An interesting but ultimately frustrating struggle between form and content animates “The Affair,” an attractive but inert drama set in Czechoslovakia amid the most pivotal events of the 20th century. Hanna Alstrom and Carice van Houten play Liesel and Hana, best friends whose relationship possesses an undeniably erotic undertow, even after they’re both married. In […]

Andra Day delivers an astonishing breakout performance as the complicated subject of “The United States vs. Billie Holiday,” in a movie that often feels like it’s unworthy of both the actress and the persona she adopts so seamlessly. From the first moments of this maddeningly uneven film, Day channels her complicated, contradictory protagonist with closely […]

“Crisis,” an attempted thriller about the opioid epidemic, unfortunately doesn’t bring the experience home. The movie is a multiple-narrative look at the misuse of the likes of fentanyl, oxycodone and heroin that, according to HHS, afflicted more than 1.6 million Americans in 2019. It’s a raging epidemic exacting a dreadful human toll, but “Crisis” doesn’t […]

There are still some things missing from the experience, compared to in-person, but there are others gained from the online presentation of ‘Untitled, 2020.’

Horror films often offer catharsis, but rarely are they also as deeply sorrowful as Keith Thomas’ “The Vigil,” a horror film based in Jewish faith and culture. Dave Davis stars as Yakov, a young man in Brooklyn struggling to establish a secular life, having left the Orthodox Jewish community after a traumatic experience. One night, […]