‘Mother Mary’
On the verge of a comeback, a pop star (Anne Hathaway) asks her former costume designer and estranged friend (Michaela Coel) to make her one last gown. The only interesting thing about “Mother Mary” is how unwaveringly its talented, charismatic leads — Anne Hathaway and Michaela Coel — manage to hold your attention despite such hollow nonsense.
‘Blue Heron’
Combining fact and fiction, this semi-autobiographical film depicts a young girl growing up in the shadow of her troubled half brother. Its director follows in the footsteps of other filmmakers who use the movies to fictionalize and explore their childhood memories. “Blue Heron,” an exquisite debut feature from the director and writer Sophy Romvari, is another such exploration, delicately probing a wound in part drawn from her own family’s history that has never really healed.
‘Lee Cronin’s The Mummy’
After eight years missing, a young girl returns to her family monstrously transformed in this horror flick directed by Lee Cronin (the one of the title). “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” revives one of cinema’s most storied monsters with a suitably macabre makeover, but it spins out in the attempt. Cronin thrills as ever to luscious gross-out scenes, like a mummy pedicure gone spectacularly awry, some absurd tracheal mayhem, or just a baleful patch of slime under a rug.
‘Normal’
Bob Odenkirk stars as Sheriff Ulysses, the new lawman in a small town who uncovers a secret that leads to extreme violence in this crime caper directed by Ben Wheatley. “Normal” — which heralds, according to the press notes, the birth of yet another franchise — navigates its cartoonish excesses with expected competence. As for Odenkirk, he’s golden; as mythology nerds will recall, Ulysses was also known as the Master of Cunning.
‘Mad Bills to Pay’
A young man has to grow up fast when he learns his girlfriend is pregnant. In his first feature, the writer and director Joel Alfonso Vargas takes a rather unremarkable premise and unspools it with sedulous care. The camerawork is made up entirely of static tableaus, giving the feeling that the story is not constructed but observed. That grace is edged with grit from the dialogue, which was partially improvised and recalls the elastic, organic quality of John Cassavetes scripts.
‘Erupcja’
Charli XCX plays Bethany, a young woman on the edge of settled life who seeks out her old friend Nel (Lena Góra) so they can run wild. Although Charli and Góra can’t quite translate enough layers between them to make this film really bruise, this is a pleasantly slight work that doesn’t overstay its welcome. With its charming literary-lite narration and brisk running time, “Erupcja” reads like a short story of snapshot memories.
‘Amrum’
Set on a German island in the North Sea during World War II, this coming-of-age film centers on Nanning (Jasper Billerbeck) a young boy who goes on a banal quest that leads him to a moral revelation. So far as redemption arcs go, nothing could be more obvious than one particularly innocent Hitler Youth member realizing his parents’ beliefs are evil. But to Akin’s credit, the film isn’t tastelessly sentimental (see “Jojo Rabbit”), and it depicts Nanning’s awakening with the kind of subtlety and restraint that suggests his moral education will continue evolving after the end of the movie.
‘Eagles of the Republic’
Authoritarian government officials in Egypt pressure a movie star (Fares Fares) into starring in a propaganda film. Saleh’s tangled plotting has more verve than his pacing or visual sense. But the movie’s portrait of collaboration can’t help but induce a shudder.
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