Leslie Camhi

What saves this deeply affecting film from being merely a collection of wrenching cases is Corcuera's attention to detail.

Slesin's film is a profound meditation on the resilience of children -- their ability to take sustenance from whatever love is available -- and on the persistent presence of the child hidden within each grown-up.

Even Mastroianni cannot hold our attention for over three hours.

A meditation-brilliant, humorous, and moving-on history and memory.

Disturbing and compelling.

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

A darkly comic tale of characters riven by divided loyalties and neurotic inhibitions.

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.

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

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

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.

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

The Inheritance is most effective in its first half...But the film falters as it moves closer to home and the heart, veering off into melodramatic and quasi-surreal scenarios.

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.

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

Marshall Karp's script is clever and funny, though studded with anachronisms.

Serry perfectly captures the peculiar climate, creating uncanny echoes with today's situation. Persian stars Shaun Toub and Shohreh Aghdashloo are extremely convincing as Maryam's parents.

The complex questions Walk on Water raises receive only confused answers.

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.

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.

Pitch-perfect performances and a light-handed but razor-sharp script keep this satire brisk and biting.

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

Chillingly naturalistic.

This delightfully sensual documentary gets inside the artist's creative process while also treating viewers to glorious music by the likes of Wagner and Satie.

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

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.

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

This extraordinary story still sparks controversy in France, but in Berri's hands, it never comes alive...a shadow play of historical icons, rather than a portrait of people in love.