The film only give voice to the politics informing the drama in spare moments of suspense.
The film’s ominous atmosphere derives less from the mystery of a disappearance and more from the scary business of getting older.
The film suggests a gene splice of Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook and Mike Flanagan’s Before I Wake.
The film doesn’t put in the effort to reach for the heights of Alien or plant its tongue firmly in cheek a la Deep Blue Sea.
The show’s fundamental goal isn’t to present love that’s unique to the current moment, but to expose the universality of its stories.
Robin Bissel’s film may be based on a true story, but it more accurately resembles an all-too-familiar Hollywood tall tale.
Writer-director Megan Griffiths’s film remains a clear-eyed portrait of maternal love and teenage turmoil.
Peppermint, Pierre Morel’s first feature film set in the United States, is brainless propaganda for the MAGA market.
The film’s refusal to produce a campy critique feels more like the product of lack of imagination than a purposeful repudiation.
The film’s characters are stock types without enough satirical texture to fulfill their function in the narrative.
This production is shadelessly lit for much of its runtime, evoking the drama’s openness, or at least its frankness.
The legacy of Syd Field’s screenwriting manual hangs over the film, which never even accidentally casts a whiff of subtext or authorial personality.
The film showcases a genuine fascination with the mind/body split engendered by Skyping, online dating, and constant app usage.
There’s tremendous dramatic value to the aching and sometimes devastating scenes that home in on these kids’ private torments.
The season provides a decent fix for your Aaron Sorkin cravings and (hopefully) signals greater things yet to come.
Like it or not, Cheap Thrills does evince a consistent vision, however sophomoric.
A film that barely saw the light of day, on a Blu-ray that almost didn’t happen, with an extended cut that fans thought they’d never see.
Aaron Sorkin’s back with another dreamy bit of wish fulfillment.
In Pieces of April, writer-director Peter Hedges makes an entertainment out of stringing his audience along.