Giovanni Marchini Camia

Garrone’s prowess as a director is still undeniable, and as far as nasty, gripping brutality goes, Dogman certainly delivers. If you’re looking for pulpy violence, you won’t be disappointed. Just don’t expend too much thought over what it’s all supposed to mean.

Polanski sleepwalks his way through the film, manifesting precious little of the skill and invention that fueled the slow-burn suspense and sinister atmospheres of superficially similar works such as Rosemary’s Baby and Repulsion.

Although the animation effect is for the most part quite well-rendered and the animals are brought to life with impressive fluidity, there always remains a slightly jarring artificiality that prevents the viewer from fully sinking into the focused and contemplative spectatorship mode he’d intended.

Although Leviathan, Zvyagintsev’s previous and far-superior effort, was hardly a masterclass in nuance, a palpable sense of empathy and flashes of humor largely compensated for its lack of subtlety. These are sorely lacking in Loveless.

Even the most generous of viewers couldn’t come up with a legitimate reason for the vileness on show here, other than pure and simple sadism.

Shedding little light on the circumstances of Elser’s failed attempt and even less on the broader history that surrounds it, 13 Minutes presents a redundant historical “what if” that leaves itself open to charges of relativization.

Ends up probing largely universal quandaries to lackluster results.

Had the story been more focused rather than trying to encompass all four sisters as protagonists as well as integrate a number of redundant secondary characters, it likely could have yielded more satisfying results.

While Rosi certainly manages to jolt the viewer out of complacency, his strategy towards this end is so ethically dubious as to border on repellent.

Disappointingly, the film feels like someone trying very hard to imitate Li’l Quinquin, pulling off but a pallid counterfeit.

While he does, to an extent, stifle some of his more adolescent instincts in comparison to earlier films (e.g. Laurence Anyways and Mommy), Dolan generally appears to have mistaken maturity for joylessness.

Even the cinematography by the Dardennes’ long-time collaborator Alain Marcoen, usually so instrumental in ensnaring the viewer within their films’ ethical quandaries, is surprisingly flat this time around.

Café Society is a quintessential later-period Woody Allen film. That is to say, it’s utterly mediocre.