Moira Macdonald

Not a perfect movie, but a truly moving one.

Filmed with great respect and palpable love for its subject, Big Sonia is one of those documentaries that seems to bring its own light — just like the woman at its center.

A conventional but thoroughly entertaining film.

A rare charmer from the DC Comics universe.

Ultimately, The Room Next Door is as much about love as it is about death — not the romantic kind of love, but the sort in which two friends hold each other up (quite literally, as Martha takes Ingrid’s arm during their walks) and give each other what they need, selflessly. Its final, magical moment finds uncanny beauty in sadness.

By the end, you look at the musician’s faces — particularly Ma’s beaming smile — and find a truth: through music, we can always find our way home.

Prisoners is a dark, deeply serious examination of how loss can unhinge us; it grabs onto you, and you may have trouble shaking it away.

You get caught up in the way Tucci lets a round lamp fade into a glowing moon, or how Rush’s posture suggests a lifetime of bending over a canvas, or how a face on that canvas slowly emerges, from a forest of lines — and suddenly, time passes, and art happens.

It should have worked, and it almost does, but Black buries his characters in a sputtering, chaotic story, seeming to realize only sporadically that we aren’t watching this film for the plot and the stunts...but for the byplay between the two main characters. And — who knew? — Crowe and Gosling have comic chemistry to burn.

I found myself admiring The Bronze for its stalwart refusal to soften Hope, and for Rauch’s carefully detailed performance.... But admiring isn’t quite the same as liking. This film is a comedy wrapped in barbed wire; approach with caution.

There’s more going on here than pretty pictures: This fascinating portrait of a lady has ice and steel at its core.

It feels odd to be evaluating a dog’s performance, but Bing (the canine actor playing Apollo) definitely broke the heart of this cat person multiple times during the film. It’s a pleasure watching him and Watts connect, and to watch a film about so little and yet so very much.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 gives us a lot to look at, and Hathaway and Blunt in particular are a pleasure (they have a scene together, late in the film, that’s almost worth the ticket price right there), but it’s flat Champagne: maybe worth drinking in a pinch, but unsatisfying.

Ultimately “Pérez” seems strangely underwhelming, like a lavish party that falls just a little flat.

Cooper, carrying the movie from start to finish, has a final, devastating close-up that’ll haunt you for quite a while. Darkness has enveloped this man; he won’t wake from his own nightmare.

Like Kaling’s Molly, Late Night is immensely likable; so much so that you wish it were perfect.

It’s ultimately a gentle exploration of what we think we want from love, and how those things can change when the right person arrives. It’s also, disappointingly, about what happens in a movie when only two-thirds of the principal casting hits the mark. Materialists is a wistful near miss.

It’s not terrible, but it’s an elegantly filmed stumble.

It’s a mesmerizing story, particularly that vivid first half, told with great economy and few words.

What Bradley Cooper’s beguiling A Star Is Born is very, very good at is showing us how a song can transform a person, or a moment, and how that transformation just might make us fall in love with the person singing it, for a moment or for longer.

The familiarity is part of what makes The Dry tick along so nicely; it reminds you of other good movies even as you enjoy its own special flavor.

The likable tale of a real-life friendship, Green Book lets us spend two hours in the company of two electric actors.

It’s Hedges who owns the film, who lets us see Jared’s pain and confusion on his tightly clenched face — and who, in a gentle epilogue, gives us a lovely, wordless demonstration of freedom.

Along the way, we learn that all four actors are not only charmingly believable as friends but also brilliant at physical comedy.

Dark fare indeed, and you won’t shake it off easily.

The performances feel wonderfully lived-in, particularly Jackson’s weary, noble Doaker and Deadwyler’s brave, watchful Berniece, a widowed mother determined to make a good life for her daughter and leave the past in the past.

It’s part of the strength of Parker’s film that the current controversy doesn’t entirely overshadow its impact — and that Birth of a Nation immediately becomes part of another crucial conversation, about race.

Sometimes, a movie can just make you feel better, and that’s no small gift.