Jared Mobarak

So even though the whole can feel a bit cutesy at times, there’s real weight beneath that façade.

The last act almost feels like the directors were doing their best to talk about those things that would have either slowed down and complicated the exquisitely rendered first two, or hadn’t yet happened until she left PBS.

The events onscreen are semi-autobiographical for Sama and thus a document of the turmoil those his age at the time faced when external expectations and internal hopes clashed. At its center: love. The power it has to bring us together opposite its potential to tear us apart.

The Dry reveals itself as an engaging thriller in the vein of fellow Australian production Top of the Lake with duplicitous figures sharing a contentious enough history to confuse facts with emotions thanks to having a familiar face heading up the investigation.

It’s about hypocrisy, mistrust, and the struggle felt by second-generation immigrants everywhere. And Haq pulls no punches in depicting just how devastatingly bad things can get when a child’s mind is torn between a community built on archaic ideals and another entrenched in a present where such stringent rules prove impossible to uphold.

Writer/director Alexandra-Therese Keining‘s adaptation of Jessica Schiefuer‘s 2011 August Prize-winning (Sweden) young adult novel Pojkarna (translated as The Boys but changed to Girls Lost for international release) is deliciously dark and profoundly vital.

By letting the horrors to come unfold in all their uncensored brutality, Dear Jassi forces those who would rather dismiss such situations as not being their problem to experience the violence being done in God’s name firsthand.

There’s a tug-of-war between plot and characters that always seems won by the former to the latter’s detriment. If not unforgivable, it is frustrating. Thankfully, the style has a way of distracting from those shortcomings.

The film doesn’t nail every beat . . . but what it gets right is unassailable.

Blood Relatives delivers familial drama and genre hijinks.

This film leans hard into its irreverence, knowingly sacrificing mystery and twists for foolproof laughs.

The end result isn’t bad; its potential merely creates disappointment.

Doff may have thrown in a kitchen sink of clichés, but he knows exactly how to marry them together. The result is an endearingly uproarious affair.

The unassuming man in the corner is unexpectedly thrust into the spotlight and he handles the pressure with aplomb, ducking and dodging and building a new narrative. It’s a role that demands a presence such as Rylance because the whole is very theatrical in its one-set staging.

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.

The acts of violence writer-director Rob Jabbaz has his characters inflict upon each other are as depraved as can be and seemingly devoid of remorse.

It’s a very funny romp with a fantastic comedic performance by Pednekar.

Add a surprisingly talkie ending that tries to walk back the no-holds-barred bloodshed for the revelation of a secret I honestly didn’t care about anymore and I found myself fatigued rather than excited.

As a journey inward into the roiling waves of memory and regret, Ahari fulfills his promise with an unapologetic air of penance and disgrace. That its success happens despite his exploitation of Neda as a character and woman doesn’t, however, negate that egregious misstep. And the latter being highly triggering unfortunately renders any blind recommendation of the former a reckless proposition.

For director Inon Shampanier and co-writer Natalie Shampanier to tackle something so complex is therefore commendable whether or not Paper Spiders proves a complete success.

The First Purge becomes a call to arms so to speak (sometimes to its detriment) — a reminder that we must stand up and for each other at the voting booths and in our communities now so we won’t need the civil war of Election Year.

The result is at once empowering . . . heart-wrenching . . . and inspirational.

Adapting a book by Deborah Kay Davies, director Harry Wootliff and her co-writer Molly Davies bring True Things to life as a quasi-reaction to Instagram captions generally painting a much sunnier picture than reality could ever prove.

While Robinson’s film does fall into the usual trappings of biopic beats, its subject can’t help but transcend them.

Chavis and Miller excel at living in the complicated areas of their characters’ psyches and the supporting cast doesn’t miss a beat in allowing them the room to do so, I think Oyelowo’s refusal to go all the way with the fantasy makes what little there is trivial.

Just as things get bumpy and tensions rise, a bow-tied resolution commences, devoid of stakes yet overflowing with heavy-handed message.

Those uninterested in cinema’s experimental and formal qualities probably won’t find themselves sitting down to be disappointed or bored by its very insular nature anyway. So those seeking it out will be the ones with the desire to embrace its unorthodox narrative style and subtle progressions.

If we’re not supposed to pity Dahmer while watching the unfortunate progression of his sad life, why are we watching? Is it to reinforce the notion that he was always a monster? Or is it to forgive Derf (Alex Wolff) and his buds for assisting in his descent? In the end it really doesn’t matter because we don’t buy any of it.