John Bleasdale

The thoughtfulness of Plummer's performance is not matched by a script that forgets human logic in favour of narrative tricksiness that ultimately undermines the initially intriguing premise.

The film is often remarkable, gorgeous even - many of the shots in Youth would make excellent closing shots, including the opening shot - and funny. It's a work of wonderful moments, but it's less than momentous and, significantly, you'll never believe a single word of it. This is a pity as the performances are excellent.

There are moments of real wonder and delight and Quentin Blake's original illustrations are occasionally glimpsed in the set ups. This isn't an epic of visual wizardry and there's zero irony or clever wit. Rather, Spielberg's latest is an old-fashioned children's tale told simply and with plenty of heart.

Everything looks beautiful: sand the colour of peach fluff and skies, a cyan blue.

The Seasons in Quincy is most compelling when we and it listens to Berger or captures him listening to someone else.

This is the kind of oddball midnight movie that could easily gain a cult following and there are delights to be had in the midst.

Crimes of the Future still has its strengths. Howard Shore’s score lends a tragic, almost stately emotional counterpoint to the steel of the wit.

Fans of Kawase will likely enjoy this delicate tale of people finding their way in the dark.

Eisenberg avoids, for the most part, doing a Woody Allen impersonation, but his bumbling guilelessness is wearing and Stewart seems out of place, unable to ever quite get over being Kristen Stewart in a Woody Allen movie. In fact, both young leads seem nervous to have been invited and often appear simply pleased to be there.

The humour is as gentle as the girls are and, without sharp edges, the film occasionally veers towards schmaltz, but Kore-eda's deft touch and his eye for a subtle yet precise detail keeps the world grounded and consistently interesting, funny and at times moving.

For the occasional lapse...there is often a striking image or sly moment of humour to take away and overall, the film rewards persistence.

Although not quite the bounty of its title, The Treasure rewards the patient viewer with a quietly enchanting drama.

Mia Madre is an intimate and sincerely made family portrait, which ends up betraying its own indifference to anything beyond the confines of the family.

Plá's film is a caustic, genuine swipe at a selfish and insincere society which is content to make money from the suffering of ordinary people.

The dénouement when it comes doubles down on the madness and 11 Minutes is never boring, but neither is it quite as revolutionary as it thinks it is.

As you'd expect from an actor-director of Amalric's pedigree, the performances are brilliant throughout and Mathieu himself has a wonderful eye for the telling tick and/or the revealing gesture.

As fascism in South America, North America and Europe is rising from the grave, it needs a properly-aimed and delivered stake, rather than complacent sniggering

A well-behaved and unashamedly populist film, the kind that could be shown in schools and community centres, Akin's The Cut remains an undeniably important film regardless. What it does extremely well is to movingly illustrate a terrible moment in history which has been sadly neglected in the West and actively suppressed in other parts of the world.

The first forty minutes or so are – as you would expect – a harrowing recreation of the bombing and the crime.

There's something highly familiar about the material and although it is artful and occasionally powerful, Akin and co-screenwriter Hark Bohm have constructed their story without straying far from countless other versions of the same thing.

It might be that the actor Dano baulks at taking the scissors to any of the performances of his fellow thespians, or that screenwriters Dano and Zoe Kazan are too faithful to Richard Ford’s source novel but this results in a deadening of effect that renders the melancholy monotonous.

The House By the Sea is ultimately a deeply satisfying and occasionally moving experience.

It’s difficult given the premise of the film not to come out of The Workshop thinking of alternative directions the story could have gone in.

This is a good solid three star movie. Which is perhaps where Snyder should be anyway, away from the extremes of deification and vilification. When he’s not trying to be great, he can actually be quite good.

Party Girl may tread familiar ground but Theis-Litzemburger is utterly convincing as the self-absorbed, beguilingly unaware lead.

The Measure of a Man is solid social document that offers insight into quiet lives lived by those who don't give in - despite every good reason - to desperation.

There are moments in the film that just feel wrong, sometimes complex and wrong and sometimes just plain wrong.

As Personal Shopper progresses a rather predictable series of twists almost drain the story of interest.

As the family resolves problems of the film's own making, the satisfaction gleaned is relatively minor. The threatened and/or promised explosions fizzle out frustratingly, leaving behind the lurking impression of Louder Than Bombs as a well-crafted, well-played, slickly-written misfire.

Adapting Melanie Joosten's novel, Shaun Grant has been unable to recapture the grimey darkness of everyday evil of his previous script Snowtown. Instead, we get a sojourn in place of trauma.

Not great, not hilarious, but not terrible or awful either.

The more conventional thriller element demands that the transformation from enmity to something like love is too swiftly accomplished to be properly convincing.

Sweet Red Bean Paste is a modest film which seeks profundity in the detail of life.

There's a lot that's wonderful about Andrei Konchalovsky's Holocaust drama Paradise and yet there's something fundamentally wrong with the film.

Danish singer and actress Trine Dyrholm plays the diva with verve and energy, in a portrait which is also something of a reevaluation.

There’s so much to enjoy in Ema that it comes as a surprise that there’s so little there.

The journey through a nighttime New York is rich in realistic characters, observational details and some original locations.

As every section seeks to deepen and complicate the basic message of Mountains May Depart - that the incredible speed of technology and society has its prices and dangers - and the failure of the final section dilutes where it should intensify.

De Palma is a timely reminder of one of cinema's most infuriating yet entertaining characters.

It’s impossible not to be beguiled by the sweetness of the comedy, the skill of the performers and sheer craft of the film. But hopefully next time out Kore-eda will use it in the service of a plot which is more believable.

This is a confident dramatic voice emerging and it will be interesting to see what comes next.

Ultimately, Narvel is the fascist as liberal fantasy. Someone with access to skilled violence, who can unleash it at whim. It’s such a pity that a screenwriter who used to excel at delineating the intricacies of male insecurity and poison now comes out with such a one-dimensional character.

Most powerful of all is Gulpilil's performance. His presence at the centre of the film is one of anger, humour and ultimately resilience.

The script by Cronin and Stephen Shields blends the familiar with the eerie well and never allows silliness to take over. The performances all round are superb and Seána Kerslake creates a credible heroine – a woman on the edge but who is by no means fragile.

The acting throughout is supremely naturalistic, and the social milieu of both family life and the theatre are carefully observed and lightly rendered.

The style, one senses, is overcompensating for a narrative slackness that has nowhere particular to go other than anti-climax. That's not to say that Manglehorn isn't a good film - it is. It's just that Pacino's seasoned performance deserved a great film.

The King feels disconnected and unurgent. Despite some wonderful moments, it perhaps lacks the requisite majesty.

The Eternal Daughter is very much a minor film for Hogg: a small chamber piece which could be watched as amusing marginalia to The Souvenir diptych. It’s a hangout film for those among you who can’t get enough Tilda Swinton and an incredibly cute dog, and as such it works. It doesn’t really have anything to say, and the meta-ness feels a little tired.

Ultimately, Memphis is a bold and bewildering conjuring act, that might mean nothing at all, but the sleight of hand is worth the price of admission.

Efira is a dominant and compelling presence and Sibyl is frequently funny. Ultimately, it never quite squares the circle of the comedy and the pain, but Triet is a sophisticated filmmaker and this – her third feature – is further proof of great talent.

Hopefully, Soderbergh’s film will raise more awareness as well as a chuckle.

The film can't be faulted for its attempt to argue for some kind of humane kinship and reconciliation, even if this attempt ends up dissolving the enmity in a sentimentality that, given what has come before, strains credibility.

Babyteeth is a funny, vibrant and deeply moving piece of work. Its flaws are the flaws of youth, overcompensating for boredom with frenetic hyperactivity.

The film itself is utterly uncontroversial, solid, occasionally stolid, and perfectly fine.

This is heartfelt, inspiring stuff and there is no doubt that this is a true story that absolutely merits wider recognition.

There is much to enjoy here - especially at the beginning - and Östlund's ambition and vision are to be applauded. However, The Square would have been greatly improved had the director taken his scalpel and his demanding critical eye and applied it to the film itself.

Captain Fantastic is a slickly made comedy with a witty, politically articulate script and some wonderful cinematography by former Jacques Audiard regular Stéphane Fontaine.

A Woman's Life is a modest chamber piece, a series of sketches revealing a life of quiet desperation, which eschews melodrama and, for the most part, platitudes but exhibits great tenderness and sensitivity.

It's as if Wiseman has taken his cue from the old style librarians and has wanted to give a portrait of a community but without the inevitable noise that goes with it, issuing one long "shhhhhhhhh".

An unnecessarily loud ending is an unwelcome jolt that will likely divide audiences down the middle, but Chronic is an otherwise unique character study of endearing depth.

Ash Is Purest White is a fascinating chapter in Jia’s ongoing chronicle of ordinary lives affected by unprecedented change in China.

Franco has a hardlined style and a kind of story that play like an apprentice Haneke. However, as each film arrives, the power diminishes, because the stories are now easily predictable.

The nighttime tungsten orange of the street lighting and the urine-coloured neon of the interiors makes for a grueling visual experience which is why the daylight of the latter-half offers precious relief.

When You Finish Saving the World is fine. It’s well made, witty, and Wolfhard and Moore are effortlessly convincing in their roles; Wolfhard shucking off his Stranger Things image in the process. The problem – if there is one – is in the smooth snark of the title. There are sharp edges here that never bite.

Irony has a wearying effect after a while, ultimately leading to a flattening of the ethical landscape so that by the end of it we can’t help but feel they’re all as bad as each other.

At its very best his Venus in Fur is a clever and often comical two-hander, with Amalric and Seigner both giving tour de force performances.

With its surprising narrative twists and handsome visuals, Black Souls ends up being a far more original take on the Italian organised crime drama than first thought.

Deladonchamps and Lacoste make for engaging leads and there is warmth and humour here too.

Dark, lurid, sadistic and powerful, it is at the least a fascinating and bold debut, and promises better to come.

There are numerous delights for the patient and the two leads give prize-worthy performances but at just under three hours this is one drawn-out gag that almost outstays its welcome.

An entertaining and suitably gruesome gangster thriller which nevertheless feels like a missed opportunity.

This affectionate portrait in failure is more in the tone of Darren Aronofky's Venice winner The Wrestler, carried mainly by a brilliantly swollen performance by Schrieber, full of humour and bluff and yet with an intelligence to learn his lessons, slowly, but learn them.

There is something of Scorsese to this rise and fall of a criminal family and Trapero crams The Clan with life.

Cosmatos’ Mandy matches Cage grimace for grimace and achieves, at times, a transcendent midnight madness.

There's no getting away from it, Gibson has produced another bombastic, crowd-pleasing and obviously blood-soaked movie which expertly glorifies that which its hero was against.

Character and psychology aren't really the point here. Bozon's world is one of adult grotesquerie splatting against the wall of youthful hostility.

The film itself is fairly conventional given the wildness of its subject matter and Jim Jarmusch's pedigree.

Mektoub My Love is an often beguiling work, drenched in beauty and humour and an inclusive warmth.

Campillo doesn't edit for our comfort and we feel both the tragedy and the boredom of death.

Panahi keeps everything as softly spoken as his own onscreen presence and yet some of those quiet observations are devastating.

Ultimately, Everest is not concerned with the why, but with the how and it's grimly efficient at building up the drama, helped on by Clarke's wonderful character study, even if the film as a whole never quite reaches the dizzying heights of its subject.

As with Kaufman's own stunts, it's difficult to know what to take seriously.

Though it can't bear too much comparison with Sicario, Wind River is far better than its title suggests and a promising directorial debut.

Once beyond the babble of the Mindfulness merchants, the latter half of the documentary, however, is far more interesting and compelling as Shen has his experts round on the noise pollution that so disrupts our lives.

The Capote Tapes show a talent that seemed to go to waste while at the same time teasing us with the possibility that there is more yet to come.

It is a demanding watch, but at the same time, Alonso's latest has a bizarre, beguiling quality which drifts towards the sublime even if it never quite gets to its destination.

Jupiter's Moon is a highly ambitious and thoroughly entertaining trip and if the politics is more backdrop than subtext, what remains is compelling and occasionally beautiful enough for you to enjoy the flight.

The alienness of humanity, when seen from another perspective, is evident throughout the film.

Garrel and Miller manage to create a credible chemistry.

Ultimately, Alverson’s The Mountain is arthouse cinema at its frostiest.

Black Mass is ultimately a decent film with some great parts, but unfortunately it falls short of the canon to which it aspires.

All of Gilliam's little details are fun and there are some laugh-out-loud lines, but the actual story itself is never compelling and simply doesn't zip as it should.

The performances are pitch perfect, particularly that of Marceau, who is superb in riding through the conflicts of the situation and the moments when the strong emotions riding over the niceties finally come to the fore.

As the film drifts through dream sequences and diversions, the dramatic power of the chase fizzles in the damp of the woods.

One feels its subject would have admired the boldness of its conception, if perhaps not its overly slick execution.

It's gorgeous, lush and fun, but there's an underlying silliness to the endeavour which, despite occasional archness, constantly threatens to trivialise events.

Two Days, One Night is well made, and Cotillard and the rest of the cast give assured performances, but its optimism is desperate. By no means the Dardennes' best work, one wonders if they shouldn't perhaps stray outside of their comfort zone.

Berg's Little Girl Blue inevitably concentrates on the tragic parabola of the life without fully getting to the heart of the art.