Under the muck and mire, Vesper is a reminder that both life and hope can be surprisingly durable, flexible, and morphable.

Indeed, Smile, at its best, is a bit weirder and more left-field than you may expect. Following the recent release of Barbarian, it’s continuing this year’s trend of seemingly well-polished, potentially anonymous studio horrors having much more inspired, hidden ambitions than other high-profile contemporaries.

Most of all, I’m really struggling with why this movie was even made. Yes, it’s based on a true story, but is it one that needed telling on screen?

It’s a mixed bag for sure, but The Good House ultimately displays enough self-assurance to overshadow its contrivances.

It's a deliberate effort by director, co-writer, and rom-com veteran Nicholas Stoller (The Five-Year Engagement, Forgetting Sarah Marshall) to get inside modern gay relationships – or, more especially, affluent, white, middle-class, cis gay male relationships in New York.

For all the fierceness of the elements, co-directors Anna Rose Holmer and Saela Davis, who previously collaborated on the well-regarded 2015 indie film The Fits, are in no rush here.

If you’ve ever missed a beloved grandparent, the beautiful What We Leave Behind will hit home.

When de Armas’ performance is given the space to be quiet and chilling, Blonde suddenly hits, and what once felt hollow feels painfully visceral.

A swing and a miss is too timid a dismissal. It’s a sumptuously dressed table that ends in a wet fart.

Maltese writer/director Buhagiar emphasizes the character’s transformative path rather than her pitiable starting point, and with the help of some suspension of disbelief and a symbolic pigeon (no, not a Maltese falcon) Carmen comes into her own.

In adapting James Lee Burke's short story, "Winter Light," Higgins and cowriter Shaye Ogbonna (The Chi, Lowlife) have taken the barest of its bones and grown fresh meat.

At first, you may question whether this is all some elaborate head game, but gradually the creatively unorthodox approach to pay tribute to a man who gravitated toward unconventional artistry enlightens more often than it disorients.

Although the film allows us a certain emotional proximity to the twins, it never rewards us with understanding or dramatic resolution. Their story draws us in, but distant (and silent) outsiders they remain.

It looks beautiful, the costumes are gorgeous, the fight scenes are terrific, and there is a nice bit of gore. It may be a long haul to the eventual battle but don’t let that dissuade you from signing up.

If nothing else, Pearl is a showcase of the powerhouse that is Goth. She deserves all the accolades and then some.

In Goodbye, Don Glees!, the first original anime from Atsuko Ishizuka (No Game No Life: Zero), innocent teen friendships and the hope for one last adventure are tenderly explored as a wildfire sends the trio into the woods – but most importantly, into a delicate exploration of growth, of dealing with mundane situations that seem impossibly huge and impossible challenges that somehow you can work your way through.

Genial and unbothered, Confess, Fletch never climbs higher than mere adequacy.

If you're not au fait with the scandalous yet prim world of the 1950s West End, See How They Run is still a silly if slight affair, playful without ever being weighty, and mostly given a sense of giddiness by Rockwell's gruff detective and Ronan as his determined if doubting assistant.

Even if Medieval occasionally succumbs to its worst biopic influences, it’s still a delightfully confident work from a filmmaking team that knows its way around a sword.

Few can write this kind of acid-dripping parlor drama with as much bite as LaBute.

Smith is still a long way from being a great filmmaker, but he's an earnest one. And Clerks III, flawed as it is, is his heartfelt farewell to the Quick Stop.

Scary, funny, brutal, smart, and perverse – this is the stuff that future classic horror midnighters are made of.

Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes may not have as much to say as you might hope, but what it does it recites with an enthralling elegance.

Formally, Waiting for Bojangles looks marvelous, with Roinsard artfully weaving through throngs of partygoers placed in vibrant, lived-in spaces and exotic locales, and Virginie Efira continues her run of outstanding performances (see Sibyl, Benedetta), but she is ultimately ill-served by a character and a film that’s removed any gravitas it seeks to instill by paradoxically not being removed enough.

It’s a fascinating world to explore; I just wish Honk for Jesus had done a better job in doing it.

It's a call to action with no banner behind which to rally, sanitized to the point of being anodyne.

It's all deliberately grotesque, but comic readers will be pleasantly surprised at the degree of compassion for and comprehension of the culture Kline portrays.

For all its dry wit, The Good Boss is ultimately a portrait of a megalomaniac. Showcasing the dramatic lengths he’s willing to go to in order to maintain control (what he sees as equilibrium) in his little kingdom, it leaves a sour taste.