Leah Greenblatt

A measured if still-maddening look into the 2016 USA Gymnastics scandal.

Even at 93 minutes, the material feels thin, and so does its moral message. But the movie's goofy, blunt-edged claustrophobia may also be its greatest gift to viewers: the chance to be grateful that the only ones haunting our own homes right now are us.

Davis and "Bloodline" Emmy winner Mendelsohn, both Australian screen veterans, do the less glamorous work of being sad, angry adults, though it's often their ordinary grief that grounds the movie, even as their stories lean into the clichés of certain coping mechanisms (Pills! Infidelity! Bargaining with God!).

Director Daniel Karslake (For the Bible Tells Me So) does that by homing in on singular tales — and letting them unfold largely without judgment or editorializing.

The script, which Davidson co-wrote, is rooted in his own childhood loss; his father, too, was a fireman, killed on 9/11. In its best moments the movie resonates with those realities, though it also comes packaged, like so many Apatow films, in a kind of incurable ramble — some two-plus hours dotted with pleasingly random cameos (Pamela Adlon, Steve Buscemi) and odd tonal shifts.

Even at the movie's silliest and most unsteady moments, she's (Wasikowska) the ballast: a Judy bruised but unbowed — and finally, fully ready to punch back.

The movie has its moments, some of them genuinely delightful. Still, there's a world where The High Note could have struck a stronger, deeper chord, and resonated.

What feels freshest, maybe, is the mere fact of two leads of color taking on all the tropes of the genre and making it feel as modern as they do.

Still, there's a sort of willful energy field between Giedroyc and Feldstein that pushes the story along; the blithe, anything-can-happen thrill that comes from being young in a world where anything is possible — including the right to wreck yourself spectacularly, rebuild, and then start it all over again.

Maybe what's most frustrating is how much the movie's deeper themes — morality, mortality, the twilight of power — churn intriguingly at the edges of nearly every scene only to turn toward sentiment, or become merely secondary to its relentless focus on his physical decline. There’s merit, of course, in exploring the good and bad in every man, even one as notorious as this one; Capone, in the end, just settles for ugly.

It's a fascinating story, this clash of 1960s idealism with the cold realities of modern science, though not one that director Matt Wolf (Wild Combination: A Story of Arthur Russell) is fully able to bite off and chew in Spaceship Earth, his fitfully enthralling but frustratingly incomplete documentary.

A gentle, almost willfully recessive story about love and loss and all the ways that people find to share the burden of them both, one unhurried day at a time.

As a director, Onwubolu brings a tender, vivid touch the film’s relationships — particularly Timmy’s giddy plunge into first love with the fiercely independent Leah (Karla Simone-Spence) — though he stumbles when it comes to building deeper storylines around them; there's almost no narrative turn that doesn't seem telegraphed from the jump.

A nervy, deeply felt drama that gets a little lost on its winding path to redemption but still finds a way home.

Director Cory Finley (who also helmed 2017’s great, underappreciated "Thoroughbreds") brings a light touch to Mike Makowsky’s script, nimbly balancing broader comedy and pathos.

You can see gifted actors like Hoult and MacKay struggling to make the most of the material, and add finer shadings to Shaun Grant's bare-knuckled script. But for all its real visual flair, it's hard not to feel that the film misses something crucial about Kelly in the end — trading machismo for manhood, and sensation for true history.

Extraction mostly delivers what its swaggering trailer promises: international scenery; insidious villains; a taciturn, tree-trunk Aussie. And the comfort of knowing that the kids — or at least the one he came for — are probably alright.

If only hilarity ensued; instead, Wedding manages to feel both overwrought and underbaked, consistently squeezing the natural charm out of its players in order to bang their hapless miscommunications and personality quirks into the ground. It's enough to make it through once; Repeat may be a bridge too far.

It helps immensely that the film has an actress like Amy Ryan (Birdman, Beautiful Boy) to play Mari Gilbert, whose years-long battle to get anyone at all — the press, the police, the people of New York — to care about her daughter Shannan forms the emotional core of the story.

Fists will smash; pecs will flex; hard consonants, like dirty cops, don't stand a chance. It's the only sure thing in this crazy world, kids — except maybe a sequel.

A bittersweet comic absurdity, told in the rhythms of real life.

If Bening’s genteel British accent sometimes feels a little wobbly, her character is by far the most vivid force in the film.

Affleck keeps the movie anchored with his rumpled, unshowy performance: a man killing himself to live, until he can start to believe that maybe there's a better way.

Even at a relatively brief hour and 37 minutes, the familiar contours of Scanlon's story line struggle to conjure the wonder that Pixar’s most transcendent movies do; instead of truly new, it’s mostly old things borrowed, and tinted blue.

If Big Time isn’t exactly a PSA for good adulting, it’s still an endearingly messy portrait of boyhood and manhood and all the lessons in between.

If the buildup and catharsis of its final minutes are more than a little silly, and marred by Whannell’s urge to put too neat bow on it all, the movie still has its satisfying jolts — including possibly one of the single most shocking screen deaths so far this year.

The freshness is found, primarily, in the energy of her storytelling and her vital young cast.

As an attempt to scale the craggy heights of a marriage in crisis, Downhill may be more bunny slope than black diamond — a force mineure, but still worth the trip.