It’s moving in its minuteness, in the difficulty of daily living for two men trying to survive an intensive, low-income job. Still, it returns to the issue of friendship and how, as people age, they begin to grow apart.

Not even the most masterly work can entertain for very long when it is put to preposterous use.

For proving compelling over most of its runtime, one can’t ignore the film just for faltering in its final stretch. You just wish it didn’t feel like it might be betraying its subjects a little.

It’s all over the place in tone, themes, and cringeworthy melodrama.

Once Samuel stops trying to modernize the genre with layers of music-video style and comedic irony, his film becomes surprisingly effective––it just takes a little while to get there.

Moss and McBaine do well to examine their subject from every angle. And yet, it’s not nearly enough.

The biggest takeaway from Daaaaaali!, as with all of Dupieux’s recent work, might be that he doesn’t expect us to ponder too much the questions he proposes. He’s a very funny filmmaker––funny-ha-ha, not arthouse funny––and I suspect he doesn’t want to distract more than necessary from his delightfully silly simple pleasures.

Moral quandaries aside, Evolution‘s beginning (which, significantly, is almost dialogue-free) is a well-executed nail-biter; yet the project soon buckles under its own self-importance, and I found it difficult to stomach the queasy neatness of Mondruzco and Wéber’s parable.

Devos’ films can feel overly studied, slick to the point of being contrived, yet with each passing work––each reduction to the most potent flavors––he edges closer to something truly great. Here is his finest yet, an almost-perfect little film.

Following the events that led up to Winner’s arrest––including recordings of conversations between Winner and agents who stopped by for a friendly chat, along with the efforts of her loving family to advocate on her behalf–– Kennebeck again has crafted an often riveting exploration of the state of national security.

The film comes across more as bearing witness to a particularly weird moment in our recent past, the Roman numerals of the title ironically characterizing it as ancient history, even as its echoes ripple into the present.

It becomes a mess of concepts, issues, and messages, an amalgamation of errors in tone and story.

As a film, The Pigeon Tunnel is competent. It looks nice, its reenactments are polished, and Cornwell’s wit aptly distracts from the movie’s pitfalls. But if you’re looking for an incisive, thorough documentary that probes and provokes, prepare to lower your expectations.

Even in its overwhelming melancholic power, Haigh has made something therapeutic—about longing and holding on and learning to let go.

Steered by Sarr in a spellbinding performance, this is a mesmerizing watch for the most part, running the gamut of positive idealism at the film’s opening to clinging on to the vestiges of hope at the finale.

Proudly immune to narrative conventions, The Human Surge 3 doesn’t just ape an aesthetic that’s become so prominent in our screen-mediated lives, but wonders what can be built upon it.

A Still Small Voice captures good people doing their best to navigate constant crisis. The struggle will linger with you for some time.

There’s a point where the world-building comes to feel more like hitting marks of influence than imagination. For already amalgamating various sci-fi pictures of the past, you do get the sense of Edwards’ ideas running out by the end.

There’s fertile ground in our current hypersensitive, extremely online culture that’s been used to create good satire in recent years. Borgli is happy to let that potential go to waste, taking broad swings and misses against a changing societal landscape without understanding his targets.

Menu Plaisirs is not amongst his masterpieces but it’s a fine late addition to the Wiseman canon––even in a media landscape so saturated with food shows and celebrity chefs, the director’s made a film that feels both fresh and artistically stimulating, unmistakably his own.

There’s so much dead space and so little insight in Fingernails as it trudges toward a conclusion that can be figured out in the first five minutes.

Yes, there’s a central romance that sees Howard and the new housekeeper Annie (Brid Brennan) falling in love, but its purpose is less to fix what’s broken than it is to shine a light on the fact that some things can’t be fixed.

In its quest to surprise audiences, The Critic jumps down too many rabbit holes, progressively losing all semblance of plausibility or insight it might’ve otherwise yielded.

Mones and Suh’s missed questions and editing tactics make Sorry/Not Sorry a shallow, reductive portrait into demystifying the myth of cancel culture.

That authenticity captivates. Seagrass understands that these couples’ retreats aren’t for everyone and that some marriages aren’t either.

In so many ways, A Haunting in Venice feels like some sort of culmination.

Arcel doesn’t shy away from the harshness of the time period, in both people and environment, which gives his film an edge that keeps its story engaging.

As the steady flow of alcohol removes the barriers and fast-forwards the many years of estrangement, Moodysson’s skill at zeroing-in on the naked sorrows of the human experience is as sharp as ever.