Keith Uhlich

One thing’s certain: This is no swoony love story. It intoxicates all the same.

Anna Wintour? Feh! There never was, and never will be, a style icon quite like Diana Vreeland.

Puzzling and provocative, Alps has a lingering power and an effect that is thrillingly difficult to define.

Good as Lucas Hedges is at acting the tortured teen, Jared is finally too much of a cipher for his story to really hit with the force that it should.

Like :Carnage,: it’s a bit of a minor lark until a deliciously grotesque finale pushes it into the realm of such kinkily profound Polanski films as: Cul-de-sac: (1966) and "The Tenant" (1976). By that point, you can’t help but submit to the perversity.

Though it holds your attention all the way through to an enigmatic, spiritually tinged climax, the movie leaves you wanting more than the Vega Vidals' secondhand artistry is able to provide.

First-time director Josh Trank, working from a taut script by Max "Son of John" Landis, indulges in some wild, witty spectacle, but he's equally adept with the tale's grimmer elements, especially when the introverted Andrew unleashes his inner Magneto and uses the city of Seattle as his tear-it-apart emotional playground.

It would be a Christmas miracle save for one lump of coal: an ear-shattering Justin Bieber song over the end credits. Gotta sell something to the kids at Yuletide.

The film isn't blinded by Candy's beauty and celebrity; it digs critically, if still empathetically, beneath.

There’s still enough of merit here (particularly a movingly low-key finale that strikes just the right note of reconciliation and regret) to suggest that Porterfield has the chops to eventually hone his talents to a fine point.

All of this is fascinating in the moment, yet the doc never yokes all these threads into anything particularly deep or illuminating. The Galapagos Affair is less social commentary, more gossip.