With its stark portrayal of abuse, Palm Trees and Power Lines won’t be for everyone. But the director’s assured approach to a thorny topic, the way she needles at assumptions about grooming and the care with which she treats Lea’s story will linger with me for a long while.

Stolevski depicts the young creature’s journey toward humanity with sensitivity and increasing investment.

In a genre movie climate marked by cheap thrills and easy scares — whatever gets us not to click on something else — it’s nice to see a film that sustains a strong ambiance of dread simply via someone looking out the window and shopping for groceries.

Despite its hiccups and frustrations, Master is inventive in finding fresh ways to package familiar observations about American racism; even the most clichéd sentiments are delivered with a nudge and a wink.

Hall and Brown are a glorious kick to watch, their physicality at times bordering on slapstick.

A fascinating window into the psychological and emotional minefield of early puberty and the torn feelings of a vulnerable child watching her darkest instincts play out, Hatching delivers.

Although astute viewers may easily predict God’s Country’s final moments, the journey there is still a wild and satisfying one.

A cool, confident debut whose steady build mirrors the increasing stakes faced by its namesake, John Patton Ford’s Emily the Criminal is a nail-biter that makes the most of the tough side Aubrey Plaza has shown in even her most comic performances.

If Am I OK?‘s tone occasionally tilts too far toward comedy (including in an oddly staged climactic confrontation) its laughs land far more often than not, and bring us closer to the characters by inviting us to laugh with them.

The queasy mix of realism and wish-fulfillment will set many viewers’ heads spinning, or at least shaking with disappointment, in this well-intentioned but unpromising debut.

An airy, lazy, though rather likable overseas rom-com served with a dose of melancholia and several large portions of cinematic nostalgia.

Intimate in every sense, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande represents an affirming, immensely likable British comedy-drama.

Stearns’ third feature (following Faults and The Art of Self-Defense) is his least satisfying so far; as visually drab as its predecessors, it has more difficulty mining its off-kilter aesthetic for nervous laughter and conceptual provocation.

We know the achievements and victories of the era Nagy depicts, and yet, because she and her fine cast bring the story to such vivid, immediate life, the final moments of Call Jane are powerful with unanticipated joy.

At the end of Living, I felt not like I’d seen an old favorite in a new light, but like I might want to go back and watch Ikiru again. There are worse outcomes for a remake than reviving affection for the original, or retelling an old story for a new audience that may not have heard it before. There are better ones, too.

None of it adds up to a coherent thesis on love or sex, but it doesn’t really need to. And there’s something thrilling about Dunham’s refusal to give her film a clear social intent. Much like Sarah Jo’s sexual dalliances, Sharp Stick is ultimately about the excitement of exploration.

Building on the strengths of his justly celebrated debut, maintaining its distinctive point-of-view while broadening the scope of its sympathy, Cooper Raiff‘s Cha Cha Real Smooth is a more mainstream film than 2020’s Shithouse without feeling the least bit generic.

Not only does it offer a damning lesson about how the United States abandons its veterans, but it tries, with honesty and feeling, to honor a man who just wanted to survive.

Regarded as a whole, Fresh is a success — a taste of its creative talents’ abilities that leave the viewer hungry for more.

Accompanied by a dreamy soundtrack and philosophically flowery narration by Miranda July, it’s a doomed love story on every level, a gorgeous collage of a film in which romance, scientific inquiry and death do a 93-minute dance.

[A] bitterly funny, clear-eyed debut.

If the film doesn’t exactly transcend its familiarity (the elegiac tone, the sun-baked, wind-swept scenery, the wistful acoustic guitar score), it succeeds, often with understated magnificence, in finding ways to sidestep it — to make you not mind in the slightest.

Emergency mostly stays close to the surface of the issues it presents, which results in a darkly funny but frustrating viewing experience.

A film that doesn’t quite know whether it wants to educate its audience or give it a thrill ride. It proves more interesting for the former elements than the latter, but it nonetheless delivers plenty of compelling moments along the way.

Among other things, the film is an extremely dense fusion of elements that make up our sense of time and memories, including collages of hundreds of old photos, grainy super 8 footage, notebooks, songs and music, sound bites and newspaper articles.

With its indie verve, raucous female gaze, comedic throughline and references to Indian cinema traditions, Definition Please sets out to accomplish a lot in terms of style and substance.

Sure, there’s some fun in all that meta-playfulness. But there’s also a facetiousness that wears thin and intrudes on the killing spree, making me often wish I was watching any one of the superior movies being referenced.

Transformania remains sufficiently goofy-sweet to please its target demo; those who find the humor toothless should at least appreciate the distinctive animation, which can be as energetically wacky as classic Looney Tunes.