The cinematic trickery on display – lurid dissolves, off-kilter juxtapositions, and bizarre dance numbers bouncing around Chloe’s brittle mindscape – compensates for the skin-deep thematics, and keep the rhythm of the film popping.

This isn’t the kind of genre piece that everyone will warm to. Some might find the subject matter too bleak; others might wish it were pulpier. But on the whole, Berlin Syndrome is incredibly effective, while offering a perspective that these kinds of films usually lack. It gets to know the innocent, while rendering the evil banal.

What keeps the film mostly on track is its proudly confrontational nature, quick-witted dialogue, and performances to match. But it’s a dark, sobering film too—the corruption, dishonesty and immoral law enforcement practices employed to screw over expendable brown and black people is depressingly distressing and it’s here where “The Day Shall Come” has trouble sealing the deal on its uncomfortable remit of awkward laughs and somber realities.

As an perceptive story about desireability, our collective value as people or romantic partners, what we’re worth, what we’re willing to compromise for happiness and love and how the courtship market makes us treat one another as casual, often throw-away commodities, it’s an insightful, if imperfect, piece worthy of your affections.

At its best, a welcome addition to the increasing number of contemporary Native American stories seen in the films such as “Songs My Brother Told Me,” “Wild Indian” and FX’s “Reservation Dogs.” At worst, it’s a disjointed narrative that sadly overstays its welcome.

The Phoenician Scheme, for all its involved branches, never really comes together deeply or meaningfully. Still, it remains charming and entertaining nonetheless.

Trier’s sensibility for the dynamics of family, for the depiction of nebulous memory, and for the detail of life (the film’s full of beautiful, complex scenes), means that I’m already eager to take a second look and see what else there is to unpack.

Cocote is an entirely different beast—a challenging watch that swings from the avant-garde to an ethnographic model of filmmaking.

The true drama in the admissions scandal is not the ringleader or the celebrities and hedge-fund magnates who hired him but what this Hunger Games scenario means for all the children whose parents cannot afford his services.

Above all, Tigerland pays respects to that awe-inspiring creature at its core.

The film does possess ample charms and insights, though admittedly, they do take quite a long time to coalesce.

Directors Kramer, Miller and Newberger prefer embellishment, allowing personal stories about Downey to fuel animated re-enactments that trivialize rather than penetrate.

Perhaps the biggest achievement of The Threesome is how it manages to remain real, grounded and tender but still succeeds in finding opportune moments of comedy in an undoubtedly absurd situation.

Ultimately, the biggest disappointment with “Relay” isn’t the big twist, you see that coming a mile away. The issue is the execution of everything thereafter is almost comical.

Gods Of Mexico is a film less interested in breaking down its conceptual framework — or even pushing forward a fully realized thesis — than it is about creating a structured cinematic experience.

With its politically charged themes of oppression and the genocide of Native Americans, and the play on how history has been presented in the past, Mohawk is a fascinating and engaging tale of bloody revenge.

The devastatingly bleak story of Handling the Undead is a wrenching but beautiful exploration of grief and human connection in the face of something horrific.

Tipping’s bold and meditative drama with its reflective moods and streetwise grime has delivered one of the best feature-length debuts of 2016 and one of the best films of the year, period.

In Chow’s hands, the lens becomes an elastic guidance tool for comic energy: fixate on a single image, pull back the band, let go, and snap, his story and characters launch forward in a blur of madcap amusement.

The latest from the prolific helmer is not so much slight as is it light, charming and funny by equal turns, with a pretty terrific performance by Huppert who seems to be having a lot of fun with the part(s).

In noir, nobody is certified as who they claim to be. Boyle magnifies that aspect with a lean and gripping thriller about isolation, strangers, and the consequences of fame that satisfies despite some minor plot bumps.

It’s a heartfelt and undoubtedly well-meaning film, attempting a character study of a woman of an age and lifestyle that makes her an unusual and therefore unusually worthy subject. But Angelique’s overriding characteristic is that she is incapable of fundamental change which makes her at best a frustrating protagonist for this drama.

A moving movie that tries too hard to please and thus never truly satisfies.

Although there is much to admire on a technical and craft level, the absence of storytelling innovation gives Old Henry the sleepiness of a familiar lullaby or nursery rhyme.

While the entire cast is superb, it’s the rich performances from Watson and Mescal who elevate the material beyond that aforementioned air of familiarity.

Censor is an impressive, visually-stunning, deeply disturbing debut from Bailey-Bond and a showcase for Algar, who gives a truly spectacular performance.

Coppola's screenplay neatly restructures Franco's source material into a deceptively tight narrative, and mostly proves to be raw, authentic and often very funny.

While Lion isn’t the kind of drama that demands risky storytelling, it is one that has within it a whole world of emotional topography that is disappointingly scrolled over instead of mapped out.