Serena Donadoni

There’s nothing preachy about Jinn, even though Nijla Mu’min’s elegant debut feature is about a teenager coming to terms with her mother’s newly embraced religion.

Jaron Albertin’s mix of crisp realism and oblique dream logic results in a haunting experience.... Still, while his first feature (shot by Darren Lew) may be gorgeous, the characters in this rural family drama prove so amorphous that their struggles engender detachment instead of empathy.

Director David Kerr engineers Atkinson’s intricate routines with clockwork precision. That said, his first feature film has little to offer anyone not already attuned to modestly absurdist British comedy.

No one does dissolute hubris with as much charm as Grant, and his ebullience is the perfect foil to the misanthropic McCarthy.

While Saldivar and Burgos are better dancers than actors, Collado and Flores are incredibly charismatic performers who bring every scene they’re in to life, but it’s Zayas who anchors Shine. His gravitas shot through with mischief sets the film’s tone, showing that serious-minded storytelling can still be fun.

Director Susan Kucera and the film’s guiding spirit, Jeff Bridges, have created a wonkish lovefest, incorporating the diverse ideas of (predominantly white) scientists and academics, philosophers and authors, activists and politicians into a plea for equable reflection and sustained action.

With Matangi/Maya/M.I.A., Loveridge celebrates the mashup aesthetic that enabled the artist to find a voice, and reveals that reconciling contradictions — like an outrageous sense of humor and earnest political activism — is key to both Arulpragasam’s music and the life she’s constructed with audacity and wit.

The effect is like strolling through a lovely display of early-twentieth-century Americana, admiring the streamlined beauty of mass-produced objects that mimicked the handiwork of artisans, all while encountering a cast of bubbly historical park re-enactors.

While clearly adoring Duras’s work, Finkiel doesn’t credit the strength it took for her to ruthlessly detail the experience.

Anchored by a remarkable child’s performance, The Swan is a sensitive example of an overlooked element in coming-of-age films: awakening to the outside world.