Sophie Monks Kaufman

Boy From Heaven wants to offer up a character study of a young Muslim man who ends up in hell and keeps going. Sadly, a deep and meaningful portrait of Adam is forgotten as the film — like the state officials it depicts — prioritizes functionality above all else.

Garland has always flirted with obscurity, but in his best work this has been anchored by an enveloping depth of feeling. Now he has tumbled down a rabbit-hole here where no mortal man – not even a village of them, all played by Rory Kinnear – can follow.

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.

Deep Water contains some earnestly committed performances, a ridiculous car chase, a snail emporium, and a sparkling teaser for Ana de Armas as Marilyn Monroe in Andrew Dominik’s “Blonde.” The dynamic between her and Affleck is fascinating: not ridiculous enough to be camp, but not far off.

The marriage of abstract existential themes, immersive, tactile images and dual timelines is always impressive but only occasionally moving.

Inevitably, there is a tacked-on quality here, yet Cousins’ flair for providing visual pleasure means that, like that first champagne cocktail of the night, The Next Generation bubbles with sparkling uplift.

It may not all add up but this is an ambitious and taboo-tackling debut with an atmosphere that lingers thanks to gutsy performances from Colman and Buckley.

The dynamic of the central four is a pleasure incarnate. Equal parts funny and warm, each actor brings a specific dynamism that, when combined with the rest, crackles with life and love.

Hassan doesn’t need to provide a grand framing device. You sense their powerlessness, you are embedded within it. There is no omniscient camera to take the audience away because there is no freedom of movement for the Fazilis.

Faces Places is a subtly self-reflexive documentary that swims against this tide, inviting audiences to see that filmmaking is a process of having conversations with people, and enveloping each individual and their private creativity within the wider collaborative process. Art is a form of social work or, rather, it can be with the right people at the helm.

The lure of intense mystery that beguiles you into trying to solve it again and again; the transference of an intoxication that makes you feel physically different afterwards. It sounds hyperbolic to describe art as having such power, but surely the reason we care about art is a belief that such power exists. High Life is too layered, too ambiguous, too potent to be about any one thing.

A Hidden Life is, underneath it all, a love story. The Jägerstätters are a private microcosm imprinted by history. The Nazi regime is almost incidental, as these people could be anywhere opposing any evil regime. The substance of the film is buoyed by unselfish, enlightened love, shaped by a couple’s faith in each other’s morality.

This is a film trying to wriggle out of the straitjacket of its own story, the better to reveal the symbiotic passions within its two leading ladies.

The BFG’s greatest strength is its simplicity. This is a film built for children that delights with fantastical details while gently pushing a heartfelt message about the power of dreams.

The set-up is fascinating and the tension is increasingly grotesque. Yet there are many plodding stretches which Corbet doesn’t succeed in concealing by inserting wild camera movements combined with Scott Walker’s bleak, juddering orchestral score. This music feels like possessed black stallions galloping to hell. It bludgeons you with loud, brash, hysterical horror.

Andrea Arnold is an exciting director who knows how to create a thick patina of realism within which female protagonists stoically pursue improvement. It’s a little crushing, therefore, that American Honey feels unmoored from anything approaching real life.

Driver embodies calmness and stillness. This performance cements his status as an actor whose physical command matches his ability to telegraph inner life. It’s a cliché to say that the greatest actors make the smallest actions magnetic, but it’s true of Driver who makes the non-demonstrative act of listening feel like it means the world.

There is too much going on in Manchester by the Sea and still it is among the best films of this or any year. It is too funny, too tragic, and too full of nods to all manner of movie genres.

The result is a gorgeous, layered portrait of a woman determined to put public image ahead of private feelings.

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

Strengths lie in this film’s commitment to understanding an extraordinary, reclusive woman, its weaknesses in a dogged fidelity to relaying the small events of each passing year.

The visuals are compelling but something is missing. The tone is too flat and the world-building too smooth for this film to ever come fully to life.

The relentless pace of the dialogue is at times exhausting, and the tone never really varies, yet this is forgiven when, hours after viewing, you find yourself grinning into the ether, remembering standout hoots from the cornucopia of Meyerowitz tales.

Gerwig nails how mothers and daughters argue – always at each other’s throat. Because of the tonal breadth of the film, different shades of feeling are found in each grudge match. Love as a combative war of words is an energising force.

Selma Blair is sympathetically naturalistic as a woman who gave up her career to be a mother and now wonders what her options are. This is offset at every turn by Cage, whose line reading is unpredictable and whose movement is flamboyantly deranged.

This is a Serious Movie that engages the intellect with compelling depictions of place, time and people. The ensemble cast is full of small characters with personalities that reveal themselves through political quirks and related creativity.

In this, her first film centring male psychology after a career of female character studies, she makes observations about masculinity and power that defy classification. She has blown these subjects wide open and we can but stand still and try to catch the fragments as they rain down.

Showing how the dream of being a rich and beautiful princess curdled into a nightmare might sound like a hard sell, but Spencer pulls it off in heightened, claustrophobic and truly decadent fashion.