

Dunham has not lost her habit of exploring taboo and shocking scenarios. But just like this new film’s fluid, low key visual style and bright, poppy production design, the coming-of-age story it presents feels so organically conceived that what would surely be completely unacceptable in another context appears to obey the film’s own perverse set of rules with warmth and a refreshing lack of judgment.

A winning adaptation that never condescends its audience.

Together with the firm confidence of its execution, perhaps it is this sincerity that marks Dark Glasses as a touching late work from a master.

It is this direct line to the characters that keeps the film relatively interesting, even as it does become rather exhausting to watch these very kooky and carefree young people gallivanting about.

Taking a step back from the many odd beats that make up the film’s rich tapestry, one can vaguely identify a method to its madness: Three Floors attempts to uncover the darkest impulses in man and to paint a stark picture of a confused world in which people seemingly have little control over what they’re doing. But like most melodramas, this one tends towards ideas of reconciliation and forgiveness, and there too, Moretti stumbles more than once.