You could argue that Lazzaro Felice owes a debt to Pasolini with its fascination for peasants, saints, and faces, or even Gabriel Garcia Marquez with its mix of rural life and magical realism, but that would be to discredit the shear vivacity and boldness of Rohrwacher’s directorial hand, not to mention her incredible warmth as a filmmaker.

This effort to show Lara’s struggle like a coming-of-age story is what sets Girl apart. Dhont fleshes out his story with little growing-up moments everyone can relate to.

Border is only really at its best when focusing on Tina’s rediscovery of her true nature.

As with the several other slight departures from realism, the artifice added to the story proves distracting. Without being successfully integrated, such choices fail to bestow the narrative with depth and pathos as intended, but only draw attention to the flimsiness of the its construction.

Boom for Real is an engaging enough oral history from those that were there – directed in a manner that’s perhaps a little too straight forward for just how vibrant the material is.

Delicate, immensely strange, but filled with a singular Rudolphian magic.

If talk is cheap and deceptive — maybe even dangerous at times — in Cold War, music certainly is not.

Burning might not have a huge amount going on below its gorgeous surface, but it drags the viewer along with all the seductive intrigue of a frothy page-turner.

The plot’s construction might be derivative, but its serpentine execution is flawless, providing enough crazy turns and zany characters to sustain an escalating momentum for Silver Lake‘s nearly two-and-a-half-hour runtime.

Book Club...excels not in its boldness to be risqué, but its boldness to portray vulnerability. It’s about love’s risk versus reward and the acknowledgement that present happiness is worth the future’s potential pain.

A perfectly decent comedy that will be accessible enough for a wide mainstream audience.

Whether there’s any worth to be found in The House That Jack Built will depend on the viewer’s interest in delving deep into von Trier’s tortured psyche. It’s unlikely anyone will empathize with him and it’s certain many will find the film execrable, but those willing to indulge his excess are offered a wealth of fascinating material.

The director’s characteristic humanism and rejection of easy judgments suffuses the film with sincere empathy – refreshingly, he acknowledges his own role in the entrenched patriarchal culture he’s critiquing, both as a man and film director. As such, when 3 Faces closes on a bittersweet note, the hopeful gesture of its closing image feels neither cheap nor unearned.

It still works. Maybe not as well, since the element of shock and awe can’t be put back into its bottle, but anyone who enjoyed Wilson’s transformation into a bullet-hole-riddled leotard that can’t shut up should have as much fun.

Ash is Purest White is a tremendous, funny, heartbreaking, sprawling vehicle for Zhao, and what a gift it is to see her exploring the furthest reaches of those talents.

It’s all insane and intoxicating, and what’s perhaps most remarkable is that, ultimately, the ugliness and excess is legitimized by being in the service of an elaborate and ecstatically realized celebration of dancing as an art form.

It can be a bit too pandering at times when things that read visually and emotionally are also explained verbally, but I don’t think these moments ruin the effectiveness of the over-arching narrative propulsion. The central journey works quite well in motive and deception to hold our interest as far as discovering where it will all lead. From start to finish that trajectory kept me hooked.

It’s an energetic, frequently hilarious, always visually riveting ride.

A gripping highway heist sequence and two affecting lead performances are surrounded by a film that mistakes the knowledge of sadness for its authentication.

Topics like sexual orientation, gentrification, feminism, rape culture, and adultery are introduced so superficially that the film would be doing better service to each by leaving them on the cutting room floor. It needs to either put more focus on Bobby or work harder at creating its ensemble. Existing in the middle as it does only leaves us wanting for more.

Overwriting has been the constant weakness in Farhadi’s filmmaking, but here the writer-director — who should really consider passing scriptwriting duties on to someone else for a change — truly outdoes himself.

Right when I was ready to resign myself to the thought that Revenge simply started too strong to maintain itself, Fargeat brought me back from the brink with a tense labyrinthine conclusion making use of its locale and blood as plot propulsion.

Terminal is destined to be forgotten. However, if the cast, the look, and the wacky storyline intrigue, it might be worth a viewing. While it’s far from the so-bad-its-good category, the few oddities contained within may delight a few curious audience members.

It’s a film with an inspiring message that’s often uneven despite the coherence of its message guided by Solomon. As affirming and enlightening as the experience is, it does suffer from the trappings of flying into these characters lives and popping out rather than spending a considerable amount of time in their shoes.

When She Runs is a film that’s beautifully restrained.

Perhaps the director’s most no holds barred picture yet, it expresses the anxieties and political division of the Trump era.

The Image You Missed exists at multiple levels. It is an archival quest to bring back to life a man’s oeuvre, an attempt to reckon with one’s national identity, and a struggle to make sense of the legacy a father left behind. Each film is a mission impossible, but Foreman’s plays out at depths few others normally venture in.

While not breaking new narrative ground, it’s a confidently-directed picture, even surprisingly ambitious in later passages. It’s all carried by a stunning performance by Mary Kay Place, whose emotional journey is as profound as it is ambiguous as she remains steadfast in her ways despite coming full circle.