Leslie Felperin

Adapted from a comicstrip-turned-graphic novel by Posy Simmonds, which was itself based on Thomas Hardy's "Far From the Madding Crowd," picture represents a satirical but soft-biting swipe at contempo middle-class mores among Blighty's chattering countryside classes.

The picture laudably adopts an intimate, personal approach to a subject -- hardworking Chinese garment workers -- that's been covered in more hectoring fashion elsewhere.

Not everything is spelled out too literally, and both the screenplay and Macneill's sensitive direction leave it to the lead actors to fill in the foreground colors.

This directing debut for experienced producer Marc Turtletaub (Little Miss Sunshine, Loving) ticks along pleasantly, driven by an efficient if slightly bland script by Oren Moverman and Polly Mann.

I feel tempted to say there’s a leaner, stronger film inside this that could have been coaxed out, but in the light of the film’s message about accepting people as they are, maybe we shouldn’t be shaming this film either. It is what it is, and that’s perfectly imperfect.

Energetically lurid, gratuitously violent and a hell of a lot of fun, horror-satire Assassination Nation is a throwback to black-comedy teen flicks of yore, but with a bitingly timely feel.

Without taking any particular stand on whether the Russians decisively swung the result of the 2016 election or just nudged it along, the film makes it clear just how insidious, relentless and brazen their propaganda effort was, seeding memes that metastasized virulently throughout the world.

With a Brechtian approach that compels the viewer to question both their own ethical assumptions and tacit complicity in a worldwide consumerist culture that exploits people all over the planet, 7 Prisoners is deeply uncomfortable but utterly compelling viewing.

Newcomer Elsie Fisher offers a breakout performance.

An utterly fascinating experiment that apparently blends real and faked material to examine notions of celebrity, mental stability and friendship.

Zero-to-60 speed crazy is pretty much right in Cage’s wheelhouse, and he offers up a perfectly amusing comical workout of the madman shtick he could pretty much do in this sleep at this point. More impressive is Blair, a chronically underused talent who gets to demonstrate her already established flair for comedy and more besides in a role to which she brings a surprisingly level of nuance.

Kore-eda keeps the tone mostly light and frothy, infusing the proceedings even at their darkest moments with humor. Although at times it feels like two or three characters too many have been crammed into its two-hour running time, every one of them is likable to some degree, maintaining the generosity of spirit Kore-eda displayed in his previous films.

Prayer dwells with almost swooning rapture on the bodies of young men as they mete out brutal violence on one another, and features a cast composed mostly of unknowns, impressively coached in order to deliver arresting turns onscreen.

One of the singular aspects of Fox's script is that it honors the messiness of real-life events, even if that means the film itself sometimes feels messy.

Those who might be able to put aside despair and absorb this strictly as a work of persuasive rhetoric will be impressed with its intellectual scope, the economy of the storytelling in its fictional narrative, the bravura editing and visual panache as it builds a world full of dust, detritus and debased morals.

"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.

The screenplay leaves it to the audience to map the psychological terrain, which will frustrate some but thrill others who prefer oblique storytelling.

With its brainy scientist heroine, and surreal, super-kitsch imagery, above-average Japanese anime sci-fi pic Paprika has a better chance than most Nipponese toons of breaking out of the specialty ghetto by appealing to femme auds as well as the genre's core constituency of fanboys.

The whole thing might have been improved by slightly nippier pacing, but the slow-burn action pays off with a spectacular climactic gun-fight, where the distances are so vast it takes half a second for bullets to find their marks.

The cast certainly seems to be in on the whole joke, or at least must have felt all those hours in the makeup chair getting swaddled in latex was worth it in the end.

This dull and humorless production won't reap the same critical support as the work of Miyazaki Senior.

Akhavan elicits finely layered performances from her cast. Moretz digs deeper than she has in years for a sensitive lead turn that harmonizes especially well with her co-stars.

The dominant note is the warm but quotidian realism of Giant rather than the experimental daring of Arbor, yet Dark River yields a perceptive study of family dynamics, unfolding in a changing landscape as prey to economic forces and demographic shifts as any urban center.