It is not a subtle film, and its bluntness is occasionally potent but just as often wearying.

[A] sci-fi head trip ... If the film can be somewhat unsubtle in its thematic questions, it matches that with an equally loud color palette – and you know what, that’s perfectly fine.

The sheer number of artisans creating great work on this film does become a disappointment, though. Without a proper story or dialogue, what good is skin-deep beauty?

If the narrative can sometimes wane, the film’s enveloping atmospherics remain tight throughout.

It’s disturbing and messy, a fever dream for a disturbing and messy time in Brazil. And occasionally, it’s a lot of fun, too.

Miloni and Rafi’s shy romance becomes sweet because of, not despite, the languid pace of its development.

The performances are buttressed by a production that subtly underscores the intentions of both the characters and the plot, from the costumes by Eimer Ni Mhaoldomhnaigh (“Love & Friendship”) to the score from Andrew Hewitt (“The Stanford Prison Experiment”), which coax the film along to where it’s going without ever being too obvious about it.

It’s all grand and fun and corny, a musical fantasy that reaches for the sky and gets there often enough to make it diverting but also frustrating.

A tough but affecting film ... The fact that this never comes across as maudlin is tribute to a director who knows her way through dark places, and a pair of actors who can create a quiet storm.

Take your seat and bask in the presence of the coolest characters actors working today, but don’t ask for more than a few chuckles. Don’t call it fan service – call it coolness oblige.

Russo-Young (“Before I Fall”) takes some considerable risks in her direction to make The Sun Is Also a Star look different from the typical romantic drama. But not all of these creative decisions pay off.

What’s most disingenuous about Trial by Fire is that it knowingly simplifies the institutionalized and ingrained biases that foster the very matter it’s trying to address.

With this determination to eschew simple explanations, to avoid being reductive about the cause and effect of an artist’s work and life, and to remain true to the cloudy circumstances surrounding Pasolini’s murder, comes a troubling directorial decision to turn the man’s death into a symbol — of what is unclear.

What a superficial and tedious motion picture, never quite bad enough to be campy, never remotely good enough to justify watching it instead of reading the book’s Wikipedia page.

How are the action sequences? They’re fun until they feel familiar, and even then they’re still a trip because the long takes demand admiration for the sheer brute exertion at work.

The Biggest Little Farm is a decent personal narrative film — even inspiring at times — but it could have provided a much-needed educational view and a deeper look at the importance of California’s essential agricultural life.

This is a very difficult personal narrative to try to digest and make sense of, but at least XY Chelsea makes for a start on this, even if it cannot approach anything definitive on her singular story.

The new film is ripe for big laughs with Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson as, respectively, the snobby British bombshell with sticky fingers and the rough-around-the-edges though equally cunning con artist, but neither actress is given rich enough material to bring the film’s most interesting ideas to the finish line.

Poms is strongest when basking in the infectious enthusiasm of its cast. Keaton and Weaver could have easily phoned in their performances, but they do look like they’re having fun together with their crew of Golden Girls.

In its modest, stripped-down way, it’s a worthy cousin to the genre stalwarts, anchored in the unvarnished power of Canet’s performance, and the no-nonsense approach to Christian Carion’s direction.

A very strained attempt to understand the motivations of the women who killed for Charles Manson.

Wine Country shows that women in their 50s are in one of the best phases of their lives, a time to be celebrated, welcomed, and enjoyed with good friends and good wine.

McMullin’s feel for the setting greatly enhances the story, as does evocative camerawork from Andrew Ellmaker, making his own impressive feature debut. But McMullin’s inexperience as both a writer and director does sometimes hold him back.

For his part, Castillo makes the best of the clunky dialogue and cliché lines, but the story never lets his acting chops shine through.

Curtis’s twee, nudging, corny comedic voice is very much the main sensibility here, far more so than anything offered by director Danny Boyle or anyone else involved.

The content here is very of-the-moment, and the trappings of genre are used in an attempt to tell some harsh truths.

This ambitious approach is, unfortunately, more intriguing than effective.

The bottom line is that this is probably the most satisfying of the three versions, a visceral but surreal journey into madness that feels monumentally alive.