The Beguiled

A startling amount of subtle comedy accompanies Colin into the cloistered Confederacy of Dunst’s, where her vampire character has finally grown up but Kidman still treats her wards as others. Simple cinematography and luxurious location add gravitas to an otherwise over-simplified and somewhat soap-operatic look at uncivil love and war.

Hidden Figures

Candy-coated historical fairytale about the time we solved racism. True story is fascinating and worth telling but it struggles to reach orbit while bearing the weight of trying to be so universally likeable. Everyone gets what they want and everyone learns a math lesson: Inhumanly flawless people = adversity overcome.

Midnight Special

Presumably based on the babblings of an abnormal child, this Muddy mind-bender feels like a discarded draft of a stillborn Stephen King concept. An exceptional cast do their best to navigate this underwhelming world, only to be reminded that there’s a better one elsewhere. Bright-eyed expectations run and take shelter.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

A smart sentimental movie that masterfully hides from genre categorization. Carrey takes a serious turn while Winslet and Ruffalo go crazy. Dunst and Wood make odd additions but everyone works in service of this carefully constructed screwball adventure. Like Inception but emotional instead of intellectual, so the opposite, an exception.