Unfortunately, despite its uncomfortable resonance, Beneath Us barely scratches the surface of its provocative ideas, sacrificing nuance in favor of cheap shocks.

Despite the recognizably daunting challenges in telling this long-arc story in an entirely coherent way, The Banker spins a surprising and engaging yarn pinned to central elements that made it hard to tell. Its lively, positive spirit helps it over any number of speed bumps, the social backdrops play to its advantage and the top-line cast members pull their weight and then some.

Affleck gives the impression of intimate familiarity with the anguish and self-disgust that dominate Jack’s life; this character and project clearly meant something important to him, as the title bluntly suggests, and he gives it his all without overdoing the melodrama.

The film’s minimalist aesthetic makes little concession to the usual forms of cinematic expression and extends to the set design: living spaces devoid of furniture, the nondescript hotel room, the typical street scenes. The two actors are similarly inexpressive, their faces blank as though personal interaction was a major risk.

Though the message comes across loud and clear, the four tales suffer from being narratively uneven, making the film’s two-and-a-half-hour running time seem long indeed.

There’s an element of light comedy — rather than the more familiar irony — that feels fresh and invigorating, even if Garrel doesn’t quite stick the landing.

Leads Javier Bardem and Elle Fanning are commanding actors who give it all they’ve got to make their characters realistic, but while the film can be intriguing, it is never truly moving.

In the end, there is a method in all this madness, suggested by Dafoe’s calm face and reassuring voice as Clint confronts his most emotionally charged memories with courage and curiosity.

It’s the opposite of sensational; quiet, dignified and ruminative, it gets far closer to real Chinese people than a TV-style travelogue, though its many references to events in modern Chinese history will probably lose the casual viewer.

Beer and Rogowski are so good, and have such amazing chemistry, that it’s hard to look away or not root for them to be together.

Hong, who handled screenplay as well as directorial, editing and scoring duties, is in fine form here.

Though shot in the most classic of idioms, the film commands attention with its mesmerizing performances and lively cross-cutting between key moments in the hero’s life.

Without trying too hard, it speaks to teenagers, and also to the teenagers we all once were, about how to cope with and adapt to those first big losses in life that you don’t see coming. With steady performances from Smith and Fanning, the result is a refreshingly sober spin on the YA romantic drama.

A sterling cast makes up for screenplay weaknesses.

Handsome and intense, Ahmed is a reliably magnetic screen presence, while his punchy real-life chops as a rapper and lyricist also serve him well here. But his screenwriting skills are less assured, and Mogul Mowgli is strangely low on dramatic or emotional bite given its high-stakes storyline. Baggy editing, underexplained context and flat dialogue add to this muted effect.

Director Andrew Levitas and his co-screenwriters dramatize a riveting story using a mass of groan-worthy genre clichés that ill-serve the truth they are trying to recreate.

After its slow start, Minyan becomes progressively more absorbing, its gritty visuals conveying soulful intimacy, accented with occasional understated touches of wry humor.

It is uncompromising filmmaking, certainly, but also insular filmmaking that will make a tiny little circle of intellectual cinephiles very happy while leaving everyone else — this critic included — completely cold.

Halfway between fiction and documentary, Last and First Men is a visionary work about the final days of humankind that stretches the audience’s ability to imagine not only an immense time frame reaching over billions of years, but huge steps in human evolution.

Although the story is not easy to follow, the anger behind it is so virulent that it sweeps the narrative along on a wave of rage and repulsion. A downer on this scale will not, clearly, be everyone's cup of tea.

It’s pretty much a one-woman show for actress Erica Rivas, who brings a sense of fun to a fast-paced comedy about schizophrenia, if that’s what it is.

A tense debut built around a compelling lead performance by Bethany Anne Lind, it benefits from a couple of graceful storytelling flourishes and a persuasive sense of character.

The doc serves the valuable purpose of shedding a much-needed spotlight on a problem that, as anyone who's recently walked on any city's streets can attest, only seems to be getting worse.

[Paul's] warm personality and sense of humor are on ample display in this engaging documentary that makes a strong case for his influence and importance.

A tale of long-simmering grudges and shocking violence in a small town, Paul Solet's Tread is a smartly structured doc with a finale so extravagant you could build an exploitation film around it.

Big on atmosphere but low on drama, DAU. Natasha is fascinating conceptually but weak cinematically.

The result feels like a dry and endless lecture more than an involving human story about serious issues. It’s a movie that’s all subtext and no text — and even the subtext struggles to make a point that’s more complex than a blunt truth.

Scream, Queen! feels a bit self-indulgent at times, exploring so many tangents that it tends to lose focus. Nonetheless, it's a fascinating sociological examination of the circumstances surrounding a film that inadvertently became a camp classic.