Reviews

Has a terrific understanding of how change happens, respecting what’s often a hard and painful process with an uncommon willingness to break through illusions.

Often seems aimed at people who died the moment “Seinfeld” ended, or at least whose TVs broke and were never fixed.

Only resembles romance in a world that sees “The Bachelor” fantasy dates as peak connection.

Gets off to a crackling start and proceeds to get dumber and duller without any hint of recovery.

Jolting and simultaneously entertaining and crushing stuff.

Murky and dumb and neither shallow nor deep and not enough of anything in particular.

Call it “Faint Praise: The Movie,” but “I laughed, I groaned, I didn’t regret it,” is praise all the same.

Considering how warped our dreams can be, “Dream Scenario” lands a long way from mind-blowing.

Sometimes average is just average.

“Anatomy of a Fall” holds you, but it would be overstatement to suggest that it doesn’t let go. Or that it lands with stunning impact rather than a soft landing about how often or how easily love and justice slip out of reach.

Takes a potentially limited setup and turns it into a cute movie about intimacy that actually understands and engages the challenge.

There are so many reasons to be discouraged by “Players” that it’s hard to know what to feel most bummed about.

Struggles to generate insight rather than simple points about dynamics either sparky or stale.

There’s duplicating assets and there’s sitting on the copy machine.

Something extremely rare: a delightful, highly recommendable watch that also happens to be wise and troubling about large, complicated, important issues.

Like the show that turned Johnson into a star, “Self Reliance” is usually funny enough and charming enough to overcome sometimes weak ideas, though occasionally it’s a close call.

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.