Mark Olsen

Baumbach and Clooney have crafted a character who comes to realize his mistakes, many of which simply can’t be undone. Jay Kelly, the movie star, may be in the process of figuring himself out, but “Jay Kelly” the movie arrives as a fully-formed knockout.

Told with an unassuming, gentle simplicity that grows into an accumulating emotional power, the film manages to feel very small and specific while also vast and expansive.

Figgis gets moments of real tension and genuine behind-the-scenes drama, but is also too respectful and admiring of Coppola, understandably so, to push his own inquiry to its limits.

The entire movie has a disappointing air of smug self-regard about it, with an expectation the audience will adore everything about the characters as much as they do. What at moments feels like a nascent interrogation of contemporary masculinity ultimately suffers from the very impulses it seems to want to parody.

Ruizpalacios creates a visual style that continues to reinvent itself right up to the end, crafting an unpredictable feeling that matches the volatile plotting.

With Tuesday, Pusić shows great promise as a visual storyteller and director of performers. Yet it is in her work as a screenwriter where the film falters. Without the power and nuance that Louis-Dreyfus brings to the role, the drama would not have nearly as much spine or impact as it does.

Hit Man makes for an undeniable good time. Sometimes all you really need is a couple of impossibly attractive people enjoying each other’s company, captured by a filmmaker who knows when to stay out of their way. And if that’s not a movie, well, then, I don’t know what is.

There is a journeyman’s proficiency to “Chapter 1” but little in the way of real spark.

The film is pleasantly reminiscent of ’90s neo-noirs in both style and storytelling, but with a narrative fearlessness and visual imagination that makes it totally fresh.

A comedy about learning to live with grief, Between the Temples has a lot going on in its head and heart.

Bayona mixes a sense of survivalist adventure with an otherworldly spirituality — the idea that they were somehow touched by something bigger, but also that the answers to what they needed were there with them all along.

Boutella often has an otherworldly screen presence that makes her perfectly suited for this kind of material, but the fussiness of all that is happening around Kora means that the character and performance never get a chance to breathe and blossom, or to fully come to life.

More discursive than comprehensive, the film does seem to capture Thomas’ fierce, swashbuckling spirit.

Though the film is largely driven by Cera’s knowing, unsparing performance, both Gross and Lillis are also given plenty of room to develop nuance.

If the first film seemed indicative of much of what is wrong with movies in the streaming era, feeling inessential and disposable, a cog in a machine rather than something unique, “Extraction 2” is a snapshot of a sequel in this moment, bigger, expanded and even less necessary.

The film is made with a level of craft and simple competence that has become shockingly rare. A genuine movie star is allowed to radiate charisma and charm, and all the performances have character nuance and emotional depth.

Part horror film, part coming-of-age tale, part romance, the adaptation of Camille DeAngelis’ young adult novel Bones and All is a small marvel, unsettling and heartbreaking in equal measure.

The film is a compelling concept that doesn’t thread the needle of its competing impulses quite as gracefully as it might have, but driven by the imminently watchable Newton and Pine, it makes for the kind of adult-oriented storytelling one wishes there was more of these days.

Despite a few scattered moments, the team-up action of The 355 never fully comes together.

The film’s politics are not exactly sophisticated, motivated more by the convenience of the moment than any cohesive worldview.

In part because of the depth of Seydoux’s performance, the film becomes less an allegory of a nation and more a gripping character study, a portrait of a mask of personal and professional regard slowly slipping away.

Though Logelin’s story of loss and perseverance is touching, there isn’t really anything deep or convincing about grief or parenting in Fatherhood, making this promising tale something more middling and a touch disappointing.

The misadventures of the eccentrically wealthy may not exactly fit the mood right now, but the new French Exit is so genuine in its mix of arch and earnest, idiosyncrasy and earthiness that it creates a space all for itself.

The highlight of the movie by far is the relaxed, easy chemistry between McCarthy and Cannavale.

As with even the worst of Allen’s films, there is just enough to satiate fans and make the whole thing seem maybe, possibly worth the effort.

While the performances ensure that the movie is always watchable, the hesitant storytelling makes it far from compelling, a bad trip about a bummer vacation.

The most important thing is that it is genuinely great, a singular and moving glimpse of loneliness, community and finding the strength to face another day.

The Outpost is a visceral battle picture but little more.