This is an intriguing if austere art house item that should please lovers of slow cinema with a more mystical edge.

The results aren't fully satisfying on any level, despite a terrific cast that includes rising star Ana de Armas (Knives Out), soon to be seen in the upcoming James Bond film "No Time to Die."

The flaws in The Garden Left Behind should not prevent anyone from appreciating the rich, compassionate story Alves has brought to the screen with such assurance, or the heroine Guevara has brought to life with such realism.

The State Against Mandela and the Others adds little essential to the vast library of documentaries about Mandela and the anti-apartheid struggle. All the same, this is a heartfelt, humane and visually inventive tribute to a fading generation of giants whose principled sacrifices ended up changing history.

Changing the Game is beautifully crafted, with strong visual evocations of the different locales that these young athletes inhabit. The editing is also sharp, so that we rarely feel we are spending too much time with one set of characters.

The results are visually disorienting, to say the least. Although Notary and the special effects team do as good a job as technology allows, the expressive Buck never quite looks real. And you keep expecting him and the rest of the animals to burst into song.

If this were the feature-length pilot episode for some cheap reboot on a streaming service — which is what it feels like — a generous viewer might half-heartedly agree to tune in next week and see if things get more interesting. But on the big screen? A sequel would be less welcome than a new episode of, say, Charlie's Angels. Or Starsky & Hutch.

VFW ultimately lacks the cinematic flair to be truly memorable. But the pic succeeds on its own terms of being a nostalgic throwback to the days when such B-movies routinely opened on double and triple bills in urban grindhouses.

Neither the screenplay nor the agile direction insists on neat resolutions for any of the characters, and there's a double-edged charge as the foursome make collective and individual progress, slide back and try again: the women recognizing each other in ways they otherwise never would have imagined, the half-sisters slowly becoming friends.

Come as You Are hits most of the familiar road-movie beats, and telegraphs its surprises pretty shamelessly. It's not the most subtle disability comedy you've seen, nor is it at all concerned with exploring the ethical issues surrounding sex work. But its lightness is a virtue in the film's rare sentimental moments, which might've been too corny to bear in other contexts.

Lopsided in its balance between sentiment and scares, it's a very peculiar genre pic that will make the most sense to those familiar with the films of two of its producers — Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson, whose trippy sci-fi outings like The Endless also balance the fantastic and the intimately human.

The Photograph is a romance-heavy star vehicle for Issa Rae and Lakeith Stanfield that’s deeply flawed but both sexy and thoughtful. Writer-director Stella Meghie’s fourth feature (after The Weekend, Everything Everything, Jean of the Joneses), thick and multi-layered with a lush and precise visual language, invites the audience to look beneath the surface of a standard meet-cute.

From its desert landscapes to its principal setting of an architecturally distinguished house to its extremely photogenic lead actress, every frame of the psychological thriller proves visually stunning to behold. While the film never manages to achieve the level of suspense that would make it dramatically riveting, it certainly earns its art house credentials on a purely visceral level.

Her (Zoey Deutch) wildly entertaining performance proves the standout element of the picture, which never quite reaches the comic heights for which it's aiming.

While Fowler keeps the story moving efficiently, Marsden's easy geniality prevents the simple narrative from feeling rote. Carrey gets a moment or two to cut loose.

Told with clarity, respect and empathy, and not just for the women on whom Weinstein preyed, Macfarlane's film offers a timely and fascinating overview of his story, one that's almost emblematic of the pathology of serial sexual abusers.

Netflix's To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You is a charmless sequel to a charmless YA rom-com. (Extra rom, hold the com.)

Jenkins' one and only feature weaves living history, charged and messy, into a homespun, hopeful tale. It's impossible not to wonder about — and wish for — what he might have done next.

Whatever exactly is going on (a misguided few will debate the literal meaning of closing scenes), the film is more serious than it appears; though odd and not for everyone, it's an ideal vehicle for Brie, using qualities she's displayed in excellent small-screen roles as an entry point to disturbing inner states.

No good performance can hide the fact that what happens during roughly the first hour is perhaps beautifully laid out and told but also extremely familiar. There is an expectation that Akin, also credited with the screenplay, will somehow step it up in the second half with a new twist or unexpected insight. But quite the opposite happens, as the narrative becomes both more melodramatic and erratic.

Unfortunately, the movie is far more effective in its first half than its second, which degenerates into cheap shocks, absurd plot contrivances and vulgarism for its own sake (including an excrement-covered pen). It's a shame, because the opening section proves deliciously unsettling, thanks to the screenplay that keeps you off-balance and the terrific performances.

The episodic screenplay lacks narrative momentum, and the use of faux-documentary commentary by older versions of Sawchuk's colleagues (played by actors) doesn't come across convincingly.

If you're reading this review because you're wondering what to cue up on your Disney+ subscription, Timmy Failure is the best of the new service's original programs by a wide margin. (Take that, you one-note Baby Yoda.)

Despite its laudable intentions, Waiting for Anya proves less impactful than it should be. The film certainly doesn't have the thematic weight of "War Horse," another film (and acclaimed stage play) based on a war-themed book by Morpurgo that was geared to young readers.

Extravagant action choreography makes the most of colorful set design, unlikely gimmicks and wrasslin'-style brutality. But Hodson's script offers far less diverting banter than it might've between the fight scenes, and has a hard time imagining the unconstrained id that makes Harley Quinn so magnetic.

De Wilde and Catton deliver a largely faithful and unchallenging adaptation, beautifully staged and sharply acted by a cast adept at balancing wit and romance.

Whether or not you identify as queer, Welcome to Chechnya will leave you shaken by the evidence of an amoral autocracy taking extreme action under the hypocritical guise of religious purity.

The degree to which the Tesla story syncs with Almereyda's abiding fascinations is clear in every frame of this contemplative, questioning, soulfully philosophical film.