A long, leisurely drama directed with self-assurance.

While Woods' brash vitality is the movie's motor, it's in the moments when Goldie drops her bravado and reveals her vulnerability that the story becomes more than a reckless adventure.

Bustamante's screenplay is a philosophically and theologically nuanced affair, intermittently elliptical, concentrating on the bigger picture without bothering to sketch in the smaller details. This becomes something of an issue, given that these are often the pivots upon which the somewhat telenovela-like plot hinges.

The director is such an engaging presence onscreen — wry and humane, balancing sly social commentary with a playfully child-like attitude — that even a minor autumnal work like this is still a heart-warming mood-lifter.

Lapid continues to exhibit a singular blend of intensity and absurdity, as well as a distinct attention to cinematic craft.

The film improves upon reflection, raising, as it does, some knotty questions about originality in art and in life, as well as provocatively positing that even a copy of a copy of a copy has the potential to move hearts and minds.

The screenplay struggles to rise above the level of a sociological study into the realm of exciting cinema.

An extraordinary feeling for nature and the seasons of life pervades Out Stealing Horses (Ut Og Stjaele Hester), an ambitious reflection on our responsibility to others from Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland.

Writer-director Yuval Adler connects the dots of the convoluted plot with reasonable clarity, but The Operative only intermittently builds suspense.

Nothing on either side comes close to the trenchancy or grim poetry of Jones' harrowing odyssey, which is as it should be. But there's also no reason for all the political obstructionism and journalistic frustration to be so windy.

What holds the film back is the familiarity of its elements.

As a supposed snapshot of life in the unaccommodating big city, and of the humane gestures that can soften that harshness, it feels utterly synthetic, not to mention a romantically "European" view of New York that's sheer nonsense.

It's an uncompromising, sophisticated, multi-layered work of art which demands to be met at least halfway.

Zoya Akhtar (Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara) directs with flair and passion and, aided by explosive performances from a right-on cast, triumphs over the familiarity of the star-is-born storyline.

On some level, Fritz’s story is compulsive viewing, only you wish you weren’t there.

There's no mistaking the earnest anger which motivates her assault on the sexist "dark ages" values still to be found in many Macedonian provincial areas, but expressing it in such clunky terms does no service to the cause.

It could almost be described as a slyly playful, minimalist take on M. Night Shyamalan territory, though that risks making it seem more commercial than it is.

Medel, seldom off-screen, turns in a marvelous, utterly engaging portrait of an intelligent, caring person slowly stretched to breaking point.

Sadly for a story so fraught with desire and violence, Elisa & Marcela is painfully lacking in frisson and danger. Despite competent performances from her two young stars, Coixet fails to inject the girls’ relationship with complexity, tension and conflict. In the end, they are ciphers in a message-driven movie, which is made worse by contrived one-liners and gestures.

The filmmakers never underline the emotions they want to evoke, and yet by the end, audiences may be moved to tears by this tale of fractured lives that find just the right measure of repair.

This is a social justice film made with purposeful conviction and a quiet, never strident, sense of indignation.

Reaching for a memorable blend of whimsy and portent, Stine has come up with something that feels scattered and decidedly lite. Yet the glimmers of promise in Virginia Minnesota suggest that with a more streamlined, focused narrative, he could spin a Midwestern yarn to remember.

The Unicorn walks a fine line between sensitive observation and voyeurism, frequently tipping over into the latter. It's certainly an uncomfortable film to watch, but the viewer's discomfort doesn't begin to compare to that felt by the troubled people onscreen.

The whole enterprise seems like an advertisement for the breed, the ownership of which will apparently improve your life immeasurably while making a holy mess of it.

Budgetary and other constraints make this attempt to conjure post-war Hollywood more sincere than believable, a history lesson with little to offer even a serious film buff.

Though its micro view limits its usefulness in big discussions of public policy — it's easy to imagine American partisans using it as evidence both for and against government-run health care — it is a vivid reminder that all such policies are lived out by millions of individuals, who die every day when things aren't well run.

One Million American Dreams makes a valuable contribution to the argument that the city's forgotten people surely deserve better.

Along the way, though, 2U throws enough wrinkles into the first film's action — if you don't remember it well, rewatch it before seeing this — to engage us.