Tatiana Craine

Laurent's work as an actor serves her well as a director, and she allows her performers the freedom to find each moment’s emotional core. Foster and Fanning are excellent, their chemistry intensified by their characters' shared bitterness and loss of what could have been.

Despite valiant effort from the performers — especially Usher, who's onscreen for nearly every scene — this three-hander is no joyride.

Ultimately, Down a Dark Hall falls victim to familiar teen horror tropes: a brooding lead with a heart of gold, predictable jump scares, wincingly bad romantic tension, and obvious villains.

If Five Seasons is the only opportunity viewers have to experience Oudolf’s artistry up close, Piper’s cinematography (whether through a sunny haze or a snowy blanket) and contemplative storytelling have done these gardens justice.

In her feature debut, Kariat has touched upon important themes — the immigrant experience, ageism in tech, the performance of traditional family roles, and the toll of depression — but the way she has combined them too often feels slapdash.

Offhandedly, in a movie that itself is offhanded to a fault, Little Edie cuts to the core of the whole Grey Gardens phenomenon during one of her moments alone with the camera. “[To] dig up the past, I think, is about the most cruel thing anybody can do.”

Ultimately, this wannabe dark comedy swindles viewers out of a thrilling caper.

For those who delight in candy-coated nostalgia, writer Philip Gawthorne’s familiar, cliché-heavy script offers a twee jaunt down memory lane. For everyone else, even a killer Britpop soundtrack teamed with the leads’ palpable chemistry can’t save the film from overtrodden territory.

Nana’s most stirring moment comes when Dykman and her mother reveal the moment when they went from merely knowing about the Holocaust to truly understanding it.

There’s no rhyme or reason to Alex’s journey, which makes the whole of it equally disarming and daffy.