Kyle Turner

Like Mike’s modus operandi as a criminal, the film goes through all the pro forma motions.

Between Jackie, Spencer, and, now, Maria, Pablo Larraín has thrice committed the cardinal sin of taking a female icon of the 20th century and, in an attempt to hold a mirror up to her multitudes, flattened her into the equivalent of a kitschy postage stamp.

In spite of the too-muchness of their performances, the actors wrestle for expressiveness and subtlety against the script’s more obvious and schematic telegraphing of not-quite-nuclear discontent and, ultimately, reconciliation.

Horseplay is less an acutely mapped-out anthropological study into toxic masculinity and pervasive homophobia and misogyny, and more like having to spend a day chilling with the most annoying guys you know.

That the screenwriter’s mother was changed by her empathy for people different than her is an admirable value to have. But the film takes a somewhat myopic approach to Black’s reach-across-the-aisle activism philosophy, focusing primarily on his work toward marriage equality.

It leads with a teen soap tone, and despite billing itself as a film, feels structurally more like a string of episodes smashed together.

Unlike its lead characters, Anything’s Possible never quite figures out if it wants to be distinctive or just another kid at school.

The chemistry of its stars gives the movie a curious magnetism that is almost enough to forgive its flaws.

Ben and Sam’s blossoming romance does a lot of telling and little showing. While there’s the occasional amusingly idiosyncratic section of dialogue that sounds like a series of stagily poetic non-sequiturs, much of the couple’s bonding feels straightforward and unremarkable.

Concerning itself with death and history, Swan Song asks for an assured hand, but gets an ambitious assistant’s—one whose scrutiny and interest in the assortment of ideas within the work dithers, but whose ideas are nonetheless present if left only simmering.

Bloom is an alluring actress, especially when playing more subtle dramatic beats. While she’s unable to elevate a rote script, Bloom, and her character, understand how to catch the gaze of an audience in a way that the camera does not.

Tucked like a pair of aces into a solid but unremarkable hand of poker is a story arc that not only heightens the dramatic tension, but also clarifies the film’s more compelling ideas, skillfully tying the stories of the documentary’s subjects to their political subtext.

A Gen Z crusade, hyper-aware of its Indiana Jonesian influences, is an entertaining conceit. But the plodding pace of Jude Weng’s film, along with its shabby dialogue, distracts from the more emotionally intricate subplot of the mother returning home to her father after her husband’s death.

With so much ground to cover, the scenes’ shortness can feel unsatisfying and even occasionally facile. Though conversations between parents and their children are designed to be emotional beats, there’s a peculiar staginess that comes off as jarring at times.

The HBO documentary Siempre, Luis wants to be about a political lion of a father, but it ends up more enamored with his charmed son.

Effectively, the film feels dishonest and, in spite of surprisingly dynamic camera work, intellectually lazy. Ironically, there is enjoyment in watching Binoche and Hamzawi, whose character is rightfully unsympathetic to her schmuck of a cheating husband. Non-Fiction is at least no more clever than Unfriended: Dark Web.

Its subject matter is interesting, and it’s right to remind viewers of the need for different generations of queer people to communicate, but After Louie is burdened by narrative and dialogue clichés that undermine its emotional appeal.