While Denial doesn’t do anything new on a technical side, it is fully aware of its gripping plot, one that welcomely avoids pushing its inherent clichés to the forefront of its story.

The Edge of Seventeen isn’t John Hughes for a new generation – it’s much more honest than that.

You won’t get the gravitas of Rocky, Raging Bull, or Creed, but you will get a character worthy of immortalization thanks to spirit and shenanigans.

Ultimately, Zlotowski’s girl gone wild narrative is a bumpy ride. Some scenes are understated and gripping, but others fall flat as they revolve around little more than a teenager sulking.

Whereas the aforementioned Southside With You was a calm, romantic watch, this is a serious and refined drama which has the feel of a political firecracker.

Thankfully Johnson got someone like Powley to take on the central role because it’s through her honesty that we allow the rest to be somewhat two-dimensional.

The Untamed does that very rare thing in cinema in that it blends mystery, horror and pseudo-reality with a kind of dark subconscious arousal.

Seretse and Ruth eventually stop being individuals, transforming instead into a concept of strength and unity bolstering the real plot despite initially seeming as though they were building it.

The movie makes a game attempt to resonate as something stronger than a typical period romance, wringing its wartime setting for all the pathos it can manage. But even the horrors of the Blitz feel too gentle here.

The plot structure is convoluted and all-too familiar, leaving almost no trace of originality or curiosity at the table.

If George set his sights on capturing the effects of this tragic stain in history rather than love-making, we might have gotten a drama worthy of the talent involved.

Little is left after a while until, finally, Planetarium doesn’t conclude so much as come to an end, and the lasting impression is one of bitterness — a bitterness at once sweetened and worsened by memories of the genuinely great work it had promised and, at turns, even embodied.

Writer/director Dash Shaw’s hand-drawn picture is fun and slight without overstaying its welcome. It never runs out of energy and is constantly in a state of innovation and surprise.

While the historical scope of From What Is Before is huge, its emotional palette is a bit limited.

An extraordinarily rich, initially exasperating, yet eventually marvelous postmodern epic.

Highlighted by the black-and-white, The Woman Who Left is as nocturnal as the best noir, one of those films in which every transition from nighttime to daytime registers as a shock.

It’s hard not to detect the film as a for-hire work from Demme, perhaps just because its subject seems so in-control — not so much in the terms of him as author, but the whole project as a form of brand management for one of the world’s biggest pop stars.

I Called Him Morgan hooks you from the first moments and glides effortlessly toward an emotionally impacting and enigmatic conclusion.

It’s a heady hall of mirrors that keeps revealing, or at least suggesting new depths and angles. But while this kind of intense creative exercise no doubt deserves respect, ultimately one has the uneasy sense that things don’t really add up.

Oh is fantastic as the earnest socialite who appears to have never lifted a finger towards work her entire life, but she’s also superb at the contriteness necessary to believe in a rebirth. Heche revels in playing a narcissistic taskmaster.

No matter how effective Murphy (great in his first film role in four years) or Robertson is, the fact they are driven by external forces rather than internal can’t be ignored.

In spite of its slightly excessive runtime and a handful of millennial-pandering beats, Bridget Jones’s Baby is brought to term by the buckets of undeniable charm and charisma present in its performances.

If the first half is an indelible treat and gives one high hopes that a film delicately placed in the awards season will in fact meet its steep expectations, the second half is troublesome and falls flat.

This is remarkable stuff from a director on the cusp of the mainstream. You sense an American filmmaker might not have managed it.

For Rooney Mara, it’s a new high, giving a performance that can only be described as extraordinary, and she makes Una a sharp, discomforting stunner.

Jenkins glimpses at the human soul and the hellish experiences endured despite it. We’re shown humankind’s capacity to change and the notion it’s never too late.

Deepwater Horizon reminds us just how talented an action director Berg is and how often substance becomes a second thought for the director.

As powerfully felt and gorgeously realized as anything one may see on screen this year.