Stephen Farber

McCarthy’s performance, which is paired with an equally rewarding turn by British actor Richard E. Grant, anchors this bizarre, compelling true story.

It deserves praise not as a polemic but as a richly humanistic, emotionally searing drama that sticks in the memory.

The film never quite clarifies its own attitude toward Hart. It simply doesn’t spend enough time with him to allow the audience to decide whether he was a truly transformative politician undone by tabloid reporters or just another slick operator. This robs the film of a tragic dimension that it might have achieved.

The main virtue of the film lies in the thoughtful interviews given by the Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, both the accompanying voiceover commentaries and their later on-camera appearances.

Beyond celebrating the music, 40 Years in the Making: The Magic Music Movie has something to say about the compromises and reconciliations that are a part of aging, and it turns out to make for a stirring and healing reunion.

Vreeland’s willingness to include painful as well as flattering details is what gives Love, Cecil its punch.

The film fails to provide many practical solutions to the problems it identifies. Still, it’s an effective piece of agitprop suffused with sadness over the decline of a rich part of the American heritage.

The resolution seems honest and mature, and a brief epilogue is so powerful that it makes us forget some of the film’s earlier lapses. The emotionally devastating last line socks the whole movie home.

The film is overlong and wildly uneven (just as it was two years ago), but it benefits from a strong cast making the most of some sharp moments exposing the underside of male privilege and domination.

It is a pleasure to watch the present-day Francis interact with people all over the world and articulate his hopes for improving the lot of the poor. The film is humane and unobjectionable, but in the end, it isn’t pointed enough to seize the attention of skeptics in the audience.

Set in Rhode Island, the film focuses on three boys who have had a parent in prison (one of those parents is a mother), and it probes the impact on the children with clarity and poignancy.

The doc—which is sure to stir conversation as well as emotion when it screens at other festivals—will open audience’s eyes to larger problems of child abuse and exploitation that pervade too many countries around the globe.

The film honors the hard-working, often unacknowledged craftsmen in the film industry and stirs provocative questions about the fine line between legitimate devotion to an artist and dangerous hero worship.

Beyond the film’s technical expertise and the political issues that it raises, it works best simply as a tribute to a group of talented and courageous women who missed out on opportunities that might have benefited us all.

Little Pink House brings urgency to a fascinating, underexplored theme.

Despite many script problems, Levine has kept the film tightly coiled and engrossing throughout.

The film is very well designed by directors Rohrbaugh and Powell, the musical interludes really sing and the actors make for scintillating company.

The film evolves into an unconventional road movie that turns out to be quietly affecting.

No doubt everyone can relate to the central idea of wondering about the purpose of the mementos we leave behind or those we discover after a death in the family. But a promising theme does not necessarily make for a satisfying movie.

The film is ingratiating enough, but its main value is to make us eager for another, more substantial Shelton movie long before another decade has slipped by.

The result is fascinating, often moving, if also incomplete.

Charged never simplifies Eduardo’s nature or the key relationships in his life. We end up appreciating his charisma and marveling at his resilience without ever seeing him as a paragon.

What the film doesn’t have is the visceral impact that would take it from a well-intentioned treatise to a searing work of art.

Nichol has created a loving valentine to all the iconoclasts who resist what the rest of the world defines as progress.

Shot Caller may cover little new ground but navigates familiar terrain with considerable skill.

Dorfman declares that she was never a media or critics’ darling. “I was at the bottom of the list,” she says when talking about her position in the ranks of modern photography. This film will convince you that she definitely deserves a higher position in the pantheon.

Beyond its message, however, and despite some unfortunate omissions in the history it recounts, the film succeeds as one of the most gripping and suspenseful docs of recent years.

Handsomely mounted and well acted, the film breaks no new ground but remains engrossing.