What makes this film such a warm and touching portrait is that it reveals a woman who, even at her lowest, never loses her sense of humor.

It's not surprising that the remake of the 1986 film About Last Night... is broader, cruder and raunchier than the original. What is surprising it that's also much, much funnier.

The convoluted, cliché-ridden storyline, apparently inspired by the director’s father’s real-life experiences in the drug trade, is the least interesting element, while the brief, perfunctory action sequences no doubt reflect the low budget. But the film certainly looks and sounds good.

The film’s attempt at blending humor, poignancy and melodrama results in an awkward mish-mosh. But it has heart to spare, and the performances by the multi-generational ensemble are very effective, with particularly moving work by the veterans in the cast.

Less exploitative and a bit smarter than its seedy adult-film setting would suggest, the shoestring-budgeted film is nevertheless a niche outing that will rely on a stunty premise to attract voyeurs to its debut this Valentine's Day.

A rom-com whose agreeable individual elements aren't enough to sell the witless contrivance around which they revolve.

A highly homogenized and sanitized remake that's little better than its 1981 predecessor.

Aspiring transcendent love stories don't come much more claptrappy and unconvincing than Winter's Tale.

Though the screenplay, based on Laurence Benaim’s biography, is all build-up and no payoff, there is just enough emotional insight to compensate for the lack of narrative fireworks in the last half-hour.

This outstanding, muscular feature debut for French-born, British-based director Yann Demange almost never puts a foot wrong, from the softly underplayed performances to the splendidly speckled cinematography and fine-grained period detailing.

The film’s true MVP is Cusack, delivering a wittily subtle and acerbic turn that well displays his gift for deadpan comedy. He elevates the material whenever he’s onscreen, providing hints as to the more interestingly subversive film Adult World might have been.

The film forms a near-perfect storm of misjudged decisions, with its implausible plot, irritating or outright-dislikeable characters, and strained attempts at “wacky” British humor that fall so flat they’re below sea level.

On his first trip behind the camera, the British-Iranian Amini shows his skill at working with actors and sensing the way they can fill out literary characters. His screenplay generally feels more naturalistic than Highsmith, the dialogue less spare.

Frustratingly devoid of any background information about the director’s storied career, the film is ultimately repetitive and tedious.

It’s especially sad to see such notable actors as Caan and Patric reduced to appearing in this sort of bottom of the barrel, direct-to-video fare.

The story makes 94 minutes seem as long as a season of Lost and as fresh as the seventh viewing of a Gilligan's Island rerun.

This sentimental French farce unsuccessfully strains for laughs while lurching towards its all too predictable denouement.

Despite its shameless manipulations and unsubtle approach, it’s an ambitious and well-intentioned feature debut from a director whose future efforts bear attention.

Labine and Punch invest their performances with enough anarchic comic inventiveness and genuine chemistry to make their characters’ courtship and relationship issues funnily entertaining.

A likeable cast of relative newcomers buoys the film, which never quite finds the sweet spot.

Voyeurs, at least, will relish the opportunity to ogle, in 3D no less, the frequently unclothed star as well as the equally gorgeous Bowden, who spends much of the proceedings clad only in sexy underwear.

A film as soul-sucking as any of the fang-baring bores who populate it.

The film relies heavily on the charm of its lead performers, and both rise to the occasion.

Despite the effective performances by its young lead performers, California Scheming mainly comes across as half-baked.

Constant lateral tracks, push-ins, whip-pans, camera moves timed to dialogue, title cards, chapter headings, miniatures, use of stop-action, fetishization of clothing and props, absurdist predicaments — all the techniques Anderson has honed over the years — are used to pinpoint effect here.

Cavemen has absolutely nothing fresh to say about its subject, and its tired genre conventions wouldn’t pass muster on a Fox sitcom.

Although it displays far more imagination than is usual for such teen-oriented fare, After the Dark ultimately sinks under the weight of its pretensions.

The Dance of Reality is a rich pageant of nostalgic narcissism laced with New Age mysticism and fortune-cookie wisdom.