Sheila O'Malley

Eventually, the documentary turns into a more traditional investigative narrative, as genealogists and wolf experts and Holocaust historians put different pieces together in an attempt to determine what was and was not true about Misha's tale.

Young and Beautiful doesn't have the eerie power of some of Ozon's other films, like "In the House" or "Swimming Pool," but it is still a fascinating experience.

What is truly delightful about the film is its loopy, gently slapstick sense of humor, its use of continuous running gags that pay off cumulatively (no small feat), and the dreamy sense that Schilling's somnambulism is pierced through only by the insane incomprehensible behavior of others.

Make it through the first 10 minutes. It’s just the film warming up. The rest of it flows.

Nappily Ever After is as much a polemic as it is anything else. In a confrontation with Clint, Violet says she is sick of how much brainspace is taken up with her hair. "It's like having a second full-time job," she exclaims, exhausted.

Darren Lynn Bousman's St. Agatha goes so full-bore into the scary nun trope it's practically nunsploitation, and the mood he establishes — the look and feel of the claustrophobic "convent in the film — launches St. Agatha into a weirdo plane of phantasmagorical psychological and physical torment.

Breezy, sleazy, and sometimes-intense, Rob the Mob depicts a very specific sliver of time in New York history, a time overrun by crack, graffiti, and omnipresent organized crime.

There's a propulsive force to every scene in "Scoop," with Sam propelling us forward as she stalks across lobbies and down hallways in her thigh-high boots.

Madeleine (Adele Haenel) does not know that she is a character in a rom-com. She thinks she's in a war movie. Or, better yet, a dystopian post-apocalyptic movie. Anything but a rom-com. She does not smile until an hour and 20 minutes into Love at First Fight.

An attempt to tell this complicated intersectional story, and it does so with a comedic light-hearted style, sometimes appropriate, but sometimes inadequate to the possibilities inherent in the real-life event.

Call Jane is about an important subject, but it's also a character study of one woman waking up, not just to her own strength, but to the fact that she's hidden in the suburbs for too long. It's time to help others. It's a very satisfying character arc.

Even with the excellent central performance by Karen Gillan, playing a "dual" role—herself and her own copy—Dual makes for a strangely tepid viewing experience. Deeper exploration is not on the table.

The film resonates with deeper messages: the damage done by gentrification, the abyss between the haves and the have-nots, the poor treatment of workers by elites. You don't expect a romcom to explore these issues. But The Valet does. It works.

Entertaining in spots, obvious and irritating in others, with a one-note schticky performance from Christopher Waltz as Walter, Big Eyes is a strangely conventional entry in Tim Burton's filmography.

Like "Cat People", The Banshee Chapter is both elegant and terrifying.

What is most unexpected about Permission is its sense of poignancy and tenderness. In its own way, it's quite heartbreaking.

Brandon Dermer's I'm Totally Fine is a funny and charming movie, with two entertaining performances from Jillian Bell and Natalie Morales at its center, but where it really works is in its understanding of grief, and how grief can turn someone's world—and mind—upside down.

Even though half of her screen time consists of her being seen but not heard, Garner has a consistent crispness; her character is simultaneously transparent and slightly enigmatic.

It's an extremely effective context for this particular story, told with no nostalgia, lots of humor, and a cast of really watchable characters. They are "types," for sure, but the types are given room to breathe. It's a sensitive and interesting film.

Hall's dialogue compels you to listen, to lean in, but Johnson and Penn draw us into their separate worlds and histories, each face telling a million stories.

This is a pretty rote story, and many of the plot points beggar belief, but Kusama's flourishes help somewhat to elevate the material into something more meditative, a character study of a woman in ruins.

The movie is fairly faithful to the book, and yet so much is lost in the transfer.

The resilience in Scrapper is a type of lived creativity, an imaginative space where Georgie—and her father—make up their own rules and their own world. This is an amazing directorial debut.

Shannon’s approach is uncompromising but not heavy-handed. He hasn’t watered down the material. The style is unfussy but distinct enough to give the film a dissociated quality.

A tender and gentle coming-of-age story, as well as a meditation on grief and letting go. It is also that very rare thing, a movie about teenagers where the characters actually seem like real teenagers, as opposed to mini posing adults.

At its best, The Tower shows what life felt like to those who lived at that singular time, to those who dozed "pitifully and apathetically" in an unchanging political system before the rules changed, seemingly overnight.

What “We Bury the Dead” does really well is remind us that the zombies were once-alive. They are someone’s mother, child, husband. In many zombie movies, they are a faceless unstoppable mob, and you want all of them to be put down stat. They’re the ultimate “heavy”. Here, they are still scary, but they are also sad. What happened to them is tragic. “We Bury the Dead” never forgets that.

It's gloriously inventive, wonderfully funny, and gorgeous to look at, the screen filled with sometimes overwhelming detail.

There are flashes of interest, and even some welcome screwball elements, but PVT Chat doesn't coalesce in a meaningful way.

The directors and the cast, through a miracle of tone, mood, and emotion, have made a film that feels true, that is sweet and sharp and unbearable. Every frame feels right, every choice feels thought-out, considered. All adds up to a heartbreaking whole.

The Kings of Summer flirts with profundity, seeming to yearn for it and fear the honest expression of it at the same time. There is much here to admire, but the overall impression is of a film that does not have the courage of its convictions.

If the characters aren’t three-dimensional and the plot is so predictable it creaks into motion by the five-minute mark. you haven’t done the work necessary to pull in your audience. You’ve got to give us something to hang our cowboy hats on.

I wonder how people will feel about the final moment of the film. I thought it was great, albeit extremely cynical.

The film has atmosphere and energy as well as a specific point of view.

The best thing about Stargirl is that Big Star's yearning ode to adolescence "Thirteen" is played in its entirety not once, but twice. If Stargirl introduces a new generation to the wonder that is Big Star, it will have done more than enough.

All I Can Say feels much longer than it actually is. Hoon struggled with addiction. He was arrested many times. It's a cautionary tale but one we've heard so many times before. Fans of Hoon will thrill to all of this footage. For others, it'll be a pretty tough haul.

When You Finish Saving the World floats uncertainly on the edge of satire. This is a big problem. Satire can't be uncertain. Satire needs a sharp bite. When You Finish Saving the World is toothless by comparison.

The tone of the film is a little lukewarm, and the visuals aren’t the most thrilling, but there’s a very welcome absence of condescension and sentimentality that is often used in the portrayal of elderly people on film, particularly when they engage in activities not typically associated with their age.

Ritch's script is thoughtful and intense, making The Artifice Girl a mentally engaging and challenging work.

Digging for Fire wants to talk about serious topics and it wants to do so in a humorous light-hearted way. It succeeds.

The Commune, featuring a great ensemble cast (many Vinterberg regulars), doesn't really focus all that much on what happens when you put a bunch of charismatic individuals into one house.

A film like The Invisibles is part of bearing "precise witness." We clearly need reminders, and constant ones, of the end result of "otherizing" an entire group of people.

With a script by Eric C. Charmelo, Nicole Snyder and Shepard, The Perfection has a gory grindhouse sleaze overlaid with the tony gleam of the upper-crust, a very sick combo.

Small Crimes works in part but is strangely murky in others. There's a lot of dead air. It's the pettiness, the small-ness of the characters that makes the greatest impression.

Much of Matthias & Maxime is pedestrian to the extreme, and there is a general lack of character development across the board, but the way Dolan chooses to frame things, the visual choices he makes, the way he revels unashamed in the big-ness of the emotions, makes it an entertaining ride.

The Heat is violent, with some pretty gruesome moments and some questionable police work. That's part of the fun. Cagney and Lacey these two ain't. When they finally join forces, they go rogue with a gusto that is refreshing.

You may think you know what you are about to see when you watch that opening, but you would be wrong. It's great to be wrong.

Caveat is a masterpiece of understatement for a title, and a witty opener to Damian Mc Carthy’s directorial debut, an impressive and often terrifying film, taking place almost solely in one location, with two people trapped in a moldy dimly-lit house.

This "lack" of a serious critique makes Between Two Worlds the story of a pampered journalist confronted with how "these people live," plus the fallout when her lie is discovered, rather than a real shot fired at an unfair system.

Dickman's film reeks of pot smoke and non-seriousness.

Went Up the Hill doesn’t just explore grief, it expresses it.

Watching Kristen Wiig's lived-in and alive performance as this blunt, practical, and yet totally innocent woman is to be in the presence of something very very special.

Maria Schneider’s story is a tragic and often infuriating one, and “Being Maria” captures the complexity of the situation.

There's a flatness in the end-result. The quirky is utterly predictable.

There are some wonderful sequences in Battle of the Five Armies, and the attention to detail is breathtaking (each different space rendered with thrilling complexity), but the film feels more like a long drawn-out closing paragraph rather than (like "The Desolation of Smaug") a vibrant stand-alone piece of the story.

It’s a rambunctious, often hilarious, and carefully-constructed story about a teenage boy starting to question his sexuality in the midst of his Evangelical Christian world.

The frustration with Lizzie is that a lot of it works, but the style - elegant, hushed, and period-appropriate - acts as a damper on all the fraught possibilities. Lizzie is at war with its own impulses. You can sense there's a sexy overheated melodrama in there, yearning to burst free of its corset stays.

It's more of an affectionate spoof on 1980's "summer camp" slasher films.

In Jakob’s Wife, the classic vampire theme is looped into an insightful and often very funny commentary on marriage and the limitations placed on women.

It's been some years since Jolie did an action movie, and she carries the center of Those Who Wish Me Dead. Unfortunately, it's a film with no real center.

All My Puny Sorrows has all the elements to pack a devastating punch, but there's no real sense of urgency. It's like people are just marking time, like the end has already been determined, it's just a matter of resigning oneself to the inevitable.

When the film focuses on the wine-making process, in the progression from vine to bottle, it's a fascinating and detailed look at a very specific subculture.

The film is well-made and well-acted, but it merely suggests depth rather than actually having it.

Dolphin Tale 2 tries to do too much, with too many stories shoehorned in, but the overall effect is emotional and sweet.

Baena is obviously having fun presenting the familiar tropes and then subverting them, but these pieces don't really fit together, nor do they lead to a satisfying conclusion.

Wicked Little Letters is a really effective British mystery, spiked with the comedy of a real caper, with sneaky people bicycling down lanes, or literally crouching in the bushes staring at a mailbox.

Blue Bayou is sunk, on occasion, by its own symbolism, and how it wields said symbols. It's not enough to use a symbol visually, and let the audience put two and two together. A character needs to have a long monologue where they explain the symbol and pontificate on how the symbol is relevant to the circumstances.

There There doesn't come to life, even as an intellectual or artistic exercise.

As Antonina, though, Chastain seems bound up as an actress, held back in creating a character mainly by the demands of doing a Polish accent.

The film loads itself down with two different plots, one cliched, one new and fresh. This makes "Ezra" a sometimes frustrating watch, but there's a lot here to recommend.

A family-tennis drama with a plot that could be described as "conflict-lite." All problems are telegraphed from the get-go, giving the film's opening scenes that weird vibe where characters spout exposition at one another.

A deeply felt teenage melodrama.

Our Friend is very good where it really counts and that's on the small details, the everyday life aspect of doing errands, cooking dinner, while your family is going through this harrowing ordeal. Cancer consumes the patient, but it also ravages the family.

Baby Ruby operates at a high-pitched melodrama-horror level, and the constant frenzy becomes exhausting. The film's nerves become so frayed there's almost no feeling left in them; the terror is monotonous and repetitive.

As it is, Seriously Red sneaks up on you.

The Quiet One is Wyman's journey, and because of that the documentary is intimate and personal, but by the same token it is also highly selective in what it shows and acknowledges.

Headey starred in "Game of Thrones," but also works with the International Rescue Committee as a human rights activist. She executive produced The Flood, and it is clearly an issue important to her. Her performance is quiet and controlled.

The cranky old-coot humor between Studi and Cox is a welcome break, and there could have been more of it.

Without being explicit, without being overtly angry, Kabakov's installations are a critique of the entire system, a critique leavened with irony, wit, and fantasy. It's powerful stuff. You go into Kabakov's labyrinths of associations and you don't come out.

Kelly is finding his sea-legs as a director. Kelly spends equal amounts of time with Michael's pre-conversion life as he does post-conversion. The conversion itself is pretty well done, all things considered.

It's not just a story of an incredible feat of survival. It's also a love story, presented with the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

Bad Behaviour is a frustrating watch. Englert doesn't wrestle the material into a manageable form, and struggles to find a consistent tone.

Miss Julie is a rather strange experience, with its consistently static medium shots of the three actors, as they roar their lines at one another. But it has an undeniable power.

What it really is is a screwball comedy with a black-hearted center, an energy extremely difficult to capture and maintain, but Healy—as actor and as director—manages to do so.

Joy doesn’t work entirely, and the structure set up so clearly in the opening sequence is dropped early on for no apparent reason, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t get carried away at the story of a mop sweeping the nation. It’s a lunatic “Mildred Pierce," without the murder.

American Fable is ambitious, maybe too much so sometimes, but there's an intense pleasure in the boldness of the film's style, its confidence in what it is about.

Overall it is a friendly and affectionate backstage look at the world of the mostly-straight male dancers at La Bare.

If nothing else, Danny Boyle's Yesterday, which imagines a world where the Beatles never happened, made me think about what would it be like to hear "Yesterday" for the first time, what life would be like if the Beatles didn't exist. The film, scripted by Richard Curtis, explores some of the implications of its premise, but, frustratingly, skips over others.

A well-observed and patiently told story, with one good scene after another, featuring amazing performances across the board, but particularly from newcomer Josh Wiggins.

A film so purely entertaining that you almost forget how scary it is. With all its terror, The Visit is an extremely funny film.

Al Pacino's "Looking For Richard" grappled with the great challenge of the play itself, and that monster of a lead role. NOW: In the Wings of a World Stage feels self-congratulatory in comparison, a cast sharing its fun photo album of a year-long vacation in "exotic" locations.

Club Zero has a monotonous quality, ultimately, because existing with a Brutalist-architecture ideology is monotonous. Still, the film exerts an unnerving pull.

It works best when it's most impressionistic. Although the big events in life have the most impact (you wonder what on earth is going to happen to these three boys), it's the small things — the early morning light, the tall grass, the black flowing river, Ma's smudged mascara, Paps' dazzling grin — that we really remember.

The timing of Oslo is less than ideal, current events being what they are. The framing, too, is blinkered and naïve.

I Am Woman is a start in the right direction. However, based on this film you might think that the most interesting thing about Reddy is that she married her manager who then got addicted to cocaine. It's a frustratingly shallow approach to a singer who deserves better.

The film is beautiful in spots, and features a believably tormented performance by Vincent Cassel as Gauguin, but unfortunately it has only a hazy idea of what it wants to be about.

The film lacks the underlying subtext that grounded similar hopeful-yet-doomed-romance stories in the past.

Wingwomen, based on the graphic novel The Grand Odalisque by Jérôme Mulot, Florent Ruppert, and Bastien Vivès, is an action-packed heist film, but it leaves enormous room for the most important thing: Carole and Alex's friendship.