Mary Houlihan

The positive messages involving characters searching for love and purpose in life are well thought out, but presented in a way that is just too genial and even-handed. No one ever gets really angry or passionate, and the result is a film that sometimes feels stilted.

Tucci and Eve play well off each other, especially when they are slinging ugly revelations back and forth.

Lemmons and her cast, aided by some great music, have created an interlude sure to lift the spirit during the holiday season.

Despite some fine production values, lovely photography and smart casting of a range of British stage and screen actors, The Christmas Candle can’t quite move beyond the weary metaphors. It has the feel of a slick television movie.

Director Mike Newell and screenwriter David Nicholls focus on the major plot points of the well-known story. Their attempts mostly work but at times the film, despite its two-hour-plus length, feels rushed and truncated.

The dialogue in places leans toward the banal, but a couple of plot twists help hold interest.

Despite the filmmakers’ best attempts, the latest screen adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragic love story Romeo & Juliet lands with a dull thud.

Appealing performances and a not always predictable storyline help elevate Pulling Strings above the run-of-the-mill rom-com.

There’s nothing offensive in the relentlessly upbeat Tio Papi. It’s just all so polite and saccharine. Life lessons are learned every few minutes, and the ending is telegraphed from the beginning.

The racing is spectacular, especially when you consider director Courtney Solomon’s claim that no CGI was used in the crash scenes... Solomon wanted to put the audience in the middle of events and inside the car; he certainly does pull that off. Believe me, your head will spin. After a while it all becomes mind-numbing.

It’s a romantic comedy with all sorts of possibilities that instead relies on heavy-handed sight gags and over-the-top performances.

Ain’t Them Bodies Saints is a tone poem that doesn’t quite live up to its luster. It is so shrewdly perfect and solemn that the strong emotions layered throughout Bob and Ruth and Patrick’s intertwined story become lost in the film’s one-note mood.

Vinterberg has created a modern horror story about a man’s descent into a Kafkaesque nightmare.

There’s simply too much going on here — too many subplots, too many symbols, too many expendable characters — and certain interesting threads aren’t able to develop fully.

This is not an in-your-face thriller but rather a measured film ripe with suspense that never lets up.

Violet & Daisy won’t be everyone’s cup of tea... But view this as a modern comic book/fairy tale, and it’s easier to accept this saga of girls with guns and the life lessons they eventually confront.

Filled with witty dialogue and natural performances, Frances Ha marks a return to form for Baumbach.

Scott keeps the story from becoming cloying and sentimental. He is aided by smart, low-key work from his cast, especially Huard, who easily embodies the persona of an adult slacker, instilling him with a warm charm.