‘Challengers’
The highly-anticipated latest from the director Luca Guadagnino (“Call Me by Your Name”) follows three tennis pros as they shift between lovers, friends and foes. It stars Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist.
From our review:
All three leads in “Challengers” are very appealing, and each brings emotional and psychological nuance to the story, whatever the characters’ current configuration. They’re also just fun to look at, and part of the pleasure of this movie is watching pretty people in states of undress restlessly circling one another, muscles tensed and desiring gazes ricocheting. Guadagnino knows this; he’s in his wheelhouse here, and you can feel his delight in his actors.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Critic’s Pick
A series of powerful vignettes.
‘Terrestrial Verses’
Tehranians interact with various cultural officials in their everyday life — finding the right uniform for a daughter’s school ceremony, applying for a job or a drivers license, registering a son’s name — and must navigate the restraints of authoritarian bureaucracy.
From our review:
Because each vignette is no more than a few minutes long and consists of Kafkaesque conversations that border on the absurd, “Terrestrial Verses” operates with a cumulative effect. It’s death by a thousand pinpricks, a succession of small indignities. Each seemingly simple task is not just saddled with procedural irritations — forms to fill out, appointments to attend, banal questions to answer — but with fear. Suppose your answer to a routine query could incriminate you or there’s no way to prove to an official that you aren’t lying. How would you live your life?
In theaters. Read the full review.
B(oredom). D(etachment). S(tagnation). M(alaise).
‘The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed’
This deadpan sex comedy directed, written by and starring Joanna Arnow in her debut feature follows a woman as she’s dominated both at work and in various B.D.S.M. relationships, none of which seem to bring her fulfillment.
From our review:
Arnow films her own nude body with the kind of frankness that is called brave because she wants to be more confrontational than arousing. She’s so visible that it takes a beat to remember that someone can be physically exposed and emotionally opaque.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Critic’s Pick
A tear-jerker that’s unusually understated.
‘Nowhere Special’
A terminally-ill single father (James Norton) searches for the right adoptive parents to care for his son (Daniel Lamont) after he dies.
From our review:
After being admonished by a snotty rich client because of slow work, John, taking the adage “you only live once” to heart, eggs the fellow’s house. It’s one of the few moments when the movie deigns to deliver a conventional satisfaction. But the mostly low-key mode of “Nowhere Special” is the right one. Norton is spectacular, but little Lamont delivers one of those uncanny performances that doesn’t seem like acting, and makes you feel for the kid almost as much as his onscreen parent does.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Another Cronenberg progeny with unsettling in her DNA.
‘Humane’
In Caitlin Cronenberg’s feature debut, ecological collapse leads Canada to reduce its population by calling on citizens to volunteer for euthanasia. One well-off family discovers that the choice might not be so voluntary.
From our review:
“Humane” is a thought experiment sprung to bloody life, a cross between the trolley problem and dystopian extinction nightmares. Set in the very near future, it tries to tackle a cascade of ethical questions. Who counts as valuable? What does it mean to be good? If humans wreck the earth, what will we do to survive? Do we even deserve it?
In theaters. Read the full review.
Perfect for arachnophobia exposure therapy.
‘Infested’
After a venomous spider escapes from its owner’s care and begins rapidly reproducing, the residents of a low-income housing block must face off against these eight-legged menaces.
From our review:
There are no fresh ideas in the French creepy-crawler “Infested,” yet this first feature from Sébastien Vanicek scurries forward with such pep and purpose that its shortcomings are easily forgivable. Add a handful of eager young actors, a sociopolitical slam and a claustrophobic location swarming with venomous spiders and you’ll be hunting for the DEET long before the credits roll.
Watch on Shudder. Read the full review.
Your standard musician biopic, but make it spiritual.
‘Unsung Hero’
Based on a real family of musicians who have five Grammy Awards between them, this faith-based drama follows a tight-knit clan as they move from Australia to Nashville, and find success in recording Christian music.
From our review:
Viewer beware: Between the uplift and the cringe, this movie may cause whiplash. Joel Smallbone plays his own father, David, who faces financial and reputational ruin after booking a big concert and failing to pack the house. He resettles the family in the United States, but no job materializes. His pep-talking spouse, Helen (Daisy Betts), and their beatific children pull up bootstraps and practically whistle while they work, but it’s not enough.
In theaters. Read the full review.
A boyish action flick starring a boy named Boy.
‘Boy Kills World’
Blood begets more blood when a victim of an attack that left him deaf and mute seeks revenge on the perpetrators.
From our review:
At least give it up for the stunt crew on “Boy Kills World,” a boneheaded action movie that gives some exceedingly fit performers — its hard-body star Bill Skarsgard very much included — a chance to flaunt their physical skills. To judge from all the grunting, the straining muscles and cascading sweat, Skarsgard, along with a few of his nimble co-stars and an army of stunt performers, puts in serious work to try to make the relentless bashing and smashing, flailing and dying look good. Too bad the filmmakers were incapable of doing the same.
In theaters. Read the full review.