Dreamy and impressionistic, interspersed with fantastic bursts of animation, We the Animals plays like a gauzy, mesmerizing, half-remembered experience from childhood.

It’s a daring premise, which makes Howard’s fluffy approach to the material all the more frustrating.

Isabelle is complicated, in a way that movie women often aren’t; Binoche makes her an intriguing puzzle to solve.

It’s hard to watch young Whitney, knowing what lies ahead, but it seems important to do as the film does: take a moment, and just listen to her sing.

What begins as a light and fluffy, too-weird-to-be-fiction story goes unimaginably deeper, stranger, darker.

It works fine as an outrageous comedy, but the perceptive commentary will likely give it staying power. This is the fearless satire that America desperately needs right now.

There’s a lot going on here, which leads to a whole lot of gassy exposition to explain it all.... Think of it as torture by blah-blah.

Dark fare indeed, and you won’t shake it off easily.

Sollima’s style is cool and observational. There also are several stunts combined with camera movements that are genuinely jaw-dropping.

Quiet and meticulously constructed, Leave No Trace offers a powerful, affecting look at people pushed to the fringes and hanging on by the slimmest of margins. Harrowing and enthralling in equal measures, it’s a challenging and rewarding experience.

The Gospel According to André leaves you wishing you knew a little more about this complex, elegant gentleman and his lifelong love affair with style.

There is advocacy. And then there is propaganda. The Trolley, with its overcooked rhetoric, falls into the latter category.

Even the heavenly chorus that’s working overtime on the soundtrack can’t drown out the lack of chemistry between Howard and Pratt. And the movie too often defaults to people running around screaming — which is, to be fair, the backbone of this franchise, but it gets awfully old here.

With a Morricone-inspired score, gorgeous cinematography that screams to be witnessed on a big screen, and bleak humor, this film’s tightly executed, meticulously controlled surface barely contains the seething fury within.

The cast is a likable bunch, and I can see how Tag might go down nicely with a couple of beers beforehand; it’s definitely funny in spots, in a we’re-making-this-up-as-we-go-along sort of way.

Despite this rich emotional material (not to mention some gloriously shabby drawing rooms), the film feels surprisingly dull and conventional — two things its heroine most definitely was not.

Casting a dramatic film with nonactors is always a risky proposition; the fresh, natural presence of “real people” is sometimes outweighed by awkwardness when they have to deliver scripted dialogue. But Chloé Zhao’s dreamlike Western The Rider is one of those happy exceptions.

While it’s great fun to watch the Incredibles/Parrs zipping around saving the world (with help from their preternaturally cool pal Lucius/Frozone, voiced with gusto by Samuel L. Jackson), Incredibles 2 gets its heart by being a sweet family story.

The Ocean’s 8 cast makes up for any deficits in its execution (Awkwafina, in particular, can make even the most mundane line funny); these women are just great fun to hang with, and I’d happily sit still for a slew of sequels.

Heavy subtext aside, American Animals remains a slick, smart heist film that entertains from start to finish.

There are a lot of moving parts here, and Pearce fits them together with admirable skill. Originality isn’t his strong suit, but “Artemis” has enough snaky twists and turns and moody energy to make it a fun ride.

At more than two hours, it’s simply too long. However, thanks to Collette’s work, “Hereditary” is a horror movie that really sinks its claws into you.

Fred Rogers is gone and the world is a much scarier place; this film, like a gift, briefly transports us back to the calm we felt long ago.

Darkly comic and submerged in irony, events unfold with the inevitability of a slow-motion car wreck. When the emotional and physical carnage finally recedes, Sigurðsson leaves us with one haunting image that proves the universe has a sick sense of humor indeed.

Woodley and Claflin make an attractive pair, but they’re not particularly convincing playing people deeply, deeply in love. There’s something lacking in the conviction department there.

Ronan and Howle are tremendous in their performances, especially in the way they physically inhabit the characters, transforming from free and unabashed to tense and closed. The bedroom drama, which is almost theatrical in its setting, is riveting thanks to these two actors, and makes the film worthy of regard.

Upgrade is a brutish, efficient and well-executed slice of cyberpunk action horror with a silly streak.

Disobedience unfolds quietly but passionately, with a generosity of spirit toward its three central characters.