Sheila O'Malley

Despite some game acting (and one truly superb moment from David Strathairn), Maladies remains on too low a boil to communicate any sense of stakes for the various characters. It seems to be trying to say something about creativity, and living one's life on one's own terms, but it's a muddle.

The movie comes to life any time the actors are given space to mess around. It's just not enough to hold the whole thing together.

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

The Single Moms Club is almost good.

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 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.

There's a lot of interesting things here and yet Flannery feels incomplete, and — worse — a little bit scared to go in for a much deeper dive.

While much of it is quite funny, the film ends up feeling like a good comedy sketch stretched out unnecessarily to a feature-length.

Touch Me Not is definitely abstract and intellectualized, although I didn't find it exploitative. But so much of the film left me cold, even bored.

The family trauma is so clotted-thick, a faster pace and tightened-up editing might have eradicated the slow-motion underwater feel of the whole.

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.

Son of God's earnest-ness is not necessarily a strike against it; it was made by earnest people who want to spread the word. But it's a tough draught to swallow if you're not in the mood for a sermon.

The film is best when it doesn't take itself too seriously. Unfortunately, for the most part it takes itself very seriously.

It's a disappointment when so much goes unexplored, when the film bows to the demands of a cliched plot driving the story forward.

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.

The script is often very witty, peppered with sharp observations and two very entertaining performances, but there are underlying problems the movie cannot overcome.

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.

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.

Players, written by Whit Anderson and directed by Trish Sie, struggles with the inherent artificiality of its setup. The tropes are so front and center that real life barely has any room to breathe.

A gentle low-key comedy.

Amber Alert sometimes works as a thriller, but it has serious aspirations. It wants to “say” something. These two things don’t come together.

As Danica, the head witch, draped in a bright-red gown with matching lipstick, Rebecca Romjin gives a very perverse and funny performance, all icy intimidation and glamorous power.

The film plods at points, trudging along, and there are a few misguided narrative "devices" tacked on, but still, Trial by Fire bristles with anger.

The dialogue creates an arch and artificial mood, never sounding like real talk despite the clearly talented actors (Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Michiel Huisman) playing the roles. The film itself seems to be in denial about its own story.

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

This Beautiful Fantastic is not meant to be realistic. It's supposed to be a fairy tale. That's fine, but it's a very low-stakes fairy tale, wrapped in a strained garden metaphor.

Other than that acquisitive movie-mad mindset, it is a pandering, self-flattering mess, featuring unearned catharsis, lazy clichés and characters presented in broad, sometimes-offensive stereotypes.

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.