What saves the movie is Solondz’s sensibility, which is still one-of-a-kind.

Heder's direction shines, shaping the film around the cast as each woman plays out their own specific nuances of loss and insecurity, and, occasionally, optimism. Tallulah is an impressive feature debut, and a welcome showcase for the talents of Page, Janney, and Blanchard.

The movie holds to a steady but too-straight rhythm, hitting all the expected romantic-drama beats, right down to the occasional argument that threatens to stop the date cold. But Southside With You is also winningly sweet and earnest, and refreshingly frank about the problems that minorities face when they try to get ahead in a culture dominated by white males.

What makes Sing Street such a joyously entertaining film (besides the songs) is that it thinks the best of its characters, and it presents them the way they’d like to think of themselves.

The end result is awfully sketchy, more a collection of ideas and memories than a proper film.

This film is an important historical record, and an important reminder of an event in American history that could have changed everything, that should have changed everything. There’s no reason why it still can’t. Newtown is a crucial reminder of that.

Focused on fetishizing rather than intimately depicting, director Chad Hartigan has produced a warm-hearted yarn that treats its two African-American leading men like props in his white-washed game of chess.

The tale of Choi and Shin is a true stranger-than-fiction one, as good a piece of material as a filmmaker could help for. It’s just a shame that, for the most part, The Lovers And The Despot feels like it’s giving you the Cliff Notes version of the story.

Beckinsale’s performance is so funny in fact that it sucks a lot of the air out the room for her co-stars. Whenever she’s in a scene, she delivers so many pithy putdowns per second that it’s hard to pay attention to anyone else. And whenever she’s not around, the movie dims.

The beauty of Little Men — and of the director’s work in general — is that it displays a rare understanding of how the world works.

There's a tangible sensitivity to Kate Plays Christine that is constantly present as the project explores two personas and a gamut of topics (gender politics, gun control, and depression among them).

The Intervention may not offer many new experiences, but its combination of tart and sweet is satisfying.

Deeply over-reliant on flashbacks, and ones that don’t particularly transition well, Jane Got A Gun is nearly a holding pattern movie.

While there are some missteps in the story, there’s a lot to admire in The Free World, particularly in what is sure to be a breakout role for Holbrook.

As uneven as the psychodrama can be at times, one thing is clear, Ross is a major talent worth watching. He’s got an eye, a strong p.o.v., and the movie has many perceptive observations about the self-destructive perils of possessiveness, ownership, and holding on too tight.

There's vision here, clearly, and through the use of eye-catching frames and a standout score, "The Fits" works like magic as an experimental performance piece. As an engaging work of well-rounded cinema, however, there are more than a few missteps.

This gentle comedy is more interested in doing justice to the spirit of his achievement and the style of late-'80s comedy than the details of his life, but the resulting confection is sweet and simple.

It’s an incredibly moving film that encompasses a wide scope of global issues through the intimate remembrance of one life.

By extension of the film's unending niceness, Waititi has made a movie mired in the middle-ground, a terrain marred by the absence of innovation.

The differences between Goat and a Very Special Episode of some Disney Channel sitcom are, at times, limited to the amount of on-screen puking. That said, Neel, Roberts, and Green do have a good feel for the vagaries of bro culture’s macho codes.

Immersive and committed to its austere form, the solemn, often-dialogue free Dark Night never spoon feeds and always allows the viewer to draw their own conclusions.

Marston and Sheppard have come up with a terrific premise, and have worked it into an often highly entertaining movie. But after a while, all the narrative ellipses and question marks start to feel like an affectation — beguiling on the surface, but un-genuine.

The powerful performances by the three leads really help create the brothers’ distinct vision.

In script and performance, the film is an articulate howl of anguish and rage given depth by a discerning comprehension of the ways various communities can rely on faith for very different means.

Is Christine voyeuristic, or even exploitative? Very possibly. But it’s also vivid, intense, and artful.

Captain Fantastic uses bleak but gentle comedy to pinpoint the variety of ways we wrestle with grief, but the film undermines Mortensen's performance and its own thematic ambitions by presenting the character as little more than an idealized fantasy figure.

Though Certain Women is difficult, it’s hardly obtuse. And for those willing to trust that Reichardt is in full command of this material, “Certain Women” is utterly enthralling.

An old-fashioned tale of heroism in the face of insurmountable odds, The Finest Hours is never less than aggressively hokey and manipulatively sentimental — and, in the end, better off for it.