Leslie Camhi

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It's also frustrating-we long to learn more about each individual. Still, the sheer fascination and profoundly moving power of these stories transcend the film's more conventional limitations.

At times the film's Buddhist lessons feel a bit forced, but the naturalistic performances Davaa has coaxed from a real-life Mongolian family, and her intimate understanding of their culture and values, give this sensitive portrayal its heft.

Van Looy has created a fast-paced and stylish thriller. Declair's Ledda, marvelously suave and vulnerable, provides most of the pathos.

Marvelously grizzled and tender, Josef Bierbichler's Brecht wheezes and grumbles through it all.

The film's pathos lies not with people who have justice on their side, but with those who don't know where they belong.

Krabbé alternates exaggeration with sentiment, but the main characters are relatively complex, and its surprise ending is genuinely affecting.

Offers an incisive glimpse into one woman's inner transformation -- her secret sense of loss in the midst of plenty and her sudden perception of a world of suffering lying just beyond her home.

It traces a sustained and moving portrait of the worldly Sam, whose despair as the society he embraced abandons him is both clear-eyed and devastating.

If you can suspend your disbelief regarding Nello's naïveté, this film offers some quiet pleasures.

Baltasar Kormákur's wacky version of "King Lear," set in an Icelandic village where virtually everyone plays the fool.

Despite the choppy script and cartoonishly bad villains, what emerges is a compelling tale of the moral compromises a corrupt system demands of even its most unwilling participants.

Himalaya lacks such lightness, humor, and grace, offering instead the surface beauty of an ancient and inviolate culture.

With improbable charm, Gabizon knits it all together, his characters' sexual obsessions and earthiness tempered by a soulful melancholy.

Relies on the hefty talents of its two leading ladies.

Wargnier has assembled a stellar French and Russian cast, but all that talent can't overcome his heavy-handed screenplay.

Brought to life by the weirdness of its subject matter and the risks Madhur Jaffrey takes in her brilliant performance.

There's much to admire here, including an often witty script and a cast that includes Theresa Russell, Seymour Cassel, and the irrepressible Lupe Ontiveros (Celia's mother-in-law).

Flawed but fascinating.