Tatiana Craine

Despite valiant effort from the performers — especially Usher, who's onscreen for nearly every scene — this three-hander is no joyride.

Ultimately, Down a Dark Hall falls victim to familiar teen horror tropes: a brooding lead with a heart of gold, predictable jump scares, wincingly bad romantic tension, and obvious villains.

If Five Seasons is the only opportunity viewers have to experience Oudolf’s artistry up close, Piper’s cinematography (whether through a sunny haze or a snowy blanket) and contemplative storytelling have done these gardens justice.

In her feature debut, Kariat has touched upon important themes — the immigrant experience, ageism in tech, the performance of traditional family roles, and the toll of depression — but the way she has combined them too often feels slapdash.

Offhandedly, in a movie that itself is offhanded to a fault, Little Edie cuts to the core of the whole Grey Gardens phenomenon during one of her moments alone with the camera. “[To] dig up the past, I think, is about the most cruel thing anybody can do.”

Ultimately, this wannabe dark comedy swindles viewers out of a thrilling caper.

For those who delight in candy-coated nostalgia, writer Philip Gawthorne’s familiar, cliché-heavy script offers a twee jaunt down memory lane. For everyone else, even a killer Britpop soundtrack teamed with the leads’ palpable chemistry can’t save the film from overtrodden territory.

Nana’s most stirring moment comes when Dykman and her mother reveal the moment when they went from merely knowing about the Holocaust to truly understanding it.

There’s no rhyme or reason to Alex’s journey, which makes the whole of it equally disarming and daffy.

Like Erin Brockovich for eminent domain, Little Pink House does well to explain the thorny legal issue at its center without getting bogged down in minutiae. Although Susette’s story unfolds in small-town Connecticut, Balaker hammers the point home: This could happen anywhere.

Writer-director Stephen C. Sepher’s thriller is so convoluted that it’s hard to care about its trail of dead bodies.

Although the filmmakers name-check and appear to draw inspiration from Mean Girls, they’ve missed the mark on truly biting satire, leaving Dear Dictator toothless and silly.

The Vanishing of Sidney Hall fails to give its characters depth, leaving viewers with little more than a shallow white guy troubled by his fame.

Despite its strong cast (including Sofia Vergara, Cecily Strong, and James Marsden), The Female Brain has trouble making its characters more than one-dimensional.

With Becks, directors Elizabeth Rohrbaugh and Daniel Powell have crafted an understated musical that really works, thanks to Alyssa Robbins’s heartfelt music and standout performances from the cast.

It’s a vital, intimate snapshot of a handful of people who have been touched by gun and gang violence.

The Clapper unsuccessfully attempts to be sincere and embrace the absurdity of its characters’ lives.

The film’s examination of the artistic grind is promising, but Dim the Fluorescents clocks in at over two hours, proving tiresome at times. Luckily, Skwarna and Armstrong’s quirky chemistry keeps the lights on in this overlong debut.

With Saturday Church, Cardasis has crafted a beautiful story about young, queer people of color championing one another and finding themselves.

Kepler’s Dream is a study in family dynamics that’s sweet without being too saccharine.

At times, Morgan's script inspires laughs; but at others, the witticisms seem forced

As a rumination on the experiences of undocumented immigrants, Most Beautiful Island presents an extreme example of what people will do to scrape by — but it does so without belittling its vulnerable characters.