Fickman’s directing is uninspired at best, barely competent at worst. The framing and composition is dire; there’s no sense of rhythm or flow, and characters constantly appear and disappear at random. But it’s the writing that truly fails the film and characters.

Youmans’ poetic wade into rural black Louisiana, and the private realms of the faithful and faltering across three generations, is the kind of boldly off-road and unapologetically arty family drama that makes one sit up and take notice.

Though this film analysis has its interest, the most involving parts of “American Dharma” are not Bannon expounding on his political philosophy but his postmortem on the nuts and bolts of the successful campaign he helped run against Hillary Clinton.

While the rest of the film feels slightly juvenile, Quinn, who costarred in “Landline,” keeps Good Girls Get High afloat, with her wide-eyed combination of pathos and humor that vacillates from deadpan to goofy.

It’s the performances and well-earned character arcs that make Last Christmas a satisfying holiday flick worth giving your heart to.

As admirable as it is that “Klaus” in the overall isn’t a sugar-rush cartoon fix of wisecracks and mayhem, it’s also too lazily reliant on insults and insolence as its go-to mode for comedy. But what does work is the snowy, hilly luster of this bygone-era fairy tale environment, and the seasonal soul the filmmakers have tucked inside their invented history about children’s yearly haul.

Marriage Story is an emotionally lacerating experience, a nearly flawless elegy for a beautifully flawed couple, a broken-family classic to set beside “Kramer vs. Kramer” and “Fanny and Alexander,” to name two films that Baumbach references visually here.

The storytelling’s smart, but the style’s tediously reverential and somber.

Eminence Hill isn’t that good, but as edgy westerns go, at least it’s on the right trail.

This picture is just one upsetting scene after another, which then only belatedly coalesce into a story — too late really to pay off any investment in those remarkable early moments.

Genre fans may be disappointed that Spell is more of an artful character sketch than a supernatural thriller. But by focusing on despair and regret, the movie is still pretty haunting.

Even at its most pulse-pounding, Bloody Marie remains locked on its sympathetically pathetic protagonist.

This is all fascinating in isolation, but transitions between stories and the experts’ insights never feel cohesive. The Portal also lacks the depth to fully engage — and convince — the viewer.

The tricky brilliance of Queen of Hearts is in how el-Toukhy uses a well-worn narrative — the unsuspecting, hidden passion with the appearance of erotic freedom — to unveil what in reality is a poisonous tale of abuse.

Motherless Brooklyn is the kind of knotty, ambitious, character-rich, politically conscious entertainment the studios so rarely get behind anymore, you can’t help wishing it were better.

Try as he might, Westmoreland can’t muster the same portraiture skills with a woman of mystery and brokenness that he’s shown with bold, expressive types (“Still Alice,” “Colette”).

With its blend of the archival, the interviewed, and modern-day footage, the first miracle of the film is that it never feels overstuffed with talking heads, or perfunctorily assembled, or rushed in covering its many glories across nearly a century. It’s a real beating-heart tribute, always streaked with feeling, whether joyous or poignant.

A searing, maddening, explosively brainy movie about the mutability and immutability of the self that, appropriately enough, never stops changing shape.

Adopt a Highway is a small film but mighty, thanks to Hawke’s reserved yet touching performance as a broken man learning to test his wings again, and Marshall-Green’s willingness to take Russell down unexpected paths.

In work that emphasizes the unstoppable power of a persuasive performance, Erivo not only convincingly conveys the strength of the celebrated abolitionist’s fierce personality, she creates her as a realistic, multi-sided character, a complex woman of formidable self-belief and not any kind of plaster saint.

Cox is a wonder to watch, and seeing him in this gentle, vulnerable role, also spouting folk tales and seductions in ancient Scottish Gaelic, is a treat. If only the rest of this sappy story stood up to his talents.

While the casually demonstrated prep work isn’t for the squeamish, the film’s aptly timed release should ensure viewers never consider their Thanksgiving turkey the same way again.

Although the film dutifully follows a familiar path to the courtroom, along the way, it serves as a solid demonstration of the fissures that can form when the bonds of friendship are tested against those of familial loyalty.

The codirectors, unconcerned with visual ornamentation, disseminate facts clearly in an undertaking that’s scholarly adept yet disappoints artistically.

If often sad and unsettling, the film is also livelier and less oppressive than it may sound thanks to the fine writing, deft direction by Adrian Noble, and the superb, if painful interplay between Redgrave and Spall.

There’s much to recommend here — emotionally, sociopolitically, musically — and it’s heartening to see greater openness to LGBTQ+ folks than outsiders might expect; compassion, grace and humor are in abundant supply.

Corny to its core but with enough charisma to avert total insufferableness, it’s a bubbly counteraction of a movie boasting a progressive conclusion.

Directors Mark Blane and Ben Mankoff bring a kinky sweetness to this oddball dramedy, but audience’s appetites for it will depend on their patience with its lead character.