Leslie Felperin

Setting most of the action in a mocked-up theater emphasizes the performance aspects of the characters' behavior, a strategy enhanced by lead thesp Keira Knightley's willingness to let her neurotic Anna appear less sympathetic than in previous incarnations.

This is certainly an entertaining-enough watch, even for those without much rooting interest in Gaga.

There’s so much to root for here it’s painful to concede there’s some hideously on-the-nose, spell-out-the-motivation-in-capital-letters writing that lowers the tone.

Has sturdy production values, a tony cast and middlebrow tastefulness up the wazoo, but barely any soul, bite or genuine passion.

Like its flight-challenged parrot protagonist, Rio takes a while to get off the ground but manages to soar by the end.

[It] will evoke comparisons for many with The Babadook, and while this is more generically conventional than Jennifer Kent's breakout thriller, it still taps potently into parental anxieties and primal fears.

There are some tonal problems here, particularly around the way the film tends to homogenize very disparate views and opinions into one sweet, easily digestible polemical smoothie.

There’s much to admire in the film’s elegantly classical tempo and the way Omirbayev achieves so much with so little.

Director Bose handles the material with a light, elegant touch. It helps that the cast, especially the remarkable Koechlin who gives a bravura performance in both physical and emotional terms, can carry it all off.

While it has a few incidental felicities to admire, by and large Music is a sentimental atrocity so cringe-inducing it should come with an advisory warning for anyone with preexisting shoulder or back injuries.

Along the way, parallels with key characters from the children's stories and their adventures are gestured at vaguely. But the film doesn't particularly require in-depth knowledge of Moominism and can be enjoyed for its bright performances, on-point costumes and sets, and empathic portrait of young love.

Much less convincing are the shots involving a malevolent maine coon that attacks a drug dealer and turns into a blur of fake cat and visual effects. But the moment is so gloriously cheesy and ridiculous that on its own it almost makes this something worth paying for.

The jocular, amiable tone helps deliver the more serious social history lesson throughout, even if sometimes it feels like it’s shouting just a little too loudly to wake up the dimmer students at the back of the lecture hall.

The section where Lillian tumbles down a film-making rabbit hole is by far the most amusing.

As a horror film using that now-tired device, "found footage" supposedly shot by the characters themselves, it's quite passable.

Mysius loses control of the tone, and the wayward direction of the last half hour, which unfolds mostly at a gypsy wedding and goes on 15 minutes too long, suggests difficulty finding resolution, a common problem with first films.

Norwegian writer-director Halfdan Ullmann Tondel takes some big swings with his first feature Armand, not all of which connect, but the ambition and risk-taking are largely impressive.

Helmer James Watkins ("Eden Lake") and scripter Jane Goldman judiciously combine moves from the classic scare-'em-ups with new tricks from recent J-horror pictures to retell Susan Hill's oft-adapted Victorian gothic pastiche.

"Doomsday," horror-trained British helmer Neil Marshall flexes strong action muscles and carves copious flesh here, creating the sort of broadsword-based bedlam that will thrill fans of ancient martial movies.

What’s missing from this fecund brew, which you could imagine being twice as long, is any kind of judgment or analysis of the subjects.

The powerhouse cast is so capable, the actors just about manage to play the picture as if it were a "Midsummer Night's Dream"-style frothy farce, with marigold garlands and picturesque poverty.

There’s nothing sentimental about this documentary, which looks at people with the clear, unflinching gaze of a portraitist.

Scrapper is a sweet bit of fluff that’s trying too hard to be funny and offbeat and ends up being too often simply annoying.

With Aniara, the Swedish writing-directing team Pella Kågerman and Hugo Lilja deliver a cold, cruel, piercingly humane sci-fi parable that’s both bang on the zeitgeist and yet also unnervingly original.

It’s a very good iteration of the genre, with moody lighting, razor sharp editing and great fight sequences, but be advised that only the strongest of stomachs need apply: it is excessively gory and amoral, even by the standards of such fare.

First time director Martin Krejci draws lovely performances from his cast, and the whole thing looks dreamy and splendid thanks to Andrew Droz Palermo’s cinematography – but the last act could have done with some serious workshopping to smooth out the motivational kinks and deflationary resolution.

It doesn’t quite lasso the bronco, but the ambitions of writer-director Tony Tost’s yarn are ambitious and interesting, and he has at least assembled a cracking cast to tell it.

Jaunty but thought-provoking.