Melissa Levine

It's facile, predictable, and contrived, but there's still something winning about this multicultural drama from South Africa.

One of the most schizoid films in recent memory. It opens with crystalline originality, a shimmering comedy with meticulous timing and sharply drawn characters. Then it careens carelessly into syrup. How could he (Martin) not have noticed?

The film congeals from dripping sentimentality into emulsified schmaltz when it brings in the actual Ryan family, all 10 children (now in their fifties and sixties), for a final scene. The intentions are clearly honorable, and we certainly wish these people well, but this isn't a memorial service, it's a movie.

Most of The Constant Gardener is made with good taste and with respect for its African subjects. But when Fiennes flees a Kenyan village as bandits begin their merciless attack, it's hard not to feel a little uneasy with the medium. We're meant to get a thrill out of the chase, but it's not thrilling. Sickening's more like it.

The result is a constant feeling of summary, saddled with four times the usual number of after-school issues. Tamblyn is a treat, playing intelligence and anger, and there are some real moments of connection between characters, but the film is hysterical with self-promotion.

3-Iron is at times deliciously sensual, creepily somnolent, whimsically spiritual and disturbingly violent. But it is never quite coherent.

This uneven new film, a series of dialogues from the legendary Ingmar Bergman, is assembled like movements of a concerto.

The film is beautifully shot and well-acted, but, like the book, it never achieves anything like the import of the stories that inspired it. Balzac is even a little dull, especially toward the end.

At first, Ma Mère is shocking and even alluring, but it doesn't take long for the conceit to wear thin, especially since the characters so rarely act as recognizable humans.

A film that aspires to join the company of its predecessors--smart, funny satires that skewered the hypocrisy and cruelty of high school life. But it won't. For starters, Pretty Persuasion commits a fatal error: It forgets to side with the students.

If you're going to fall for this movie, you're going to have to buy not only the idea that adultery is excusable if you're "following your heart," but also that following your heart amounts to falling in love at first sight, a formulation that seems adolescent at best.

It's merely all right--very high-concept and on its way to interesting, but never there.

A clunky, obvious film, it makes the mistake of asking drama to do what documentary should.

It's a slow and laborious persona piece.

Again, Lohman's lack of power--and passion--saps the story of its life. It's a shame, because a bold performance would have given Firth and Bacon even more to work with, and the relationships between and among the members of that ménage à trois could have really begun to zing.

This is inelegant storytelling, and it almost entirely cancels out what's good about the film: Max Minghella, for one thing. The son of director Anthony, he gives a very fresh performance, popping with energy that the other characters seem to drain.

However you slice it, Bleep remains a work of naive invention and wannabe spirituality.

The title pretty much says it all: syrupy romantic comedy dripping with unearned sentiment.

Its smarmy resolution just doesn't work; the lessons learned are a bit too medicinal. But we're willing to forgive, since it's otherwise a good-natured and enjoyable ride.

Has its heart in the right place, but its head seems to be lost in a swirling maelstrom of teen movies that have come before.

Part of the reason that it doesn't quite succeed is that these messages are so tried and true.

Wacky, hodgepodge and decidedly homemade, CSA nevertheless is worth seeing. Sure, it veers off into nonsense, and there are times when the film loses its center. But the premise, the passion and the scathing political commentary ultimately keep CSA afloat.

The trouble with 12 and Holding, which pits four young protagonists in intertwining battles for spiritual (and, well, literal) survival, is that it's just too much.