Robert Abele

The result may not be terribly illuminating about the (sub)human condition, despite the shout-outs to Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. Eden is probably closer to an expensive reality show about mismatched survivalists. But as August fare goes, it’s a sticky, sweaty hoot, well cast and paced like a disreputable beach read, even if you might sporadically wish Werner Herzog had gotten first crack at this material.

Even with the thinnest of narrative framing and some arty touches that feel superfluous, there’s an overall portrait of authentic grit and resilience here, of knowing when to hold on and when to let go, that is well-nurtured by Beecroft’s admiring eye for these renegade women.

It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley is a repudiating of the typical narrative of inescapable fate, instead pursuing the richness of a gifted artist’s ups and downs. Director Amy Berg would rather us see Buckley as he was in the world instead of some conveniently doom-laden figure.

It looks exhilarating, and if the filmmakers are ultimately there to play, not probe, that’s fine, even if you may not know these kids at the end any better than you did at the beginning.

2000 Meters to Andriivka is a war chronicle like no other.

The journey to that lethal, rolling boil is, in the hands of Japan’s premier suspense director, certainly a nail-biting one, a tale of carefully weighed clicks that lead to a lot of rashly pulled triggers.

Though never disorienting or obnoxious (à la “Euphoria”), it can get tiring: a restlessness of spirit and technique that occasionally separates us from this lost antihero when we crave a closer connection to him. Especially since first-time actor Marini is stellar casting.

Everything about the story, from opening to closing dance party, feels like it was made up on an especially unimaginative playdate by bored kids who’d rather be watching TV.

In its graceful intertwining of meditation and obscenity, Afternoons of Solitude gives an ancient, controversial tradition the chance to shock and awe without hype or favor. It’s inhumane, it’s human and it’s a hell of a film.

Friedland’s acute debut feature, drawn from her experience in the memory-care field, is a small miracle of realigned empathy, turning away from the condescension and easy sentiment of so many narratives about late-in-life adaptation.

Power shields its misdeeds with propaganda, but Panh sees such murderous lies clearly, giving them an honest staging, thick with echoes.

This poetic gem is a journey from the weight of absence to the serenity of presence, thanks in no small part to the inquisitive, gifted woman pulled from obscurity: Sheila Turner-Seed, whose life was short but full and worth revitalizing.

In the fleet, pacey manner of the editing, toggling between private and public moments with highlight-reel efficiency, the film is a stirring glimpse of top-down kindness as a winning leadership style.

The tone swerve into body-count humor and the nuts and bolts of violence eventually prove too much for Crano and Craig to effectively mold into a comedy of perception and privilege.

When it comes to climate change, our media diet is starved. So if you need that refresher course in the importance of saving the Amazon, We Are Guardians, like a well-made pamphlet, does the job with plenty of efficiency and heat.

Like a movie DJ, Kandhari is flexing a pulpy mood of big-city dislocation, building a trippy, jarring and blackly funny experience out of a city’s stray colors, sounds and personalities.

It won’t slam the door on Tesfaye’s movie ambitions, but as a bid to conquer the big screen, it’s an off-putting, see-what-sticks wallow that treats the power of cinema like a midconcert costume change.

In its focused glimpse into a strange, funny-sad friendship, it’s almost mesmerizingly nonjudgmental as it treks to a very dark place.

There’s an elegant severity to the natural elements that share the frame with the movie’s characters, manifested in silhouettes against vast cloudy skies, delicate snowfalls, shafts of light in dark interiors and crisp air filled with smoke and dust. A testament to lives cut short, Rust is beautifully filmed and all the sadder for it

One can appreciate the effort behind this well-made Bonjour Tristesse without necessarily feeling its turmoil.

Just when the central characters’ fascinating messiness achieves peak interest, you realize this movie’s earnest commercial shimmer is never going to segue into a denser, darker poetry.

Writer-director Saxon’s own virtuosity, occasionally aggressive, eventually leaves our hopes for real emotions wanting, once we’ve become attuned to the dazzle.

If this ends up being Cronenberg’s last, he’ll have gone out with a worldly, weighty epitaph.

The film explores what’s funny — and terrifyingly truthful — about being wrenched into adulthood.

When its cinematic influences aren’t so obvious and its story particulars aren’t distractingly fuzzy, this earnestly moody film serves notice that indie urban noir can still be a potent calling card for up-and-coming talents.

The Friend strips the pet-movie genre from the easy appeal of mawkishness, bringing it closer to what an ongoing dialogue between lonely species stumbling into connection actually feels like.

Holy Cow achieves its own special texture and flavor the more its central character boils, curdles and cools.

Palud’s directorial emphasis on that internal experience, guided by a simple shooting style trained on Vartolomei, is what keeps Being Maria afloat on its turbulent seas.