Patrice Witherspoon

Can you truly befriend or even develop an acquaintance with someone of dramatically opposing views? The optimist in me says yes. But when it comes to the development and protection of children, Mungiu proves it’s grayer than I care to admit.

An exhilarating spectacle of epic proportion, Hope is exactly the kind of violently horrific and chaotically humorous film we’ve been waiting a decade for from Na Hong-jin. He manages to continue his great streak as a master of genre mash-ups in ways that blend the best of sci-fi, horror, and action thrillers. It’s ridiculous, it’s bloody, it’s long – and it’s worth every minute of your time.

A beautiful yet simple story about using AI to manage grief, Sheep in the Box hits all the right emotional notes. The script glides through all stages with realism and curiosity in a way that never judges its characters, no matter which side of the AI argument they sit on.

The most frustrating aspect of Paper Tiger is that there’s an exceptional film here somewhere. The budding tension was magnificent, to the point where the action that followed felt like a giant sigh of relief. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t enough – so much so that the 115-minute runtime felt entirely too short.

Even though it's a short 82 minutes, a film like Fatherland requires a certain level of patience. There are missing emotional anchors tying all the themes together. In a sense, the script holds itself back from fully embracing its potential, especially for a story centering on a father-daughter duo during the peak of the Cold War. A little certainly goes a long way, but even this moody piece needed a breakthrough.

Parallel Tales is exactly as advertised: The central story interweaves the lives of six people in ways that should be a recipe for delicious, chaotic drama. Yet, Farhadi's latest is bogged down by its repetitiveness and refusal to offer anything new to a story about imagination and voyeurism. What we’re left with hangs a little too long onto a thin rope of painful repetition, false hope, and jaded screenwriting.

Oxman’s directional choices — such as lingering close-ups — are added benefits that enable us to connect more deeply with its characters. And thanks to some very powerful performances from Bateman and Dillon, this isn’t just a story that invites us to explore the effects of childhood troubles. It reiterates that understanding is all we ever truly want and need from others.

Because of some questionable decisions, the film's key messages aren’t as effective as they could be.

Thankfully, Covino and Martin never insult our intelligence by over-explanatory dialogue and lectures. Instead, this talented writing duo focuses on what audiences want: human desire and the wild things we’ll do for connection.

The most interesting and beautiful piece to this puzzle is the fact that Dillane's performance can steer the audience in any direction emotionally and at any given moment.