Mark Hanson

The film is astutely aware of the physical and psychological scars that that result from living in a state of tyranny.

The primacy that it places on its dopamine drip of dread undercuts whatever genuine commitment it might have toward mental illness and trauma.

The film’s initial pull lies in the way that Sean Baker intoxicatingly keys his aesthetic to the fervor of a budding romance that we clearly know won’t end well.

As dark as things get, the film never abandons its sly sense of humor.

At its best, Anatomy of a Fall is nothing less than a rigorous modern treatise on the knotty interpersonal dynamics of long-term relationships and how conveniently they can be distorted when exposed to public scrutiny.

At its best, the film suggests some kind of hellish Nike commercial, where “just do it” becomes less an inspirational motto than a grueling portent of doom.

By the time the film comes to the end of its brisk runtime, it feels like nothing much has actually happened, despite all the narrative convolutions.

The film is a vivid meditation on human possibility in the face of fate and nature’s tumultuous might, ending in a fog of ambiguity that mirrors that characters’ bewilderment.

The film reveals itself as a prototypical yet surprisingly tender love story between two damaged people re-learning how to move through a world that’s unable to adequately support them.

The Visitor ultimately posits a vision of transcendence through anarchy, seeing repression as the enemy of social progress.

In Antlers, the big bad is never supposed to be as scary as society’s collective wrongdoing.

The film plunges us into a world that feels simultaneously naturalistic and otherworldly.

The Holdovers is ultimately a story about the absence of family, and as it watches three individuals come together and apart, it’s subtly attuned to the way that class constricts people’s lives.

Concrete Valley reveals itself as a thrilling example, both in form and content, of the way that the fostering of community allows us to regain some measure of control over life’s adversities.

While the canvas of Robert Eggers latest is considerably broader than that of The Witch and the Lighthouse, it feels as if its psychological chaos hasn’t expanded accordingly.

While still intermittently thrilling as a basic retro-outfitted slasher, X ultimately comes off in a way that no porn (or horror) film should: like a tease.

The film intimately immerses us in the psyche of a woman for whom each day is a minefield of uncomfortable interactions.

The film’s status as a corporate entertainment product (among the film’s producers is the Winklevoss twins) also presents an internal discord in and of itself, particularly with the script incessantly preaching financial equality for all.

Until its contrived conclusion, the film plays as a queasy satire of conditioned interpersonal behavior.

Ashley McKenzie’s film blossoms into a moving story about two people trapped by the institutions that they’re beholden to.

While the film intermittently stuns in revealing Everest’s topographical mystique, its expedition into what makes climbers tick struggles to get off the ground.

Throughout, Jane Schoenbrun reveals themself to be adroitly plugged into both the current technological and sociological landscape.

The film embodies the alienating angst of millennial life in all its nakedly neurotic glory.

The unoriginality of Presence’s story eventually calls out the POV conceit as a one-note gimmick, especially when the tension is dialed up in the film’s second half.

Pablo Larraín’s film readily conjures a paranoia-suffused atmosphere of fear for what might happen at any moment.

Quentin Dupieux’s latest endlessly draws out every stilted interaction for maximum deadpan effect.

Few films feel as excitingly jacked in to our current social climate as Daniel Goldhaber’s How to Blow Up a Pipeline.

Timur Bekmambetov’s Screenlife film is more fluff piece than hard-hitting news story.