Jared Mobarak

The whole is not without flaws and eventually falls prey to the “this was really an origin story” bid for sequels, but it is enjoyable.

Beyond what the film says and represents, it’s also well made.

[Satrapi] does what she can to give some life to Thorne’s rather staid screenplay, but even that can’t stop the film from risking its audience’s attention with by-the-numbers plotting.

O’Reilly has crafted a meticulously drawn tapestry of universal human themes within a setting that’s as unique as it is familiar.

At a time when Islam has become weaponized as a synonym for ISIS, we need glimpses at its positivity and humanity. That doesn’t mean Mu’min sanitizes things (a lot happens that could reinforce reductive stereotypes of social conservatism and familial oppression), only that she’s creating healthy representations at once relatable, laudable, and flawed. Nothing is black and white.

The film presents itself as an objective look at everything that might go into a school shooting similar to Elephant but with a narrative propulsion that also seeks to subjectively give us reasons why. It’s a duality that can’t help but give someone pause, especially if that someone has his/her own ideas about what the “real” systemic issues behind these tragedies are.

For forty minutes we become intimately aware of Oliver’s sci-fi conceit through heightened emotions, visual puzzles, and potential betrayals. It’s the perfect set-up for a thriller built on exclusion and yet it becomes much more.

Besides an unnecessarily indulgent epilogue, the film’s good versus evil dynamic is successful at extricating itself from any mainstream trappings while also nicely serving its audience.

And while the inevitable devolution of Mia and Aaryan’s union under the stress of this assessment and their respective truths hidden beneath their ideal of love is dramatic, it’s Virginia who steals the show. Not because she’s an absurdly insane character that Vikander knocks out of the park, but because there’s a reason for her intensity.

I do think the second half of The Beach House proves an effective survival horror, but it is tough to really stick with the characters due to a lack of resolution before the chaos hits.

Poésy, Kerekes, and Röhrig steal many scenes with their emotional investment to their respective roles. Schweighöfer is easy to hate . . . and Eisenberg is effective yet again as a “genius” whose pragmatism borderlines on Asperger’s if not full-on misanthropy. If the story itself doesn’t grab your attention, their performances within should.

It’s a captivating experience with wonderful displays of heart and humor, but I must question some of its execution.

When the entire cast embraces the self-deprecating nature needed to lean into the stereotypes while also calling them out, it’s impossible not to climb onboard via comedy alone. If the twists and turns are hardly shocking, that bluntness is the point.

It definitely won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but those who get on its frequency should have a whale of a time.

Sagal delivers a captivating antagonist as a result. By possessing so many possible motives, we can’t help but wonder where sanity and intent diverge.

While the film isn’t as subtle as A Monster Calls or Where the Wild Things Are, it captures the messiness of suffering just as well.

A faulty delivery device doesn’t diminish that truth or take away from the requisite happily ever after we know is coming. Purefoy, Hayman, Middleton, and Mays are too good to let that happen. They’ve willingly embraced the clichés to honor a story brimming with the kind of hope we need currently and it’s worth following their lead.

Seretse and Ruth eventually stop being individuals, transforming instead into a concept of strength and unity bolstering the real plot despite initially seeming as though they were building it.

If McEveety really wanted to give the topic its due via investigative reporting, the runtime would need to be much, much longer. His choosing to ignore that route for pulpy entertainment shouldn’t, however, have you thinking he did the topic a disservice.

While Star and An fantasize and joke about wishing they could become trophy wives of old, their roads are not paved in gold. Having each other sitting shotgun, however, does make the trip a whole lot brighter.

Tonal shifts will have some dismissing Uproar as slight, but I think its motives are strong enough to succeed regardless.

The result is bittersweet and poignant in its complex truths, but also saccharinely convenient in its execution.

A tense journey of psychological despair.

We witness Itzhak’s easy sense of humor, his often silent chuckle that almost makes it seem he’s ready to cry, and the impact music has on him while playing or listening. He explains with full candor how the teaching styles he hated as a child are the ones he has adopted. He’s self-deprecatingly jovial, religious and yet still pragmatic.

Maybe The Mercy‘s greatest strength is that pragmatism to fuel its eleventh-hour chastisement of anyone blind to Hallworth’s complicity.

Despite there being zero surprises from start to finish as it fulfills its mass-marketed, for-profit formula, Next Goal Wins never talks down to us. It ensures its characters learn from their mistakes and that any mean-spiritedness is exposed as being about the giver rather than the receiver.

A Crooked Somebody develops into a resonant character study depicting the myriad ways we take advantage of others.

We need more unrelenting work like this to use as catharsis for a youth put in peril by the inaction of aging politicians. Riot Girls proves just as much about a new generation taking the reins as it does empowered women expunging toxic male entitlement.