ReelViews for PG-13 movies

The Painted Veil, based on the novel by W. Somerset Maugham, takes viewers on a journey into early 20th century rural China, where a cholera epidemic becomes the backdrop for shifts and growing pains in a fractured marriage. Due in large part to e...

Paper Heart is the latest in the so called "meta documentary" genre that mixes and tangles a fictional narrative with actual documentary footage. Like last year's American Teen, the ability to see the seams and sniff out the fictitious elements de...

Paper Towns is the third coming-of-age story to reach screens during the summer of 2015, following in the wake of the vastly superior Me and Earl and the Dying Girl and Dope. Based on the novel by John Green, Paper Towns is an exercise in artifice. T...

It's a risky proposition for any artist (director, author, etc.) to humanize a terrorist. In an era when many things have been reduced to black-and-white, the word "terrorist" has become synonymous with "evil." And evil can only be demonized. Becau...

I've seen movies like this more often than I'd like to admit: glitzy thrillers with less intelligence than a smart rutabaga where big-name actors pick up a paycheck while trying with limited success not to embarrass themselves and the studio keeps ...

Passengers is an art-house science fiction movie that somehow got made by a major studio with A-list stars. The film owes more to castaway stories than traditional spacefaring tales and, at least during the first half, it’s ripe with existentia...

The realities that human beings create around themselves are, by their nature, fragile things – some more fragile than others. In her directorial debut, actress Rebecca Hall addresses the malleability of identity via her adaptation of Nella ...

This review could be considered to contain spoilers.Past Lives is quietly powerful – an understated examination of longing, connection, and unconsummated love. In the way it plays with concepts like fate and soul mates, it’s sort-of an anti-Sle...

What is the difference between a bad melodrama and a good one? The key lies in the emotional response. If the viewer feels that he or she is being forced into reacting in a particular way because of "button pushing," the film makers have erred. ...

Pay It Forward couldn't have more obvious aspirations if the filmmakers announced them. Featuring a top-notch cast; an adept script that meshes tragedy, light comedy, romance, and melodrama; and the kind of overall optimism that is a perfect tonic...