Jared Mobarak

Green and Fonacier are both fantastic within this evolving dynamic, their inevitable end a mutually brutal sacrifice meant to close a broken loop rather than continue some damaging cycle. Their characters are so complex that their best moments are those subtle shimmers revealing true natures beneath old façades.

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.

It’s nothing short of heroic and heartbreaking and important—both because of how laws in her name are still being planned to go before the US legislature and because audiences need to remember that victims of domestic abuse deserve to be given as much benefit of the doubt as their abusers. Being an addict shouldn’t disqualify you from receiving life-saving protection.

The (un)reality of what’s happening beneath the surface is hardly unique or secretive, but the way Veach writes its revelations and McKee films its visual labyrinth spanning past, present, and purgatory ensure the drama unfolding is never without intrigue.

Chavez and Rodriguez deliver authentic performances in first-time roles that shine a light on harrowing circumstances, but the script they’re beholden to won’t let us embrace them outside the construct that all professionals are irrefutably out to prey upon the less fortunate.

Barlow and Senes do a great job keeping things entertaining and plausible insofar as how casualties cross the path of their killers.

It reaches past the usual rock clichés to recognize that the struggle these women face is more immediate than striving to perform for sold-out crowds or become signed by a label. This is about surviving a chaotic environment marked by past violence while still entrenched in present-day political revolution.

Don’t expect to know how it’s all going to end; Pereda makes certain to save the blood for the finale.

The film zooms in to project humanity’s struggle onto Vesper. With one gust of wind (and some tragic losses), health and prosperity can be hers (and ours) again.

To say The Swearing Jar is an uplifting film without a clarifier such as “bittersweet” is perhaps a tough sell, but that’s exactly what it is.

It’s a delicate scenario that treats its characters with the respect and complexity they deserve.

Iliff’s script and Hughes’ direction might not provide anything we haven’t seen before, but both allow the actors the necessary room to give us what we need to stay invested.

What begins like a feel-good tale of one woman’s quest to be the best, Stephanie Johnes’ Maya and the Wave quickly transforms into something much bigger. More than simply attempting to rejuvenate her career after three back surgeries, anxiety disorders caused by the trauma of the accident and its public backlash, and a loss of sponsorship, Maya’s journey became a fight for equality.

It’s so well-paced that the final twenty minutes hit with an urgency I wasn’t expecting.

Expect a breezy affair with good-natured laughter and low stakes. You’ll learn some things and remember others en route to watching as Poitier’s legacy is reinforced with a carefully curated mix of family and friends driven by the sole goal to immortalize their hero.

A stirring tribute to a man of many talents, Chevalier gorgeously gives a once-forgotten virtuoso violinist the cinematic treatment.

The role of Alice is very much internal and, as such, very reliant upon putting her thoughts onscreen. That we can also see those thoughts in our own minds simply through Kendrick’s thousand-yard stares, moments of lashing out, and visibly draining anxiety is a testament to her commitment to the character and the script’s nuanced complexity to allow her to say so much without saying anything.

LaBute is meticulously escalating the danger by providing Hap his wildest dreams in a way that reveals to the audience how their ability to come true is reliant upon him losing control.

The film’s simply a bit off-kilter—written with influences blatantly on its sleeves yet uninterested in subverting any assumptions that fact guarantees. I must be missing something.

The Immaculate Room isn’t breaking the mold on this type of conceit; if anything it’s purposely embracing a narrow scope of mental fracturing the scenario can ignite and counting on the actors to make it compelling.

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

Braun and Martin make some interesting choices and craft a gorgeous-looking film on an obviously shoestring budget, but none of that matters when my one wish was for these characters to never see each other again.

It’s empty horror barely skating by on recognizable IP.

That this claustrophobic sci-fi thriller quickly won me over with its early David Cronenberg inspirations only allowed my excitement to increase with each passing minute as I found myself unable to detach from its captivatingly dark, timely pandemic mystery.

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

Beyond its aesthetic and horror lies a poignant message about second chances.

Grashaw’s ability to keep everything moving through that thick air of uncertainty is the film’s best attribute because it does feel like we’ve gone off-track more than once after chapter one (there are three, one for each sibling).

Is the tonal marriage perfect between the over-the-top hijinks about the gross commodification of “wokeness” and melodramatic exposure of the cost those actually fighting must pay as a result? No. In many instances it seems Shephard does want us to pity Danni (Deutch’s performance almost deserves it too once she finds a conscience hiding below her vanity) despite her endgame proving the opposite.