Leslie Camhi

An inspired homage to his father's work, and a bracing, bittersweet testament of filial love mixed with pain and compassion.

"A very odd thriller" is how Italian director Marco Bellocchio describes My Mother's Smile, his uncannily beautiful and deeply humanist exploration of the nightmares that resurface from a Roman atheist's Catholic childhood.

Scenes from a marriage unfolding at the limits of love and personality.

Unusual in its ambition to pose deep spiritual questions, but its enticing surfaces -- including the beautiful working girls and Isabelle Adjani's surprise cameo as a Bardot-esque starlet -- are the best thing about it.

At once subtle and visceral, the film never succumbs to the trap of the maudlin or tearful, offering instead with its unflinching gaze a measure of faith in the future.

Without condescension, Debrauwer offers comic glimpses into their separate dreams of grandeur, but he lets Pauline's touching simplicity unite them.

In a flawless performance, Bacri lets us glimpse the tender desperation beneath his character's harsh, curmudgeonly exterior.

Fast-paced feminist thriller and witty black comedy.

A life so tragically and quickly extinguished presents maudlin temptations, but director Marc Rothemund ably resists them. His gripping, moving film focuses on a breathtakingly brief five-day period.

The film's occasional dips into sentimental cuteness and its too-pat ending can't cancel the gap that yawns ever wider between rural and urban society.

The storyline sometimes veers into melodrama; a subplot concerning Alex's involvement in the white-slave trade is particularly lurid. But the director retains a light touch in the character of Aurelie, whose combination of innocence and knowing is magical.

Appears strangely dated, and its unspecified location seems existentially hokey.

By setting this intimate conflict against a wider social drama, Daldry makes his portrait of a dancer all the more compelling.

Norway's hallucinatory, edge-of-the-world beauty imbues the story with a woozy, alcoholic haze and a sense of the marginal spaces into which the messiest aspects of private life are shoved.

What makes After Midnight more than just another ménage à trois (in homage to Truffaut) is the way Ferrario, who also writes about movies, weaves the allure of early film into a contemporary story, shot with the latest high-definition technology.

Noteworthy for its rich characterizations and startling plot twists, including a delightful surprise ending that is both a sexual double entendre and a matriarchal triumph.

This is a tender and engaging portrait of a marvelously elusive personality, whose style remains timeless.

Pays off in laugh-out-loud lines, adorably ditsy but heartfelt performances, and sparkling, bittersweet dialogue that cuts to the chase of the modern girl's dilemma.

It's rare that a documentary conveys an artist's worldview so compellingly, but then Glennie is no ordinary musician.

Politics hover at the edges of even the most affectionate encounters among Danae, her parents, and the Obeidallah family. Amos Elon's negativity regarding the future of the Jewish state mars the film, yet Another Road Home moves beyond dark predictions.

In his film's better moments, Kollek makes us laugh at these visions while also revealing their grace and frailty.

Hardcore Kiarostami devotees may miss the master's harsher clarity, but Hatami, best known for her starring role in Dariush Mehrjui's "Leila," makes her character's inner transformation both subtle and palpable.

Vardalos's parodies of Greek family values are loving and witheringly hilarious.

This evocative film is a poignant testament to the twin forces of love (however blighted) and the unconscious.

Chillingly naturalistic.

If the film's redemptive ending is a fairy tale, it's one we willingly embrace.

Falters when it takes a final, violent turn into melodrama.

French director Michel Deville has managed to preserve the work's great virtues--the intimacy, discretion, grace, and humor with which it speaks of both irredeemable disaster and the taste for life that survives it.