It seems doubtful that Ballad of Small Player will serve as a third straight return to the Academy Awards for Berger. However, it does firmly establish the filmmaker as perhaps the finest purveyor of reliably high gloss pulp. But even as far as low stakes bets go, the film only offers a very modest payout.

If there’s any need to make another film about despicable, beautiful, filthy rich monsters, at least decide what, if anything, might be of interest to say. If families are rose bushes needing pruning, then so are scripts.

Salvadori’s greatest crime is denying Antoine and Suzanne the space to develop the chemistry which makes their budding romance seem plausible.

Unfortunately, the end result feels as shockingly out of touch as a principal character’s devotion to a typewriter.

Ultimately a tad tiresome even with a slim running time of seventy-four minutes, Fire of Wind suggests Mateus has the eye of a formidable filmmaker, but the narrative feels like more of a concept than statement.

It’s a film about learning how to navigate the fulfillment of our needs or the procurement of meaningful connections.

A Sad and Beautiful World captures the tension between the desperate need to leave and the eternal longing to return but the playtime that Akil and Akl do get together plays more like a highlight real than dramatically compounding.

Perhaps a bit more mainstream than might be expected from the distinctive human miseries usually employed by du Welz, Maldoror is an enjoyably meaty recuperation of an infamous scandal.

One’s familiarity with similar agonized portraits of motherhood may dictate how novel Nightborn might seem, though it’s lonely, traumatized Sara who makes one want to stay until the end credits.