Jared Mobarak

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.

That DiCamillo’s original was so funny, weird, and poignant should have been reason enough to hew closer to its brilliance instead of using it as a springboard towards something wholly different underneath its appropriated skin. I’d like to say those unfamiliar with the source will fare better, but the film’s homogenized narrative renders it inert regardless.

Eaton and co-writer Bryan Delaney have crafted their script with skillful precision.

Its authentic depiction of unprepared young love is delicately innocent.

The film is at its best when it lets Elbaum to dig further back into the canvas’ history and the connections born from it.

That pace can also lead to some wonky performative moments, but everyone is earnest and charming enough to overcome brief lapses pushing for a laugh.

Yes, there’s a central romance that sees Howard and the new housekeeper Annie (Brid Brennan) falling in love, but its purpose is less to fix what’s broken than it is to shine a light on the fact that some things can’t be fixed.

It’s a well-made directorial debut that shows a love for cinematic history and unique sensibility to build upon it rather than simply homage.

Kågerman and Lilja bring Martinson’s poem to cinemas with a stark beauty both in its sci-fi production design and emotionally wrought performances.

The stakes built from and acted upon Jack and Scarlet’s tenuous relationship are simply rendered empty once love seemingly erases their existence.

By separating this film into two parts we really get to understand how alluring Freegard was.

It’s even more fun digging into the tales on-screen if you’re familiar with the pop culture appropriation.

Northam is very good in the lead role.

The Oak Room is playing games with us as well.

The Legend of Molly Johnson never feels like anything but a cinematic experience.

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

Stevens excels at playing put upon characters mired in self-doubt with both heavy drama and infectious humor (see Legion for another great example). He deftly pulls off the necessary instantaneous shift from frustration to epiphany very well.

While it may do a better job at depicting the nihilistic depravity of living through social media at the detriment of “real life” than Ingrid Goes West, Robert Mockler’s Like Me still fails to capture the psychological prison this artificial life creates beyond its surface chaos.

Authenticity of character is All These Small Moments‘ strongest suit because each proves honest whether or not their inclusion in the larger story does.

Peirone reverses the usual trend of providing answers so her audience can open its eyes, inundating us with more and more questions thanks to a full sensory overload of sight and sound instead. Time becomes malleable, danger but a brief interlude forgotten as quickly as it was born. She removes the pathways from one scene to another so we can find ourselves in the same bottomless rabbit hole as her characters.

The Exception is merely a serviceable drama taking us on a competent if predictable journey.

Butler’s film may be beholden to certain clichéd conventions and formulaic familiarity in its progression, but its characters evolve within them with an authenticity that dismisses such convenience as a way of life.

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

Keating’s nothing if not ambiguous in his plot motivations, keeping us confused and off-balance when all is said and done without concrete, mainstream resolutions. What’s supplied instead is intense, unadulterated dread.

Hardiman takes special care to ensure her narrative is steeped in real world plausibility.

If anything it simply reminds us of his onscreen charisma and endearing humor, his handle of Hughes’ descent into eccentricity and insanity proving memorably entertaining. While he’s not the lead, he is the glue.

The visuals ooze creepiness, even if the payoff doesn’t arrive until the very end.

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