Kate Erbland

The film’s most telling scene unfortunately marks a steep divide between the fine-tuned first half and a back end that threatens to crumble into cliche.

If only the story that surrounded it was as strong and well-crafted as the locales and people who populate it, The Photograph would be more than worthy of affection. As it stands, it just never quite develops into anything more.

Buffaloed wants to package searing insights into the crooked world of debt collecting into a cutesy comedy, leaning hard on Deutch’s skills and far less on a script that’s unwilling to get nasty with its subject matter.

With one film left in the franchise, “P.S. I Still Love You” effectively operates as both its own feature and a bridge to the more adult questions Lara Jean and company will face in the final offering. It’s a love letter to teen movies of the past, but also a smart look at what they might be in the future.

It’s a girl-powered, earnestly feminist superhero movie with big, implausible action sequences and outsized personalities, and while it never quite reaches that potential, it does begin to map out a fresh path to the world-worn arena of superhero narratives. It may not be the promised total emancipation (at least not yet), but it is fantabulous in its own way.

A straight line could be plotted through the feature which, despite its imaginative storytelling structure, still manages to hit all of the big moments in Steinem’s life.

Garbus, who has long been motivated by stories about remarkable women and horrible crimes, makes a strong showing with Lost Girls, her first narrative feature in her decades-long career.

Brie’s delicate performance nearly rescues both Sarah and “Horse Girl” from falling into the awkward traps it sets for itself, hedging on the tough stuff in favor of weirdness for its own sake, faux-arty style over anything that could offer the slightest interest in healing, for either its star or her story.

Lively makes off with one of her best performances ever, and one that makes an unexpected case for giving the actress a real action franchise next time around. One of contemporary cinema’s most underrated chameleons, Lively throws herself into the role with real gusto.

Deadpan in her delivery and facial expressions, Zadie is indeed a mess, but she’s working her way toward something better, and Meghie’s frisky comedy gives her the space to make some strides. As the weekend amusingly crumbles around her and the rest of her cohorts, Zamata tentatively approaches something like maturity (and definitely like getting the hell over Bradford), giving shape to a mostly freeform narrative.

Nothing connects, nothing gels, and every thread is lost.

As Levine unravels clever jabs and jibes at current culture — few recent features have so smartly picked apart both feminism and caveman culture with such insight and humor — tenuous bonds break down.

While Worth is most literally concerned with a stupefying question — what is a life worth? — it’s more precisely about the price of calculating such a wrenching ask.

It’s hard to ever shake the sense that everyone would be much better off just queuing up Östlund’s film and moving on.

Emerald Fennell’s raucous debut, Promising Young Woman, twists its buzzword-laden, spoiler-free synopsis — it’s a #MeToo rape revenge thriller with bite! — into something fresh and totally wild.

Lloyd’s feature strikes a fine balance between all of life’s ups and downs, illustrated by Sandra’s unfortunately relatable traumas and a series of stellar performances.

What starts as a blandly divided documentary eventually finds its way to something inspiring, infuriating, and unbounded by old ideas.

Although Doucouré steeps Cuties in emotion and experience, she abandons its grace to make crazier gestures.

Yes, it’s a searing examination of the current state of this country’s finicky abortion laws and the medical professionals tasked with enforcing them (from the small-minded to the big-hearted), and if art can have any impact on its consumers, the film will stick with many of its viewers, perhaps even changing long-held beliefs. But it’s also a singular look at what it means to be a teenage girl today, and with all the joy and pain that comes with it.

Brief moments of brilliance, including a riveting performance by Riseborough and a number of gorgeous frames, only shine with momentary appeal before the whole thing slips back into vapidity and convention.

While the beats are familiar and even a film about animated pigeons can’t quite break out of the tropes that have long defined the spy film genre, it’s the kind of sweetly demented late-December diversion that should entertain plenty of holiday-weary families.

The explosions might not be as big on the streaming screen, but they’re as bonkers as ever.

"The Next Level” attempts to find a balance between winking jokes about video gameplay and the price of immortality (no, really), settling back into the charm of the film it’s tasked with following up. It’s not the most original kind of magic, but there’s potency there, more than enough to keep audiences hanging around for at least one more round.

The film really hits hard when it leans more into the emotion of it all.

The clock is always ticking in 1917, and even as MacKay is offering a heartbreaking study in restrained emotion, he’s still at least moving towards the end goal of his terrible task. There’s no time to pause, even for great beauty, a lesson that even 1917 is often loathe to honor.

Gerwig’s adaptation looks at the eponymous little women through ambitious storytelling techniques that modernize the book’s timeless story in unexpected ways.

Little of 21 Bridges ends up being that shocking — it’s tough going when the face a character makes after accepting a phone call can so easily tip off that something’s amiss — but Boseman and Miller make a solid team and creative plotting keep things moving right along.

No sequel is essential, but Frozen 2 makes the argument that, even in the fairy tale land of Disney, they can still be important.