Jordan Mintzer

Stubby hardly shies away from the tough realities of what was known as the War to End All Wars, and it feels both proficiently documented and generally credible, even if it’s hard to believe that a dog did everything you see happening on screen.

The result is more admirable than captivating, losing its way in old school hijinks (wacky professors, evil spies, a femme fatale) that grow outlandishly phantasmagorical as the plot thickens.

Fans of Gomes’ breakthrough 2012 feature, Tabu, will find much to love here as well, and in terms of craft his latest offers some truly beguiling moments. But anyone looking for a good story, or characters to get hooked on, may find themselves admiring the scenery without ever relishing it.

The drama does eventually come full circle, but it’s gone so far off the rails by that point that it’s hard to bring us back.

Part gritty public service dystopia, part modern-day farce about the yellow vests movement that ripped through the country in late 2018, the film can be both entertaining and surprisingly funny, especially if you’re familiar with France’s politics and current economic woes. But it’s also too on-the-nose about what it wants to say, or rather, shout as loud as it can, regarding the country’s accumulated social wreckage.

It’s all a little zany and overcooked and childish, which is perhaps why the series has been so popular with French tykes and is probably better fitted for 22-minute episodes than feature-length treatment.

Without Denis’ typically transfixing aesthetics and with a storyline that lumbers along in places, High Life is not always an easy sit, even if occasional outbursts of violence spice up the action in distressing ways.

Guediguian's lengthy period yarn features a wide array of characters filmed with his habitual simpatico eye, but loses the dramatic thread in too many plots, too little action and not enough originality.

Girls of the Sun (Les Filles du soleil) is at once mildly harrowing and completely over-the-top, intermittently intense yet so unsubtle it winds up doing damage to its own worthy discourse.

The Count of Monte Cristo is the kind of movie where, after 180 minutes and many, many more plot points, you walk out of the theater without having felt the time pass. That’s a good thing if you’re looking for a fairly entertaining, swords-and-puffy-shirts revenge tale — and Dumas’ novel is probably the mother of all revenge tales.

The result feels like two incomplete movies in one, neither of them fully satisfying in the end. Still, there are some graceful moments scattered throughout, especially in the Haitian sequences, while it’s also rather refreshing to see a brand new take on a subject that’s been worked to death elsewhere.

In terms of drama, or melodrama, or just bad drama, Freed rarely delivers the goods while trying hard to give fans what they came for.

2 Autumns often lets its cute and eccentric stylings get in the way of the story itself, which, once you strip away all the accouterments, feels rather underdeveloped.

Filled with the director’s typical operatic flourishes — cameras floating down corridors or over balconies as characters race toward disaster, emotional crescendos set to a racing score by Fabio Massimo Capogrosso — it can also be a rather stuffy affair, with lots of dramatic speeches and religious symbolism that runs the gamut from satirical to heavy-handed.

The results aren’t always convincing, with the film’s mannered acting and heightened aesthetics keeping the viewer at arm’s length from any real emotion. But the director also displays a fine sense of craft and a deep understanding of the skewed European attitudes of the period.

A student-teacher romance that’s so slow-burn it almost never flares up, Wet Season marks a skillfully observant if somewhat tepid and overwrought sophomore effort from Singaporean director Anthony Chen.

Combining the mystical and the military in ways that can seem fresh compared to other recent war flicks, this feature debut from writer-director Clement Cogitore could nonetheless use some more adrenaline to make its premise work.

Fanny is definitely a worthy companion to Marius, although it’s also more claustrophobic in terms of staging, confining the action to a handful of interior sequences that feel less like a movie than like filmed theater, albeit of a rather high order.

It’s not really a movie at all, but more like a cross between a movie, a video game and a flow of hallucinatory images that could play in the background of a live show by rapper Travis Scott — who co-stars here as a gun-toting, philosophizing killer surrounded by a swarm of twerking booties.

[López Gallardo] tends to eschew straightforward storytelling for something so elusive that her film nearly escapes us for its first half, until the pieces gradually fit together and we manage to make some sense of the plot, if not entirely what the director is going for.

Benyamina has a hard time maintaining her film's pace and plausibility, especially during a third act that slides too far into genre territory and its accompanying clichés.

It’s an extremely honest depiction of adolescence, but one that doesn’t always make for compelling drama. The result is a film that fails to pack a sufficient emotional charge, even if it leaves us longing to know where Enzo will go next.

Backed by a colorful DIY aesthetic that makes the most of its budget, the film is nonetheless sappy and, in terms of its comedy, rather cringe-worthy, never quite finding the sweet spot between romance and laughs.

The material doesn’t always feel fresh enough, despite the unique setting and cast of true-to-life characters.

As much as the helmer’s aesthetic is impressive, the laconic pacing and somewhat flat performances can be a bit of a drag, as is a script that heads to familiar places and takes a while to do so.

What Loach adds to this scenario, as he’s done in most of his films, is a natural intimacy that goes beyond the issues to bring something human and emotional to the table. In its best moments, The Old Oak hits those powerful notes without pulling too hard on your heartstrings, with lived-in performances from a nonprofessional cast, including a few actors who were in the director’s most recent movies.

Director Marie Monge makes their rollercoaster love affair both seductive and irritating — the former because of the heated lead performances, the latter because you spend at least half the movie wondering why Ella doesn’t get the hell out of there.

Though it drags in spots and doesn’t convince on all fronts, Bliss is nonetheless a worthy minor addition to a canon of homefront films.

The problem in this beautifully shot but rather murky affair, which attempts to combine recent history, ethnic struggles and magical realism into one troubled family story, is that we never quite grasp all the stakes at hand, nor do we know what to actually believe.

Mysius goes all out here, but her film overshoots its target by a few miles, even if the mise-en-scène is inspired and lead Adèle Exarchopoulos excellent as always.

If his new movie feels 25 years too late, it’s also a reminder of what made the original so special in its day. Those who manage to discover The Killer through this serviceable remake would be better off revisiting the one that started it all.

A Faithful Man shows that Garrel has promise as a filmmaker, with a knack for directing actors and a welcome sense of Gallic wit. And as a performer himself, he remains a likeable and sometimes intense screen presence.

It’s more like the kind of standard Sundance-bound dramedy we’ve seen lots of times before, albeit with a charming cast and some sharp bits of commentary on race, identity and gender that come courtesy of screenwriter Adrian Tomine, who adapted his 2007 graphic novel of the same title.

If the film teeters unsteadily between sci-fi and psychology, it nonetheless confirms Clapin’s visual talents, which are backed by a dreamy score from Dan Levy, who also scored I Lost My Body. In its best moments, Meanwhile on Earth takes us beyond our desolate everyday lives to a place we can indeed dream of — and also witness on screen.

Atef toys with social themes but never connects the dots between her two plots, one dealing with reunification, the other with desire and doom.

Well-shot and edited, with a script that keeps you guessing for a certain stretch of time, The Wind doesn’t quite sustain the tension through the final reel, resorting to eye-rolling scare tactics that go from serious to way too silly. Nonetheless, it’s refreshing to see such an original stab at this type of indie genre-bender, especially one told from a strictly female point of view.

It’s a decent concept for any sort of movie – a thriller, a horror flick, a comedy – but the problem here is that writer-director Joe Martin never quite decides which one he wants to make.

By remaining purposely vague, whether about locations or the real-world stakes at hand, this modern-day political parable doesn’t hit you in the gut the way it’s meant to.

Starts off promisingly but peters out as the story, told practically sans dialogue, heads nowhere consistent.

The movie often toes the line between inner-city clichés and a vision that’s more stylish and unique, never quite landing on the proper balance between the two. But as a touching portrait of an outer-borough New Yorker whose talents are just waiting to be harnessed, it shows some true potential.

An explosive family drama whose intense performances can't always compensate for such a heavy-handed scenario, Bad Hurt nonetheless marks a promising directorial debut from playwright Mark Kemble.

On the plus side, Mifti does at times become an endearing person despite her big mouth and bad behavior, with credit due to Bauer for her rather subdued depiction of a girl searching for emotional attachment in a world where everyone seems blinded by their own pleasures or problems.

There are moments when The Other Side seems to traverse into arts-ploitation territory, and it’s ultimately hard to tell if the movie is trying to render its subjects with some humanity or otherwise if it's taking advantage of all these poor, beautiful losers.

There’s lots on the menu, and León de Aranoa brings it all together in a smooth manner. But the jokes tend to be too broad, and the themes too tritely handled.

Anna, who’s caught in a midlife crisis that deepens throughout the movie, clearly doesn’t know what she wants. But the problem is that Weisse, the director, doesn’t always seem to know what she wants either in this prickly, wavering character study that both confounds and compels, and that doesn’t manage to land its ending.

There’s a powerful social commentary running through U.K. horror flick Raging Grace that’s not always served by the film itself, which is neither scary nor all that convincing when it rummages through the toolbox of familiar genre tropes.

What it lacks, however, is a gripping and original plot, as well as enough dazzling set pieces to make all the late exposition worthwhile.

The result is a film that intrigues in its initial stages, with Cannes best actor winner Vincent Lindon (The Measure of a Man) delivering another Gary Cooper-esque stoical turn, but then overstays its welcome and fails to deliver in the final stretch.

A slick, occasionally hilarious but ultimately uneven appraisal of France’s favorite extramarital pastime.

Part of the attraction of Madeleine Collins is in seeing how far Barraud is willing take things until providing a reasonable explanation. It’s a tricky balancing act that’s one-third Hitchcockian intrigue and one-third Chabrolian study of broken bourgeois homes, with the final third bordering on kitsch.

The film isn’t a total misfire, and it conveys a strong, at times moving message about the sacrifices required in love and marriage, especially during a period as chaotic as the post-war era. But it does so in ways that can feel overcooked and clichéd, relying more on melodramatic tropes than on the subtle drama found in Quillévéré’s previous works.

Delightfully old-school on the animation side, but too old-fashioned on the story side, French 2D toon A Cat in Paris is easy enough on the eyes yet never quite justifies feature-length status.

This violent first feature is carried more by leads Christopher Abbott and Barry Keoghan than by its dour storytelling.

The film is both gripping in its execution — although a two-hours-plus running time feels a bit stretched — and totally bland in what it’s trying to say, with characters who don’t really stand out onscreen.

As much as Pelé inspired love and awe among his fans, this polished and well-intentioned biography doesn’t quite do the same.

Viewers looking for explanations should probably stay away, but those willing to be carried by the film’s casual pace and haunting aesthetic will find there are few places like it in contemporary cinema.

Like the professional dogwalker who can’t exactly keep count of Max and his cohorts, it feels like the filmmakers are juggling too many chatty creatures at once, while trying to maintain a plot that tends to grow more outlandish as the story progresses.

For a story primarily about the dregs of modern life, what’s most admirable about At Work is how it never succumbs to pure miserablism, leaving us with the feeling that if Paul somehow managed to adapt to this brand new, horrible world, perhaps so can we.

It’s a little too treacly and childish in places, with a storyline that goes exactly where you expect. But those drawbacks are somewhat compensated for by a series of arresting set-pieces, each one taking us to a spectacular Far East location not yet visited by this kind of high-powered Hollywood cartoon.

Beyond a few scattered insights, Quest mostly remains on the surface of someone it portrays as a kind of culinary Prometheus, all the while failing to justify why that should be the case. It's like a tasting menu that never really turns into a full meal.

The problem with Meier’s latest, despite the strong cast and solid direction, is that it explores the tense and thorny nature of blood ties without ever delving into the psychology of it all, often leaving us in the dark as to why the characters behave the way they do.

As Jaws and all the best predecessors have shown (John Carpenter’s The Thing also seems like a major reference), you really need to care about the crew before they’re eaten, and Hardiman doesn’t draw strong enough characters for us to latch onto.

The circus theme already feels played out from the start, while the story heads in mostly predictable directions despite the limited pleasure of seeing those mighty morphin power crackers in action.

The powerful turns don’t necessarily build towards a satisfying conclusion, in a film that starts off strong but can’t always decide whether it wants to keep it real or give viewers the sort of movie moments found in less-inventive dramas.

What makes his story particularly compelling is that most of it is true.

Vartolomei is a compelling actress and the camera truly loves her, but there’s only so much she can do with a script that doesn’t have much of a second or third act.

Two's company, three's a crowd and eight is definitely way more than enough in writer-director Daniele Thompson's mismanaged comic ensembler, Change of Plans. Less a crowdpleaser and more a headscratcher than her previous hit, "Avenue Montaigne."

This stylish chamber piece plays like a cross between Ex Machina and The Tree of Life, mixing a cleverly conceived biotechnical fable with sun-dappled sentimentalism that doesn’t always resonate like it should.

Many cinephiles are nostalgics at heart, and the story of how Kim’s Video was founded, lost and eventually found again seems to reflect a greater story about how the cinema, whether consisting of Palme d’Or winners or Z-grade slashers, has been pushed to the margins of popular culture — to be fondly remembered in documentaries like this.

It’s not quite enough to prevent this B-grade rendition from feeling rather familiar and unsuspenseful, even if stars Sydney Sweeney (Euphoria) and Madison Iseman (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle) provide a decent level of tension throughout.

Neither Baranov nor Putin — nor the many oligarchs, whether dead or alive — are the protagonists of The Wizard of the Kremlin, whose main character is ultimately Russia itself. In that sense, Assayas has crafted an ambitious chronicle that serves up plenty of compelling facts, but never turns them into the stuff of legend.

Triet tempers her style a bit while upgrading her production values (especially the vivid and colorful cinematography of Simon Beaufils), resulting in a movie that can feel both original and somewhat conventional — a classic working girl rom-com with just enough kookiness to set itself apart from the pack.

There are moments when the film uneasily skirts the line between genre conventions and documentary realism, but the portrait it paints of Casablanca’s underbelly remains credible and bleak.

Had Pixar perhaps taken more risks with that plotline, they might have pleased a smaller demographic than such a project requires to be profitable, but they might also have delivered a movie on par with some of their best work. Instead, the elements all fit perfectly into place — so much so that water eventually puts out fire, and we’re left without much of an impression.

Everyone is extremely serious, which can be a bit of a drag at times, but as a study in trauma The Cured has its moments and the film plays best when it remains intimate.

Even if the film does manage to reveal the splendor of each voyage, it tends to lose its characters in the landscape.

Tightly wound and crafted, with robust performances by Kristin Scott Thomas and recurrent Spanish Don Juan Sergi Lopez, the picture offers a rough, no-frills take on a story as old as France itself.

If Chambermaid lacks the dramatic push to carry it through to the end, Seydoux’s performance remains robust and engaging throughout.

It can impress with its utter originality and technical know-how, but there’s so much going on for so long that many viewers will be exhausted by the midway point, if not earlier.

Although the film’s dark humor and colorful, thriller aesthetics provide some juicy material at the beginning, its overindulgence in chatter, fornication and occasional gore feels too blatant to make Sono’s social commentary run anywhere but skin-deep.

On a dramatic level, Dutch-born helmer Jan Kounen's hyper-stylized, emotionally vacuous film is like a pair of designer pants that look great but don't fit, or a rare vinyl recording that keeps skipping at the best parts.

The difference here is how explicitly that tragedy appears, whereas the director built much of her best work on nuance and suggestion — on the viewer experiencing events rather than fully grasping them. The Fence features some of that moody allusiveness as well, but ultimately plays like the minor work of a still major filmmaker.

Journey mostly works thanks to Dhanush's radiant charm, with the actor adding humor and sincerity to a project that can feel too overstuffed and wacky for its own good — mixing magical realism, deadpan comedy, musical numbers and moments of tear-jerking drama.

Here the burn can be too slow to handle at times, as if the gas had been forever left at medium-low heat. You're ultimately left wanting more from a movie that tries to drift away from the usual policier template, even though shots are fired and bodies drop.

The film is so refined and filled with good taste, not to mention poetry citations and dialogue rendered with quotations marks, that it often feels inert.

It’s perhaps too focused on the Reichsfuhrer’s personal life... while the director’s decision to add sound effects to silent images sometimes feels uncalled for.

Thompson’s heavy-handed storytelling, along with a nonstop score of pure mush, brings this closer to telenovela territory than to the Louvre.

An exhausting pièce d’indulgence from the veteran video/feature director, who can never quite shape all the bric-a-brac, not to mention an all-star Gallic cast, into a workable whole.

Despite its late shortcomings, Going Away demonstrates Garcia’s ability to coax strong performances out of a relatively young cast.

The film is more of a character study than a full-fledged family drama, though one that benefits from strong, naturalistic performances by castmembers that seem to know one another all too well.

It’s got a nervously eerie feel to it that’s grounded in Canet’s gripping turn as a dad out to do good for his estranged family.

Becky tends to work best when it revels in the blood-splattered set pieces of its script (written by Ruckus Skye, Lane Skye and Nick Morris), going that extra mile and a half in the gore department (special effects makeup was by Karlee Morse) to create some truly disgusting moments, albeit ones that are laced with a grim sense of humor.

Like his other recent films, this one isn’t easy to sit through, though it’s definitely original and, per custom, impeccably made. You can accuse Dumont of many things, including testing the viewer’s patience, but at least he hasn’t sold out yet and gone over to the dark side.

Victoria is definitely what you would call a passive protagonist, and although the film subtly explores questions of ethnic identity, it doesn't necessarily keep one engaged until the end.

Neither funny enough as an outright comedy nor solid enough as a drama, and certainly not believable as an affaire de coeur.

Instead of taking us in, Black Tea gently pushes us away, even if the world depicted is certainly one worth exploring.

If the "ghost" of anime classic Ghost in the Shell refers to the soul looming inside of its killer female cyborg, then this live-action reboot from director Rupert Sanders really only leaves us the shell: a heavily computer-generated enterprise with more body than brains, more visuals than ideas, as if the original movie’s hard drive had been wiped clean of all that was dark, poetic and mystifying.

Silence is both the film’s main asset and its principal limitation, creating moments of suspense but also leaving us in the dark, to the point that it feels more like a gimmick than anything substantial.