Comfort with loveable loserdom is the glue – or maybe the scotch tape – that holds together a rickety contraption careening constantly toward calamity.

Light of my Life is not a bad film, instead it’s a heartfelt, intelligent and earnest one (if a little tidy).

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

While the premise certainly makes it stand out from the sea of dysfunctional family dramas, a cute idea alone doesn't quite cut it. In the end it's just not funny enough to be completely entertaining and the sentiment feels tacked on.

Wrapped up in Portman’s like-it-or-loathe-it-you-cannot-ignore-it performance (I love it, for the record) and Corbet’s astonishingly confident filmmaking chutzpah — all fast-motion montages, off-kilter framing, and bravura soundtrack collisions between Walker’s score and Sia/Celeste’s pop tracks — it somehow becomes a jagged, messy but endlessly intriguing whole.

The mileage will vary depending on how you've felt about the progression of the series so far, but if you're even mildly curious to find out what awaits the outrageous and exasperating Henry Fool, Ned Rifle is worth making some time for.

Brigsby Bear is easily the biggest surprise film of the year and is worth every laugh and tear that it brings.

Ford’s attempt to synthesize the two halves of his film into a coherent whole is what sells it all short.

It ends up feeling like going to a festival headlining date by a reunited Britpop band. It’s great to see them back together, they look pretty good for their age, and there are transcendent moments when they play the hits. But the set goes on a bit long, and the new material’s a bit forgettable, and they’re sloppier than they used to be, and in the end, you start to wonder if it had been better if you’d been left with your memories from back in the day.

Your mileage with the movie will depend on how much you like these guys to begin with, because even if you're a fan, the one joke premise has a hard time sustaining a full length movie.

Like a poorly-researched presentation glued to the finest poster board and surrounded by glitter and shiny stickers, My Old School is easy enough on the eyes, but it’s hardly done the work necessary to earn top marks.

Hellaware is a cynical, caustic, and often very funny send up of not only the current commercial art world but the entire borough of Brooklyn.

The Wall seems to be telling the story about assimilation, about a woman who accepts her lot and attempts to persevere through the cruelest of conditions, an unspoken martyr. Perhaps it would carry much more power had she not been so chatty.

Its approach may not always work, but the film is undeniably ambitious, and implemented in an affecting way.

Halloween is a love letter to the original picture and entertaining on its own terms. Thrilling, atmospheric, and brutally violent, Green delivers exactly what fans want from the series and then some.

Alive Inside contains a tiny revolution within its message, and will likely end up being one of the most important documentaries of the year.

It is easy to feel the passion with which Yadav tells the story, and to feel intimately connected with her characters, even in the midst of heavy-handed and almost bloated commentary, which sometimes feels a bit too blatantly thrown in.

Full of astutely droll observations, Chokri’s script lends relatable credence to the film’s sharp situational comedy.

Alvarez’s clinical but deeply engrossing execution of the drama is mesmerizing in its directness.

This is a subtle, slow burn of a film that refuses to bow to audience expectations in either its small moments or its overall arc.

Ultimately, while 'Escape Fire' proposes numerous options for changing the system-- getting Medicare to cover healthy lifestyle counseling programs, incentivizing doctors to spend time with patients, and patients to empower their own health-- the one that is most poignant is that people should spend the time to take care of each other.

For all its flaws, the film offers as compelling and fair a summary of the case and the man for those less well-versed in the tale as you could ask for from a documentary.

Atmosphere and feelings can only do so much when story, and its credible beats, seem to have fallen by the wayside.

The Idea of You is an example of the romance novel adaptation done right, an outstanding balance of chemistry and joke density that never talks down to its audience.

It warms the coldest of hearts to see an adaptation that not only seizes the spirit of the source material but provides a potentially formative experience of its own for any who may dare to hit “Play.”

Tense, scary, and full of heart, when Cummings has all the pieces moving together in the same direction the movie hums with an effortless rhythm that largely makes up for deficiencies baked into the third act.

Whenever it leans into these poignant metaphors to ask questions of guilt and duty, A Private Life grasps at something real and raw. It’s a shame Zlotowski so willingly refuses to take her finger off that pulse, even if the result remains a pleasurable ride.

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