Sophie Monks Kaufman

Human Flowers of Flesh becomes stranger and more liminal until one is literally lost at sea. This frustrating condition is not without its pleasures and consolations. The question of what the title is referencing provides a poetic source of intrigue.

The third act is bogged down with details of Kate’s backstory, and what should be a euphoric and cathartic finale is underwhelming.

There is life in this film, even if it is buried under a very woolly coat.

It’s not that Andrew Dominik has made an implausible film about the experience of a poor young beauty haunted by fears of madness who was chewed up by the Hollywood machine, the issue is that he has made a film inspired by Marilyn Monroe where she is monotonously characterized as a victim.

The puzzling thing about Italian director Gabriele Mainetti’s feature set in 1943 in German-occupied Rome is that, rather than embracing tastelessness a la John Waters, it guns for earnestness despite not having a thoughtful bone in its body.

Günther executes stray powerful moments, but his lack of a handle on the material leads to two hours so meandering that the story drifts away in a haze of boredom.

If there’s such a thing as conflict-sploitation, then Sean Penn has made a genre classic.

The subtext behind the pilgrimage is that an act of kindness from decades ago can stay with a person and compel them to shake off the shackles of shame. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is about the lengths that even skeptical people will go to for each other, a length that defies all logic.