Reviews

Throughout “The Iron Claw” is a sense of how dim the light can be when a family exists under a parent’s psychologically damaging shade.

Hardly a curious look at people struggling to make ends meet finding a kindred spirit in a difficult, unpleasant world but just two thinly conceived characters navigating a mediocre story.

Has a lot to say about a young, attractive woman figuring out a world that frequently seeks to control, minimize, or objectify, and if you think those seem like familiar concepts, you haven’t seen it like this.

“Miracle,” this is not. “Boat” is more like if “School Ties” exclusively focused on the football team.

An expensively manufactured vase that writer-director Emerald Fennell forgot to fill.

Good year!

Overlooks most of the moments it needs to examine.

A healthy dose of laughs and characters you root for can overcome even a handful of ill-considered gags.

A deeply unpleasant and quite ridiculous game of hopscotch among devastating kidnapping thriller, nasty family drama, and empty serial killer nonsense.

People who love movies about love should hate this.

Maintains its predecessors’ recognition of individual innovation and group achievement while finding new ways to be erotic.

Essentially “Lobster Stuffed with Tacos: The Movie.”

Bests the recent lame “Scream” efforts while keeping you on your toes enough and laughing here and there.

Excels at tugging one strand of a rug and yanking the entire thing out from under two people who thought they could handle anything.

Hewson is so terrific that she holds the movie together until delivering the sort of great song that can make a weak album or a so-so movie feel worthwhile.

The performers are no match for the premise.

Tiresome in all the ways it should kick ass.

A person able to like a movie like this won’t especially mind the flaws, as they’ll be too busy swooning for a love story that taps into the essence of partnership.

Consider the lousy animation and awkward performances and highly questionable narrative (woman abandons ambitions for man, learns he’s plenty interested in her even without a voice, gets her voice back but still has no personality) and ask what, to the tune of “Under the Sea,” the hell is this?

For a story that half-heartedly attempts to advocate for the courage to take risks, “Your Place or Mine” is so incredibly safe and underwhelming by design.