Brooklyn movie review: across the ocean to find yourself
Beautifully portrays a very universal experience — not only of immigration but of growing up — via an elegantly nuanced performance by Saoirse Ronan.
romance
The Longest Ride movie review: romantic bargaining
For once, a movie based on a Nicholas Sparks book is populated by relatively realistic people dealing with relationship conflict in realistic ways.
Jackie & Ryan (aka Love Me Like You Do) movie review: in the moment
A romance of a gentle, bittersweet, grownup variety that doesn’t pretend that every connection has to be a grand, sweeping, happily-ever-after thing.
Comet movie review: orbital decay
Tedious romantic dramedy with a pointless sci-fi tinge that has nothing in the least bit memorable to say about anything at all.
The Little Death (aka A Funny Kind of Love) and The Overnight movie review: sex tragi-comedies
Hooray for movies about sex and love that aren’t about teenagers trying to get laid but adults still trying to figure it all out.
Everyone’s Going to Die movie review: black comedy among the blues
Strange and wonderful and unclassifiable in the best way, this is an unexpectedly touching and oddly funny platonic romance. Sort of.
Madame Bovary movie review: why woman why cry?
A cold, sterile film, bereft of the spirit and danger Gustave Flaubert’s groundbreaking novel demands.
In the Name of My Daughter movie review: suspenseless Riviera
Not even Catherine Deneuve can save this dramatically inert soap opera of corruption and obsession, which does not even resolve its central mystery.
Strange Magic movie review: bad spell
Apparently this was inspired by A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but it has about as much in common with that as Burger King does with Macbeth.
Moomins on the Riviera movie review: really old-fashioned adventure
The hand-drawn animation is serene and charming, but the story and characters are so unpleasantly retrograde that I found little enjoyment here.
