This story, like the people in it, wouldn’t have held together on dry land, and there’s something wonderfully indulgent about surrendering to the undercurrents that swirl beneath Alice’s friendships. But the run-and-gun approach that makes this movie possible is also what ends up shooting it in the foot, as the clock is always ticking and Soderbergh never has time to get out of the shallows.

Where this all takes Lucy and Jane might feel a bit predictable, but that doesn’t deter from the warmth and wit that comes from the story that gets them there, a sex comedy with major heart, a friendship drama with plenty of spice, and a lovely new calling card for both Notaro and Allynne.

All this cutting from one perfectly framed shot to the next, never remaining inside a scene long enough so that the hopes and dreams of a flesh-and-blood being might emerge, felt rather like treading in a vacuum; and left this viewer longing to know more about these resilient gauchos.

7 Days is a film about a lot of things — matchmaking, familial expectations, being your best self, opening your heart — but it’s also about a strange, horrible time in all of our lives and how it changed us. In the minimum of time, Sethi and his cast give that a truly honest go.

“The Fast and the Furious” with wheelbarrows, Paraguayan action-thriller-romance hybrid 7 Boxes is a rollicking good time at the movies that offers breathtaking action and suspense, humor and appealing characters all in one visually flashy package.

Not since Klaus Kinski has Herzog aimed his camera at such an uncontrollable subject, and that includes the erupting peaks of “Into the Volcano” and the radioactive crocodiles in “The Cave of Forgotten Dreams.”

There’s certainly enough here to provoke meaningful questions that transcend the boundaries of the frame, and Nine Days hits a commendable note about the value of embracing life’s unpredictable turns. But no matter its celestial implications, the movie can’t shake the impression of a brilliant concept that never takes flight.

Exhibition infuses its cerebral exposition with a strong dose of humanity.

This is an important and compulsively watchable portrait made by someone who understands the brute power of broadcast media and the people who make it for all the world to see, but it can only afford Mike Wallace with a little moment of truth, and the satisfaction of playing his part in the greater continuum of things.

For a movie about the sky, “Weathering with You” is ironically one of Shinkai’s most grounded films — immediately more warm and engaging than “Your Name,” if not at all capable of delivering the same emotional payoff.

Stars Alexander Skarsgärd and Mia Goth deliver terrifically unhinged performances as a failing novelist and a mysterious tour guide, and Cronenberg has absolutely no shortage of original ideas, but the whole thing feels bloodless, cold and clammy as a speculum.

Aided by a dynamite performance from newcomer Laura Galán, Piggy uses the tension of a slasher thriller to weave a painfully relatable tale of adolescent angst gone terribly awry. As body shame and self-loathing morph into a disturbing complicity with violence, Piggy pushes the torments of youth to their naturally wicked ends.

Fingscheidt’s nonlinear approach allows the film to ride the tidal rhythms of addiction, while Ronan’s committed performance churns those ebbs and flows into a widescreen journey that earns its epic backdrop.

Beneath the pixelated gags, the stakes are relatively familiar. However, much of the humor in Wreck-It Ralph riffs on the nostalgia associated with real games.

The result is relentless and involving even when it stumbles. Jolie may not be a full-fledged auteur yet, but she unquestionably possesses a singular aesthetic that courses through her work and exists completely apart from her high-profile acting career.

Power achieves a profoundly unsettling sweep by prioritizing breadth over depth, and Ford’s doc is able to cover a ton of ground as it hopscotches between chapter titles like “PROPERTY” and “STATUS QUO” in order to argue that policing has always served as an instrument to maintain class order.

Unlike the polished universe of Pixar's "Brave" or countless other recent CGI efforts, ParaNorman maintains a delicate, handcrafted look that underscores its ideas.

The filmmaker sticks close to the theatrical roots of the material, sometimes stumbling on wordy, overzealous monologues that might land better on the stage. But the cast goes to great lengths to sell the premise.

Christmas in Miller’s Point is just happy to be an immaculately conceived vibe.

Knappenberger has delivered a film brimming with outrage, whose zeal becomes persuasive once Swartz takes on his activist mantle.

The movie is so cautious about avoiding disaster movie tropes that you can practically sense the resistance to arriving at the tragic finale. The result is a tasteful, well-acted bore, but so out of sync with traditional studio filmmaking it deserves some kudos anyway.

Fireball splinters into so many scattered pieces as it hurtles into our atmosphere that it almost seems as if the movie is trying to ignore any of the harder truths that might hold it together.

While Farrier is extremely likable — and his subject the polar opposite of that in every possible way — the documentary he’s made about Organ inadvertently complicates the matter of who is trapped with who, or if anyone is trapped at all. The finished product often feels more like watching a strained pas de deux than it does someone latching onto their prey.

The fact that Woods has already made it (and with an incarcerated mother of her own) only adds to the perfection of her casting; even without the meta elements, which underline the extent to which America’s disenfranchised look to pop culture as a pipeline to salvation, her performance is beautifully expressive and open to the world.

It may not be entirely inspiring, but Betting on Zero captures the everyone-for-themselves desperation that would make any wronged individual furious, be they jilted employee or frustrated stockholder.

The Coens get their cake and eat it, too: The lavish period details, paired with marvelous song-and-dance routines, work on their own terms while a firm self-awareness looms over every scene. It's a tricky balance indicative of directors who know exactly what they're going for: An old-fashioned homage to classic Hollywood and a send-up of the very same thing.

The Painted Bird spirals between fairy tale and history lesson as if it were trying to fly with a clipped wing. Several passages create a stomach-churning sense of inertia, but only during the very last shot does the whole thing manage to get high enough off the ground to offer a valuable perspective.

The Mad Women’s Ball capably sells the fact that Salpêtrière was a naked reflection of the institutional sexism that existed outside its walls, but Laurent’s eagerness to confront the barbarism of Charcot’s hospital tends to stifle the finer details of a story that hinges on female empowerment.