Cory Everett

The ensemble is perfectly cast (a rarity for this genre) which helps to make the first half a delightful slow burn instead of a check-your-watch-until-the-carnage-starts.

Baena’s debut just never really comes to life and unfortunately lacks the bite the best of the genre has to offer.

Justin Lader’s screenplay is contained but also funny, emotionally honest and nails its pivot from the conventional to something much richer.

The film is almost unrepentantly nasty towards its characters.

While the doc should prove essential for Nick Cave fans, it should be inspiring for those interested in the creative process or anyone searching for their muse.

It may not always work as a drama but The Skeleton Twins proves to be a fine showcase for Wiig and Hader, showing they are both capable of dramatic material.

Wish I Was Here is not a total disaster, but the tricky tone seems like it needed more time in the editing room to focus its story and trim some of the extraneous threads.

The problem isn’t quite that the film is short on thrills (there is a paucity; the first adrenaline racing sequences don’t arrive until about an hour in), it’s that it’s not quite a character piece either.

There are shades of “Lars & the Real Girl” here, but where that film skewed towards dark comedy (which helped temper its outlandish premise), "Emanuel" is almost completely humorless.

As a standalone feature, it feels like there’s not quite enough there.