Kirk Honeycutt

The Banishment (Izgnanie) starts off like a thriller with a car roaring into the city and a clandestine surgery by a man to remove a bullet in his brother's arm. Then, ever so slowly, the movie falls into the clutches of long, solemn stares into space, meaningful drags on cigarettes, cryptic dialogue revealing little and a tiny drama that feels old, tired and empty of real purpose.

One can reflect on what the young Coppola, with his masterful camera work and vivid imagination, might have done with such an opportunity. Unfortunately, the present-day one produces only tepid and tired imagery that would not earn high marks in any film school.

It’s a film that doesn’t always work but when it does you almost hear an audible click. Violet & Daisy has its share of these ah-ha moments.

The film falls into an interesting intersection between documentary and feature, between reality and fiction.

An arresting visual style cannot make up for lack of new information or viewpoints about the Green Revolution in 2009 Iran.

La Ronde 2011-style is simply a game and its makers expert gamesmen. The film is never less than intriguing. But the artifice shows all too clearly.

The film has a winning combination for all sorts of platforms as the story is highly intriguing and the music speaks, or rather sings, for itself.

The saving grace to the utter predictability in Christina Mengert and Joseph Muszynski's screenplay is reasonably personable characters and spirited acting by director Bruce Beresford's cast.

The film's great gift, though, is Romaner. Unbelievably, this is the first film for the Bavarian stage actress. She fully inhabits the role of this complex personality whose passion for love and art collides with her role of wife and mother.

Now Batmanglij and Marling deliver another terrific and engrossing venture into speculative fiction, Sound of My Voice.