Sheri Linden

Navigating a complex narrative line, Nabulsi doesn’t always achieve the nuance or the propulsive tension the material requires, but she has a sure grasp of emotional give-and-take and day-to-day realities.

Thomas’ direction, especially of the villainous roles, gives a lot of the action a self-conscious, not-quite-real quality. Some aspects of the movie’s intentional artifice work better than others.

The central drama never fully engages, but the jolts that Banshee delivers are check-the-locks scary.

Amid the not-so-troubling setbacks, unbelievable triumphs and perpetual spring break, the movie takes one or two nice twists.

Shepard’s reach might exceed her grasp, but there’s no question that she takes risks and is a filmmaker of notable promise.

Wonderfully weird and wistful adventure-comedy about a fish-out-of-water oceanographer.

For Westerners, Lemelson offers an eye-opening look behind Bali's profile as a tourist Shangri-la. The documentary's ultimate value, though, may be in local education.

Adapting the novel by Zhivko Chingo, director Trajkov and his co-scripter, Vladimir Blazevski, have created a searing memory piece. Suki Medencevic's widescreen cinematography illuminates a shadow realm halfway between heaven and hell.

Through an affecting mix of comedy, romance and drama, A Radiant Girl sounds a warning about the perils of not looking directly at tough realities. And yet it’s so alive from moment to moment, so finely attuned to the emotional lives of its characters, that it never feels like a history lesson dressed up as narrative.

Fine performances and bristling language compel in this overlong, often off-putting but well-observed New York story.

Without a drop of self-congratulatory "enlightenment," Land occupies a wild terrain of ineffable tenderness.

A shiver of cosmic comedy runs through the film's tragic turns.

Two Lovers and a Bear is above all thrillingly cinematic, even when its elements of lived-in intensity and jokey fantasy refuse to coalesce.

The decidedly irreverent nature of much of the proceedings will be a turnoff to some viewers, a tonic to others.

As its title suggests, the movie embraces generic types, but smart writing, unforced direction and a superb cast give the sentimental-but-not-gushy comic drama the messy specifics and narrative friction to lift it well beyond been-there-done-that.

The feature spikes its lonesome mood with shots of dry humor, animated sequences and flashbacks — at times overplaying its hand, even as Emile Hirsch and Stephen Dorff wordlessly convey all that needs to be said.

The faux press conferences and perverse inventions (SurvivaBall, anyone?) that are included here highlight corporate greed and governmental shortsightedness as shrewdly as ever.

Through its droll combo of stillness and churning dysfunction, perfectly embodied by Drakopoulos, Pity deconstructs the artifice of feeling and, most wickedly, movie sentimentality.

It's an adrenaline rush of a film.

But for all its vividly detailed eccentricity, the movie, like Abby, connects the dots rather too easily. As Clifton Hill digs deeper into exceedingly sordid stuff, it doesn't dish up the kind of aha moments or chilling frissons that would lift the story from clever contrivance — until a final, delicious twist pulls the rug out from under this richly atmospheric but not always convincing tale.

Ultimately Fear X feels more like an intellectual exercise than a convincing drama.

As repellent as Lucy's story can be, its mystery has a seductive sway, and it does add up to more than the sum of its insistently elliptical parts.

Its restraint is its strength. The focus on a woman's passionate hard work without need of marital-status back story is refreshing.

With its assortment of mouthwatering ingredients and dishes, In Search of Israeli Cuisine is an unadulterated foodie delight. But much more than that, Roger Sherman’s documentary offers fascinating insights into a little-understood country, using the culinary prism to illuminate a complex, still-young culture.

The story itself finally feels lost beneath the levels of artifice rather than heightened by it.

It’s the glimmers of penetrating observation that make the overload of clichés so frustrating in Onah’s first feature, and suggest better things for his second.

Bahrani sometimes pushes too hard as he reaches for big drama. But when the story works, it has a dark power that draws shrewdly upon his two leads' screen charisma.

In Hilma, Hallström delves into the fiery and sometimes messy personal story as well as celebrating, in fittingly enthralled, immersive fashion, the singular fusion of nature and spiritual mystery that drove her.