Even if the last act doesn’t succeed as intended, On the Count of Three threads the difficult task of finding the humor in hopelessness while not exploiting the genuine pain of severe depression.

Kranz succeeds in finding understanding in the unthinkable.

Wright the filmmaker wrings out one of Wright the actor’s career-best performances.

It will entertain kids and adults alike with humor and magic before it fades away later that day.

You need some urgency and momentum to carry a movie like this. The incoming armageddon, occasionally seen as a small CGI blip in the blue sky, doesn’t have it. But as the day ends, Lister-Jones and Spaeny have enough chemistry to supply the real drama.

What emerges most clearly, in Wang’s argument, is the pandemic being as much of a battle between citizens and their lawmakers, as against humanity versus an ever-mutating virus.

Perhaps months or even years from now, it will be easier to disassociate the film from the real-world details that influenced its creation and give it a second look. In the present, though, In the Earth feels like a project designed to stave up boredom. Perhaps it did, for Wheatley and his crew. For everyone else, the memories of watching will be quickly buried.

When something like Dash Shaw and Jane Samborski’s Cryptozoo comes along, it’s easy to recognize as one of the most gorgeous works of American animation in ages.

It’s better defined as an archeological excavation, a confirmation of distant recollection, returned and restored. You have to wonder how many other dusty canisters like it are still lying around.

Coda, even with all of its imperfections, drives home a truckload of emotions in its final act, filled with more silence than noise.

French Exit easily could have been an unnecessary cliché. Instead, Jacobs’ film provides a polished portrait filled with originality, melancholy, and comedy.

Even at its least convincing, The Road to Mandalay is a film firmly grounded in humanity and the many unpleasant truths about our world. Neither topically nor technically does it aim for the populist or fantastical.

Set in a remote Sudanese village where religion and prophecy are valuable currencies, You Will Die at Twenty beautifully examines misguided notions of faith.

It hinges on a shade of obsession and a hint of delusion, but if anything, it shows how much the mind can swirl when life doesn’t go as expected, as it rarely does.

With superb performances (Fiennes, Mulligan, James, and Flynn shine), gorgeous cinematography, lyrical editing, and a complementary score, the film proves a melancholic wonder that isn’t easily forgotten.

As a journey inward into the roiling waves of memory and regret, Ahari fulfills his promise with an unapologetic air of penance and disgrace. That its success happens despite his exploitation of Neda as a character and woman doesn’t, however, negate that egregious misstep. And the latter being highly triggering unfortunately renders any blind recommendation of the former a reckless proposition.

The case here is secondary to the lengths its protagonists will go to solve it. It’s about the paranoia that builds when a lead seems good and the demons that take control of our actions once the system proves ill-equipped to dole out the justice we “know” to be deserved.

The film is unafraid of showing the real costs of political corruption from blood running in the streets to direct bribery at the polling stations on the day of the election. As intimate as it is brave, Softie is vivid warning and not an easy film to shake.

Malcolm & Marie is surprisingly accomplished given the speed and unprecedented circumstances under which it was produced, although I can’t help but imagine how a few extra weeks—or months—of development on the script could have elevated it. The central relationship, which is so compelling in the moment, suffers from a lack of context.

All in all, Cowperthwaite (who directed the documentary Blackfish and made her narrative debut with Megan Leavey) has a difficult time giving the film any sense of style. Montages pop up exactly where one would expect, and nasty arguments are given the classic hand-held touch.

By never attempting to give anyone on-screen a path towards redemption, Kostanski keeps things entertaining.

These kids might not have a full grasp on the situation that’s unfolding, but they definitely understand how precarious things have become in order to exit their shells. They awaken their desires while the adults gradually shutdown, knowing that nothing will ever be the same again.

Rather than let No Man’s Land solely focus on white Americans’ need to open their eyes to the vitriol they spew and hate they foster, the script asks their victims to shoulder the responsibility of their own oppression.

Bahrani’s adaptation of Aravind Adiga’s Booker Prize-winning debut novel may have a heightened air of fantastical satire, but it’s happily-ever-after isn’t one where hearts and minds prevail as good vanquishes evil. No, this is about one’s constitution. It’s about finding the strength to break your masters’ chains and spill their blood.

The Marksman could be compelling if it at all dared to be. It flirts with a few trains of thought that perhaps could have rescued it from its own indifference, but it commits to more mundane aspirations.

There are flashes of enjoyment and clarity, mostly within the home shared by Linda and Paxton, with Hathaway and Ejiofor showing their chemistry and their willingness to commit to the project.

With an immersive vérité touch, Acasă, My Home vividly captures living on the margins of society––whether it’s actually off the grid or being thrown into a system not of your choosing.

The lynchpin that holds I Blame Society together is Wallace Horvat, not just with her writing and direction, but with her deadpan performance.