Serena Donadoni

Although writer-director Hazanavicius based the biopic on Wiazemsky’s memoir, Un An Après (One Year Later), Wiazemsky gets portrayed as a passive observer, a minor character in her own story.

Love Beats Rhymes is more of a showcase for star Azealia Banks than director RZA, but his influence is still felt in this formulaic hip-hop romance.

The philosophical underpinnings of Swiss director Pierre Morath's well-paced documentary about the evolution of long-distance running evoke the motto of neighboring France: liberté, égalite, fraternité.

Ben’s carefully plotted healing diminishes the complexity of mental illness, and gives James’s sweet vision a bitter aftertaste. Filiatrault uses too-neat bookending in the place of dramatic resolution, so that the story of a man hanging on by a thread is nicely tied up in a bow.

[A] bitterly funny and warmly empathetic first feature.

Is Maya Dardel serious? The regal Lena Olin plays her with frank ferocity and arrogant certainty, but so much about the grandiose poet borders on parody.

There's a great deal of rhetoric about revolution and radical art, but Chagall-Malevich is staid and conventional.

Using the trappings of old-fashioned romanticism, Chadha envisions the cataclysmic upheaval of millions in the traumatic lives of a few.

The portentously titled Measure of a Man is at once an escapist fantasy and sensitive portrait of adolescent transformation.

In her directorial debut, Susan Johnson balances the character's haughty brilliance and aimless privilege with an underlying vulnerability.

In their equanimous portrait of an Indian religious community, Jillian Elizabeth and Neil Dalal contemplate enlightenment through an earthly source. They capture the quiet activity of Arsha Vidya Gurukulam, an ashram in the lush hills of Tamil Nadu, with an observational documentary style that trades dispassionate distance for sympathetic immersion.

What do you do with a loathsome hero? Noah Pritzker isn't sure. His aimless first feature (co-written with Ben Tarnoff) is built around slippery teenage manipulator Clark Rayman (Ben Konigsberg), who goes from a little Machiavellian to big-time creepy with no rhyme or reason.

What Woman in Gold has over nonfiction portrayals is emotion, and director Simon Curtis (My Week With Marilyn) milks every scene for its heart-tugging potential.

O'Connor tries mightily to contextualize the suffering of the Peaceful brothers at home and abroad, making a better case for the British class system's demise than for their survival.

The performances in October Gale subvert genre expectations: Clarkson displays toughness and resolve without turning into Liam Neeson, and the distressed Speedman is as vulnerable as he is determined.

The film’s haphazard episodic structure never coheres.

Hungry Hearts owes much to early Polanski (especially Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby), but Costanzo prizes ambiguity over tension.

Gass-Donnelly (The Last Exorcism Part II) blends supernatural elements into a psychological thriller for a kind of spectral therapy, but his experimentation ultimately conforms to genre conventions.

Director Dan Harris (Imaginary Heroes) structures Speech & Debate like a musical comedy that's building up to a cathartic final number, but scene after scene just falls flat.

Without his usual tics, Malkovich is a wonder, quietly transforming an unassuming town fixture into Cut Bank's conscience. But the revelatory performance is Michael Stuhlbarg (A Serious Man) as Derby Milton.

Acher adroitly juggles all the gimmickry, using it to comment on Holly and Guy's burgeoning relationship.

The atmosphere of Jason Saltiel’s debut feature is decidedly chilly despite the summer heat. With icy precision reminiscent of Claude Chabrol, Saltiel captures the social intricacies of affluent leisure.

Instead of glorifying the amber liquid, Whisky Galore! is a love letter to an isolated community trapped in amber.

Writer-director Joseph Graham isn't solely interested in hookups, and he uses the encounters between these men (both carnal and cerebral) to construct a compassionate romantic drama.

Bates (Suburban Gothic) plays with horror tropes, juggling black comedy and suspense in scenes that tease a gory release but ultimately only emphasize how much members of the creative class can underestimate their backward kin.

The structure of Autumn Blood and its metaphors are obvious, but what makes it engaging, even haunting, are the messy flesh-and-blood characters.

The Most Hated Woman in America suffers from tonal whiplash.

Last Weekend is too enamored of this nouveau riche household to be satirical, instead offering unexpected moments of genuine warmth as a calling card for goodness.