Lolo features long stretches of perhaps her most accomplished and enjoyable character-comedy yet. But as often with filmmakers for whom a certain register comes almost too easily, Delpy seems impatient with herself and her facility for spiky, verbal sparring and pithy self-deprecating put-downs.

The real war of A War is waged within Claus, with Lindholm's camera trained mercilessly on Asbæk as he delivers yet another faultlessly committed performance, within a large ensemble in which every performer feels note-perfect.

Thanks to deplorable direction by Paco Cabezas, and a childishly broad screenplay by Max Landis, Mr. Right ends up all wrong.

With his monumental control of the camera —at times staying with characters during quiet moments of anticipation, at others panning slowly 360 degrees to envelop us in the entirety of the environment— Davies directs the most refined coming-of-age story cinema has seen in recent years.

While aesthetically it doesn’t do much to break the form, it more than succeeds in presenting Joplin as a flawed, insecure, deeply brilliant woman who, unfortunately, couldn’t shake her demons.

The film’s depiction of societal breakdown remains firmly planted in the realm of real human emotion, testing the resolve of two young women and unearthing awe-inspiring reserves of strength and tenderness in the process.

In Jackson Heights serves to remind us that our worlds are full of living things, and that, being the social creatures we are, we need each other.

Vigas' grip is so tight that even if you do get to the heart of his meaning, there's a chance it will have had the life squeezed out of it.

Cloaked in a mystifying atmosphere and possessed by a transfixing, amorphous mood, Lucile Hadzihalilovic's Evolution is a beautifully strange hybrid of innocence and disturbance.

It's Arquimedes who emerges as the film's most indelible character, aided by Francella's fabulously icy performance. Lacking even the warmth of a Don Vito, Arquimedes comes across not as a man who does everything for his family, but as a man who expects his family to do everything, even damn themselves, for him and his twisted, heartless, self-centered worldview.

Alternating immense bombast with long stretches of longueur in its psychologically questionable evocation of the formative years of a future despot, the film is formally confident, stylistically inventive and intensely irritating.

The force of originality felt in the narrative is only matched by Bellocchio's execution.

Largely inert and undramatic, what you're left with is a tedious sentiment: “by the grace of god” this horrible crisis ended without violence, explosives, or spark. Congratulations?

Worse than offering no especially fresh angles on its cliched material, however, are the trite characterizations of the two lead female characters.

Witty, observational, and hilarious, Maggie’s Plan is the kind of richly complex dramedy that proves to be the rare picture that serves both halves of that genre description fully, equally, and satisfyingly.

The film's MVPs are Bryan Cranston's dedicated performance as the title character, and, appropriately, John McNamara's jocular screenplay, with a terrific ensemble of supporters also along for the ride back to Hollywood's notorious past

Vanderbilt chooses to present the tale with a lighter comic touch in the early stages, and it’s a tone the picture can’t overcome in its final third.

Heart Of A Dog is at turns a haunting, hilarious, muddled, disparate, and deeply emotional film about a woman, her dog, their bond, and the deaths that continue that haunt her.

screenwriter Amy Jump and director Ben Wheatley are less concerned with the message than with the madness, and their resulting picture is heavier on style than substance.

While it’s hard to indict the movie for wanting to admire and honor this extraordinary girl, the movie loses its own inherent potency with a haphazard structure that jumps around far too much in time and a monotonous narrative about Malala overcoming oppressors to bravely speak out and inspire the world.

A would-be but not-actually-inspiring movie about a landmark LGBT rights case that loses sight of the flesh and blood people at its heart, gets bogged down in tedious municipal politics and fails to find a way to compellingly dramatize an important story.

While certainly imperfect, there is something to admire about the film’s attempt to present the tangled logistics of a single military operation, where it seems everyone wants success but none of the responsibility of the tough decision making involved.

Director Wes Ball’s adaptation of the second book in author James Dashner’s popular series is the exact opposite of its predecessor, presenting a sprawling adventure that, when not liberally cribbing from more illustrious sci-fi forefathers, spends plentiful time fleshing out the dull details of its oppressed-youth scenario.

A couple of exhilarating cycling scenes, and a pretty solid lead performance, does not a good movie make.

That The Dressmaker remains watchable in any sense is thanks in large part to a cast who give the material that’s way beneath them far better treatment than it deserves.

A dysfunctional structure and some bizarre plotting stop the film from reaching greatness, but never from being endearingly satisfying.

On the whole, Born to Be Blue does right by its central subject. Hawke especially flourishes as the afflicted artist, desperate to put the pieces of his life back together.

Completely forgettable, Hellions is far less cool, smart, and scary than it thinks it is.