The Deep Blue Sea
Starring Rachel Weisz, Tom Hiddleston, Simon Russell Beale

Rachel Weisz is perfectly cast as the troubled heroine of gay filmmaker Terence Davies’ stylish adaptation of Terence Rattigan’s period drama. Weisz plays Hester, a woman who attempts suicide in the film’s opening moments. (It’s 1950s London, and suicide is illegal.) Davies uses a series of masterfully lit and composed vignettes, set to a swelling musical score, to dramatize Hester’s heartbreak. But the stifling conditions of Hester’s situation—she left her boring, titled husband William (Beale) for a poor lover, Freddie (Hiddleston)—also seem to suffocate the film. Everything in The Deep Blue Sea—from the stagy sets to the long pauses freighted with meaning—is so deliberately measured it feels artificial. Davies is an accomplished filmmaker, and there are some amazing scenes, such as Hester’s discomforting tea with William and his icy mother, or her seeking Freddie out at the pub where everyone is singing at full volume. Davies also features several exquisite shots of Hester’s profile reflected back in a mirror as she looks out a window. But for all the wonderful visual touches, there is not enough emotion. Hiddleston cries out in anger, Weisz cries and cries, but the audience may be bored to tears. Opens March 23. 3/5 stars —Gary M. Kramer

Goon
Starring Seann William Scott, Liev Schreiber, Alison Pill

When “fist-smart” hockey fan Doug Glatt (Scott) bashes a penalized minor league player for making an anti-gay slur, he is offered a tryout for the local team. Suddenly, this aimless bruiser—hired to fight, not play hockey—finds his calling. He even helps his team win some games. The joke of Goon, co-written by Jay Baruchel, who co-stars as Doug’s foulmouthed and motor-mouthed best friend, is that Doug “The Thug” Glatt is really very sweet. But this gentle giant “touched by the fist of God” can’t get any respect. His parents disapprove of his career; he can’t connect with his roommate/teammate Xavier Laflamme, whom he is supposed to protect on the ice; and the girl he desires, Eva (Pill), has a boyfriend—although she finds herself cheating on him because she can’t resist the lovable Doug. Goon offers a few chuckles as it builds to the expected big showdown between Doug and his archrival Ross Rhea (Schreiber). Yet most of this loud, raucous film—based on a true story—relies on Scott’s easygoing charm for laughs, and Scott’s comic timing and droll expressions are amusing. Goon isn’t great, but like Doug, its scrappiness is endearing. Opens March 30. 3/5 stars —Gary M. Kramer

Intruders
Starring Clive Owen, Ella Purnell, Izán Corchero

Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s psychological thriller-slash-horror movie Intruders confounds expectations. Starring Clive Owen in a naturalistic, rooted performance, the film shifts between two supernaturally tinged stories. In the first, an imaginative Spanish boy (Corchero), both writing and telling a bedtime story for his mother (Pilar López de Ayala), conjures the evil spirit of Hollowface, who must steal the face of a child to walk again amongst the living. In the second, John Farrow (Owen) must protect his teenage daughter Mia (Purnell) from the same spirit that she has unwittingly released from purgatory after finding a page of the boy’s buried story. What sounds incredulous on the page plays beautifully on the screen, calibrated by Fresnadillo’s elegant compositions—the movie looks better than 99 percent of standard horror fare—and Nicolás Casariego’s psychologically astute screenplay. Is Hollowface a real bogeyman or the manifestation of the characters’ anxieties? Like most supernatural-based films, it doesn’t hold up to logic; yet while the film unspools, the committed acting keeps you invested in the unreal. And Fresnadillo—who directed 28 Weeks Later and may prove to be a genre master on the level of Guillermo del Toro—is a magical storyteller. He nearly spins gold out of hokum. Opens March 30. 3/5 stars —Dan Loughry

Musical Chairs
Starring Leah Pipes, E.J. Bonilla, Priscilla Lopez

Susan Seidelman’s shaggy dog story Musical Chairs shouldn’t work—and on many levels it doesn’t—yet it’s got heart, spunk and a remarkably light touch for a story about competitive ballroom dancers in wheelchairs and their able-bodied partners. Regardless of its flaws—a good-looking leading man (Bonilla) without many layers; Chantelle (Laverne Cox), the wise transsexual with a heart of gold; a stereotypically overbearing mother (Lopez)—the film moves briskly, and its two leads, Bonilla as the Bronx-bred Armando and Leah Pipes as the Upper (Crust) West Side-moneyed Mia, are surrounded by vivid supporting players. Morgan Spector, as the hunky wheelchair-bound Kenny, and Angelic Zambrana as Rosa, the Latin girl whom Armando’s mother keeps pushing at him, are standouts (their final embrace is emotionally right). Seidelman rarely stumbles, even when the script lets her down (which is often). Seidelman came to prominence in the ‘80s with a small identity-switch blockbuster, Desperately Seeking Susan, which starred someone you might have heard of named Madonna. Her films (Seidelman’s) are spotty, and Musical Chairs is no exception. But she’s a lifer in the arts’ commercial division, and it’s good to see her still at it even when the material could be better. Opens March 30. 3/5 stars —Dan Loughry