A great performance does not necessarily make for great tragedy, and Christine remains mired in the minutiae of its portrait of a doomed, bitter young woman.

American Pastoral may tell the heartbreaking story of Swede Levov, but a firm grasp of who he is and what he means remains maddeningly elusive.

You know a filmmaker is in supreme command of her medium when what she creates feels less like a movie than a candid glimpse of ongoing lives that will continue to play out long after the lights have come on.

Mottola and LeSieur seem to have actively avoided the pursuit of wisdom, settling for broad gags — and the occasional explosion — instead.

Ouija: Origin of Evil is, somewhat unexpectedly, not that bad.

Of course, action movies don’t have to be believable or poignant. They just have to get your adrenaline pumping. But the movie lacks inspiration in that department, too, owing to action sequences you’ve seen before, familiar music and dialogue so predictable you could make a game out of guessing the next line.

Even without the guidance of narration or a single story arc, it becomes clearer and clearer that the war on terror has unwittingly spawned another war: between police officers trained to fight like soldiers and the people they’ve sworn to protect.

Long Way North combines thrilling ad­ven­ture with a slightly somber mood. It’s a beautiful trip, even if it’s a little chilly and sad when it finally gets to where it’s going.

In a mesmerizing series of images, encounters and delicate juxtapositions, Cameraperson testifies to a world in which it would be clear to see that we’re all connected, if only we took the time to look at one another with reverence and simply listen.

What Now? is at its best when it focuses on his comic presence. Even if his jokes don’t all land, his train of thought is all you need for an entertaining performance that is funny, angry and sometimes just weird.

This earthbound tale has a poignant political message — and not a subtle one.

True to the profession it sets out to glamorize, The Accountant takes advantage of its share of creative loopholes — and manages to break even in the process.

Girl Asleep isn’t easy to categorize. It’s a wild curiosity that shifts on a whim. In that sense, there couldn’t be a better metaphor for the inner workings of a teenage girl’s mind.

The movie may be competent at telling its story, but it’s missing one key ingredient: feeling.

The Birth of a Nation is a flawed but fairly compelling chapter of the American story that powerfully resonates with how that story is playing out today.

Arnold also brings to bear a euphoric appreciation for the spirit of freedom and the optimism — if not the innocence — of her subjects, who can seem at once world-weary and hopelessly naive. Call it a form of ecstatic naturalism, one that revels in the ugly paradoxes of life.

Even viewers who are mildly diverted by the whodunit angle are unlikely to find themselves emotionally engaged in the outcome.

Front Cover is weighed down by heavy-handed dialogue and a melodramatic score.

The movie is a tremendous accomplishment, especially considering that the cast had never seen cameras before — much less movies — yet still agreed to star in the drama. Their performances are as stunning as the setting, and that’s truly saying something.

When disaster strikes, about an hour into the movie, we’re put in the uncomfortable position of admiring the fiery spectacle that Berg has created with sophisticated visual effects, cinematography and editing, while being aware that unspeakable real-life suffering has been packaged for mass entertainment. Berg does a good job of maintaining a thoughtful balance between those somewhat uneasy stances.

The relatable theme of the magical misfit may not be entirely original. But as brought to life by Burton, Riggs’s fictional vision of a world in which the nonconformist can flourish serves as both a self-portrait of the auteur and a “Wonderland”-like looking glass in which many in the audience will no doubt see a reflection of themselves.

The movie’s visual panache and fog-of-war ambiguity are as universal as the desire to detonate TNT under your enemy’s headquarters.

Subtlety isn’t the strong suit of Queen of Katwe. But beneath the hackneyed aphorisms, there’s a thrilling story worthy of our attention.

Most of the time, though, the movie is too busy being saucy or sappy to even look at its target.

“Lovers” suggests that any film — even this one — can have the manipulative power of propaganda.

Far from being a historical cautionary tale, Command and Control looks forward, not backward. Kenner’s unsettling film casts its worried gaze not at the accidents that already have taken place, but at the ones yet to happen.

Goat doesn’t shy from showing us monstrous behavior, which might be more than some viewers can bear. This isn’t an easy film to watch. But it’s even harder to forget.

Overplotted, undercooked and extremely well-dressed, The Dressmaker has style to burn, but it has a mean streak as wide as the Outback.