If the resulting drama, Stonewall, seldom escapes its cliches or cookie-cutter characters, it also recounts a political origin story in relatable, often affecting terms.

Office is undermined by a simplistic screenplay lacking the nuances and frisson one expects of a cutting-edge satire of a capitalist world propelled by graft and greed.

Confused both dramatically and politically, this is a film whose perhaps worthy ambitions seem to have outstripped its makers' talents — ironically, Forgotten is an expression of the very political forgetfulness it wishes to rectify.

While both plots work reasonably well separately, they're unnecessarily padded and don't tie together strongly. As a result, the film doesn't achieve its goal of its sum being bigger than its parts.

Though much of the drama is clunky and flat, the taut, visceral performances by David Oyelowo and Kate Mara never err.

To paraphrase a famous line from an old political debate--I've seen Carrie, I love Carrie, and Some Kind of Hate is no Carrie.

The sad truth is that, however engaging they are as performers elsewhere, neither Collette nor Barrymore are at their best here.

The picture is one part vintage Woody Allen, a few parts Screwball-era comedy of remarriage, and a vigorous shake of Gerwig herself, without whose particular spirit — "so pure," as an admirer puts it here, and "a little stupid" — this scenario might have trouble getting off the ground.

What makes the movie work are the lively performances, both from the supporting cast and from Cranston, who sheds the mimicry and pontificating of earlier scenes to turn Trumbo into a wry, self-deprecating and somewhat cheeky older man, even if he continued to stand up for what was right.

Blanchett gives this dynamo of intelligence and doggedness a real human dimension that allows the propulsive drama to breathe; it’s another stellar performance that rates among her best.

From a sensory point of view, the film is a pleasure, the images having been manipulated in various ways to evocative effect, Anderson’s voiceovers proving more amusing than not, and the music taking mostly lively turns.

Rarely have so many classy ingredients added up to such a muted, muddled, multi-story mess. Of course, it is still better to make an ambitious failure than a boring success. A true disaster movie, in all senses, High-Rise is ultimately an ambitious, brilliant failure.

He Named Me Malala retells that story in a deft and affecting way. Director Davis Guggenheim, who made the Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth and the controversial Waiting for Superman, does some of his most heartfelt work in this tribute to Malala and her entire family.

All the conviction the actors can muster can't make this script feel less pat.

The film boasts enough manic energy and straight-up weirdness to keep you entertained before overstaying its welcome in the final act.

[A] smart, tart adaptation of Kevin Wilson's best-selling 2011 debut novel, which thumbs its nose at the clichés of the over-trafficked dysfunctional family genre to dissect the sometimes lifelong quest of children to understand their parents in ways that are funny and bittersweet, poignant and often bracingly dark.

Hawke is natural casting as Baker, sharing enough facial similarities to capture some of the late jazz icon's chiseled, hollow-cheeked, fallen-angel beauty. He gives an unshowy and vanity-free performance, all soft-spoken mischief and brittle arrogance, but laced with just enough blood, sweat and tears.

A delectable riff on transformation, desire and sexuality that blends the heightened reality of melodrama with mischievous humor and an understated strain of Hitchcockian suspense.

Rather than engage in slow-build horror, Pascal Trottier's screenplay flips the switch into Poultergeisty chaos.

Berg’s account of the child abuse cases that led to the imprisonment of Warren Jeffs, the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), doesn’t reveal much that hasn’t already been in the news or written up in books, but it does provide a comprehensive, disturbing and utterly fascinating historical overview.

An explosive combination of highly personal moral drama and a wider, scathing portrait of a country in which corruption and greed seem to be the only shared values left, this well-oiled narrative machine is further aided by a clever ticking-clock mechanism that actually ratchets up the tension the longer the characters’ vodka-soaked, blame-game speeches are allowed to go on.

It's involving but seldom deeply affecting, with the core drama continually shoved aside to examine more commonplace matters of parenting, abandonment and broken families.

This picture satisfies fully on entertainment terms without cheapening its real-world concerns.

For high-concept melodrama that's low on complexity, this very solemn film takes itself way too seriously. But it's not entirely without interest, thanks to sleek visuals and decent chemistry between alluring leads Nicholas Hoult and Kristen Stewart.

There's a ton of great material here and a nonstop flow of expertly chosen clips.

The film feels empty and intellectualized at the core, where it should feel powerfully emotional.

This is a wonderfully odd consideration of those questions about love, pain, solitude and human connection we all ask; its emotional power creeps out from under the subtle humor and leaves a subcutaneous imprint that lingers long after the movie is over.

Director David Gordon Green’s latest unpredictable addition to his resume is offbeat and appealing on some levels but is neither as funny nor as trenchant as it might have been.