The formula is as false as ever in the romantic comedy “Love Is All You Need.” But between cliches, director Susanne Bier supplies wonderful sparkle as her characters fall in love amid wedding-party minidramas in an Italian landscape overly conducive to sunset scenes. Bier is known for making tragedy-laced family-centered melodramas such as “Brothers” and “In a Better World.” Changing gears, she now presents a semi-Danish pastry containing a Hollywood rom-com recipe shaded with signature serio-touches. It’s lightweight but engaging enough. Read More

Dark are the workings behind the amiable visage of the central character of “Simon Killer,” an amoral psychodrama about an American in Paris and his unsavory unraveling. Credit character-focused direction, a stirring lead performance and an efficient use of style for making a potentially off-putting film compelling. Writer-director Antonio Campos, who directed the disturbed-teen drama “Afterschool” and produced the cult-escapee story “Martha Marcy May Marlene,” also displays an interest in disaffected and disturbed souls this time around. Read More

Three morally slippery protagonists form a shaky alliance in an effort to get their hands on a valuable painting in director Danny Boyle’s “Trance,” a sensorially dazzling but dramatically disappointing brio-noir thriller from the usually efficient British director. Too many twists obscure the human element in this movie in which Boyle — who made the 1990s decorum-busting black comedies “Shallow Grave” and “Trainspotting” and 2008’s crowd-pleasing “Slumdog Millionaire” — explores heist-drama and “Inception”-style brain-twister terrain. Read More

With its terrific central performance and 1960s soul tunes, the musical dramedy “The Sapphires” scores undeniable irresistibility points. But they’re not enough to give the movie the emotional resonance that a story about soul singers needs as its heroines bicker, shimmer and belt out their way to Supremes-like glory. Read More

Likely to become known as the Romanian exorcism drama that nobody saw, “Beyond the Hills” is an inimitably harrowing and immensely human story about friendship, devotion and what happens when faith goes horribly wrong. A wealth of merits compensate for an excessive running time in this serious, satisfying 152 minutes of world cinema. The director is Cristian Mungiu, who made “4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 days,” an abortion-themed thriller. Read More

Almost a miniature genre, the factually challenged but dramatically winning moment-in-history drama comes in Chilean form this week. The film is called “No,” and like “Argo,” “Lincoln” and “Zero Dark Thirty,” this Oscar nominee depicts the strategies and dramatizes the execution of a mission of historical importance. The results are intelligent, entertaining and, credibility imperfections notwithstanding, nicely edifying. Read More

It’s that time again — the “Up” series is back — and both the kids and the series are going strong. The latest installment, “56 Up,” is another worthy addition to this documentary catalog that illustrates the modern human experience through the stories of 13 Brits who, every seven years, share their lives in front of the movie camera.Falling somewhere between anthropology and melodrama, the “Up” series began in 1964 with “7 Up,” a TV experiment designed to assess the impact of class on British schoolkids. Fourteen 7-year-old children were interviewed. Read More