Peter Debruge

At times, the dramatic tension is so strong, “Dreams” could almost be a thriller.

Magnificent as Pagnol’s achievements may have been, it’s a pity that the decades-spanning account of one of France’s greatest storytellers didn’t make for a better story unto itself.

For nearly two centuries, Brontë’s book has been a romantic fantasy for readers. Fennell treats it as an erotic one as well, leaning into all that is sensual.

While the pieces for a white-knuckle mission seem to be in place, The Weight has an uneven, lurching quality, where slogging through the picturesque-yet-endless expanse of tall trees (arboraceous Bavaria doubling for Oregon) is punctuated by bursts of excitement.

The filmmaking pair don’t stray far from Wills-Jones’ intention, using the story’s unspecified time and place to poke fun at superstition, the pressures to conform and the institution of marriage.

There’s real wisdom to Chasing Summer, which Shlesinger and Decker offset with a handful of steamier-than-you’d-expect sex scenes.

Delightfully insightful ... Whatever comes next (and the movie makes a beautiful kind of peace with not knowing), Green has given his subjects an incredible gift: the kind of immortality only cinema can provide.

The intermittently clever movie is full of art-world in-jokes, but seems oblivious to its many plot holes, which are more conspicuous than the slashes in one of Lucio Fontana’s “Spatial Concept” canvases.

What’s so much fun about Send Help, beyond its twisted B-movie premise and refreshing disinterest in anything more highfalutin than handing Linda a chance to turn the tables, is how unpredictable it manages to be for most of their time on the island (except for that darn ending).

Life has a way of getting complicated when you introduce temptation, and though Union County can be frustratingly simple at times, the stakes are life and death.