John Bleasdale

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.