‘It Ends With Us’
In this romance based on the book of the same name by Colleen Hoover, flower-lover Lily (Blake Lively) falls in love with picture-perfect neurosurgeon Ryle (Justin Baldoni, who also directed), but discovers he may not be so perfect.
From our review:
It Ends With Us” is fitfully diverting, at times touching, often ridiculous and, at 2 hours and 10 minutes, almost offensively long. It’s visually and narratively overbusy, stuffed with flashbacks of Lily as an adolescent (Isabela Ferrer) that create two parallel lines of action. … The flashbacks add information, yet they also pull you away from the adult Lily, which fragments Lively’s performance and drains the slow-building momentum of her scenes. Just as unfortunately, Baldoni prettifies everything — trees, cityscapes, people — to the point that each detail, pose and smile seems lifted from a lifestyle ad instead of true, messy reality.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Bullets over back story.
‘Borderlands’
This action caper from Eli Roth, based on the video game franchise of the same name, follows the bounty hunter Lilith (Cate Blanchett), joined by a band of outlaws, as she tracks down, a tycoon’s daughter (Ariana Greenblatt).
From our review:
You can see the jokes, but most of them don’t land. Still, there is some neat design work if you squint. The masks are pretty cool, like the ones worn by a handful of goons who sport glow-in-the-dark face coverings with eerie green slits, and a digital technology allows people to wear other people’s pixelated faces over their own. … In voice-over narration at the beginning, [Blanchett] drolly intones that the plot to come is “some wacko B.S.” We don’t disagree.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Critic’s Pick
Coming-of-age with men who don’t act theirs.
‘Good One’
On a camping trip, 17-year-old Sam (Lily Collias) grapples with the immature behavior of her father (James Le Gros) and his old friend (Danny McCarthy) in this drama.
From our review:
“Good One” is the writer and director India Donaldson’s feature debut, and an astounding one, full of the kind of emotional detail that can only come from personal experience. The movie smoothly shifts from gentle comedy to emotional punch, modest in a way that sneaks up on you in the end, backed by Celia Hollander’s acoustic, folk-inflected score. For most of the film, we’re expecting something to happen to Sam — it feels inevitable, out here in the woods with two grown men. But when something does happen, it’s totally unexpected and revelatory.
In theaters. Read the full review.
The boys are back in Beantown.
‘The Instigators’
Matt Damon and Casey Affleck star as thieves in this Boston-centric heist movie directed by Doug Liman.
From our review:
It’s probably that peculiar sense of humor, its scoffing ebullience, that really makes Boston work so well onscreen. (And, OK, I like hearing guys who look and sound like my uncles.) So if the plot of “The Instigators” kind of goes nowhere, its characters give it the feel of a hangout movie with some added shootouts and car chases and a few well-timed explosions. And that, at least, is wicked good.
Watch on Apple TV+. Read the full review.
Critic’s Pick
Unexpectedly fun and undeniably nutty.
‘Cuckoo’
After moving to a resort in the Bavarian Alps with her father, 17-year-old Gretchen (Hunter Schafer) discovers the owner, Herr König (Dan Stevens), may be planning something sinister in this horror film written and directed by Tilman Singer.
From our review:
Shooting on 35-millimeter film, Paul Faltz, backed by Simon Waskow’s whining, fidgety score, leans into the surreality of Gretchen’s predicament with bizarre close-ups. … And as the resort’s dangers escalate and Gretchen’s injuries multiply, the film’s bonkers, body-horror ambitions become the means by which she will overcome her grief and heal her emotional dislocation. All this gives “Cuckoo” a strange, lusty vigor that’s hugely entertaining. Singer might still be finding his narrative footing, but there’s a playfulness and novelty to his weirdness that deserve encouragement.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Biopic? More like a Wikipedia entry.
‘Dance First’
This biopic directed by James Marsh examines the life of writer Samuel Beckett (played as a young man by Fionn O’Shea, and as an older man by Gabriel Byrne).
From our review:
[“Dance First”] offers simple explanations for the career of a writer whose output famously resists explaining. The movie, written by Neil Forsyth, was surely intended as a tribute, but it plays more like an effort to reduce Beckett to easily comprehensible terms — the sort of terms he most likely would have resisted.
In theaters. Read the full review.
A surprisingly serious take on Milli Vanilli.
‘Girl You Know It’s True’
Written and directed by Simon Verhoeven, this film fictionalizes the real-life rise and fall of the lip-syncing German musical duo Milli Vanilli, consisting of Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus.
From our review:
The lead actors — Elan Ben Ali is Morvan, Tijan Njie is Pilatus — bear uncanny resemblances to their real-life models and are better-than-capable performers. (Other cast members are put at a disadvantage by bad wigs.) Viewers who press play with intent to scoff may be surprised with how genuinely caught up they become.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Compiled by Kellina Moore.
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