Return
"Return" undoubtedly has a lot going for it, not least its unusual subject and treatment. Marking writer-director Liza Johnson's feature debut, the film recounts the troubling experiences of a returning female war vet. More »

Declaration of War
What really gives this film—the official French entry for Oscar's foreign-language competition—its power is that both stars, Jeremie Elkaim and Valerie Donzelli (who also directed), lived a version of it. More »

The Grey
"The Grey," while falling into the action genre, gives Liam Neeson an intriguing character to play, and he easily rises to the challenge. More »

Chekhovek
This dramatization of nine short stories by Anton Chekhov has fluid staging, aptly defined performances, handsome period costumes, and evocative music, but soul is in short supply. More »

Holy Child
Joe Lauinger's perfectly fine realistic one-act play is undercut by tacking on a slapdash absurdist second act, which seems as if it was written by a different playwright. More »

Inadmissible
A spoof of the shady side of college admissions, D.B. Gilles' new play offers moments of fun that unfortunately often stretch into periods of tedium. More »

Yours, Isabel
Based on real-life letters written by a pair of young lovers during World War II, Christy Hall's two-hander is best described as unremarkable, unable to make its epistolary form sufficiently dramatic. More »

Madame Butterfly
Director Aramazd Stepanian's production of David Belasco's 1900 Broadway melodrama is stylistically precise but moves at a glacial pace and offers a mixed bag of performances. More »

Sidetracked
Billed as a "dramedy" but more closely resembling a zany film-noir spoof, Sharon Michaels' new play never commits to a cohesive style, and Ray A. Rochelle's flaccid direction doesn't help. More »