Every time I see a film this good about faith I always say there should be more films about faith. I’m not talking about preachy, simplistically moralistic religious tracts, but tales about a person’s walk through life and faith with warts and all. Vera Farmiga, who most people will know from UP IN THE AIR, is a smart actress and has made a smart directing debut in adapting Carolyn S. Briggs’ memoir for the screen. This is a film about how a woman comes to faith and how she brings it through her life.

Farmiga stars as Corinne, a woman during the 1970s who struggles with her faith. As a child (McKenzie Turner), she didn’t have much exposure to religion. The most she got was when her flashy mother Kathleen (Donna Murphy, TANGLED) dumped her in vacation Bible school and flirted with Pastor Bud (Bill Irwin, RACHEL GETTING MARRIED) when she came to pick her up. As a teen, Corinne (Taissa Farmiga, TV’s AMERICAN HORROR STORY) is always writing, which draws the attention of wanna-be rocker Ethan (as teen Boyd Holbrook, TV’s THE BIG C & as adult Joshua Leonard, THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT). In fast secession, she is pregnant, married and a struggling mother. After a near tragedy, Corinne and Ethan join the “Jesus Freaks” in town and never turn back.

In their Christian community, Corinne embraces her faith with a full heart, but she is a thinker and with thinkers come doubts. She becomes close friends with Annika (Dagmara Dominczyk, THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO), the most free of the women. The Russian immigrant draws pictures of her husband’s penis to spice up their sex life and talks in tongues to get closer to God. Corinne wants that for herself, but it doesn’t come that easy, especially with Ethan, who has fallen into the dogma of their patriarchal church. In this world, Corinne feels confined by restrictions in her dress, counseling of other women and even thoughts. And even though Pastor Bill (Norbet Leo Butz, DAN IN REAL LIFE) stresses that the men need to meet their wives sexual needs, it’s a lesson Ethan has failed to follow.

Watch how Corinne’s faith affects her relationship with her sister Wendy (Nina Arianda, MIDNIGHT IN PARIS), who has a carefree, hippie lifestyle. Corinne’s marriage is boring, but turns volatile like the relationship her mother and father CW (John Hawkes, MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE) had. That marriage ended in divorce, but Corinne’s faith influences how she approaches her failing marriage. But Corinne’s faith is most rocked when it comes to the tragic fate of Annika. Death would have been easier to understand as God’s plan.

Farmiga has brought together a great cast, working from Briggs and Tim Metcalfe’s script. She brings the same authenticity that marks every one of her performances. She understands these people and never once talks down to them. Farmiga made a great decision in convincing her younger sister Taissa to act in the film as the younger version of her character. Taissa not only shows natural talent, but seamlessly works to transition from one period in time to the next, because of how closely she resemble her older sibling. Irwin is always a joy to see and his smarmy preacher is so dead on in style and approach I felt I was back in my own Bible camp experience. Look for a brilliant moment between Hawkes and Murphy during one of their grandchildren’s birthday parties. Their non-verbal communication comments on their relationship and also hints at the pitfalls ahead for Corinne and Ethan.

While faith is the central theme, this film plays it straight and shows how faith transforms and informs its characters. This is a character piece that looks inside a religious community and how the dynamics of the group affect its main character Corrine. She entered marriage before she found religion. She was young and so many of the things she wanted from life had to be put on hold. So how does someone reconcile a less than opportune marriage and a faith that demands one not to divorce? What if you put your whole heart into something and never feel the joy you expect? What do you do when everyone around you has found something you can’t seem to find? The answer is faith. But faith in what? Farmiga has enough faith in her audience to let them come up with their own answers.

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The central mixed martial arts event in this film is called Sparta and it is a fitting name to attach to such a Greek-like drama between fathers and sons and brother versus brother. As a sports drama, it skillfully weaves together both a separate comeback and underdog tale, with the tales colliding in the end. Combining melodrama and character complexity, this simple tale has the emotional power of a piledriver.

Tommy Conlon (Tom Hardy, INCEPTION) hasn’t seen his father Paddy (Nick Nolte, AFFLICTION) since he and his mother ran away when he was a teen. Now a broken man, going by his mother’s maiden name, Tommy wants something from his former alcoholic dad – train him to enter a winner take all MMA tournament. He doesn’t want to reconnect with his father, only train. In a sick way, Tommy dangling a reconnection in front of his dad is no worse than if he dangled a bottle of whiskey.

Tommy has no desire to reconnect with his older brother Brendan (Joel Edgerton, ANIMAL KINGDOM) either. Paddy tries to visit Brendan, but he too doesn’t want anything to do with his dad. He stayed behind when his brother and mother left for his then girlfriend, now wife Tess (Jennifer Morrison, TV’s HOUSE). Due to mounting medical bills from his daughter’s heart condition, Brendan has stepped back in the ring, despite promising his wife that since becoming a high school Physics teacher he wouldn’t. They need the money and he refuses to lose their home. He goes back to his old trainer Frank Campana (Frank Grillo, MINORITY REPORT), who is working with a fighter preparing for Sparta.

Brendan and Tommy’s paths couldn’t be more different and yet the same. Tommy made himself an overnight name when a YouTube video of him destroying a top contender in a sparing match went viral. He is like an animal unchained when he enters the cage, mowing down opponents like they weren’t even there. During high school, he was a promising champion wrestler until he and his mother left. Brendan, on the hand, is an underdog, who has always lived in the shadow of his younger brother. He doesn’t have the same brute force, but he has stamina and skill.

On the surface, Brendan seems like the easier of the two to root for. He is fighting to save his family and to prove himself. Tommy is cruel and cold. We know that his resentments fuel his anger and brutality in the cage. We fear what could happen if he does get his hands on his brother. But he has secrets and those secrets are key to his motivations as well. This is a story of broken men finding some resolution. Even Paddy tries to bring his family together knowing that it was he who caused them to be torn apart.

While this has melodramatic tones, the conviction of the three central performers makes it believable. Hardy is intense on a scary level. The fear that he is going to hurt someone, and himself in the process, is palpable. Edgerton, who has the geek cred of playing Luke’s Uncle Owen in the STAR WARS prequels, is emerging as a promising new leading man. Like he did in ANIMAL KINGDOM, he has a masculine quality that is still refined. In a sport where his opponents strike thoughts of unhinged beasts, his Brendan feels like a gentleman boxer from a different era. Then we get to Nolte, whose performance is his best since his last Oscar nominated performance in AFFLICTION. It’s not that he plays a recovering alcoholic so well, but the vulnerability he brings to the role that speaks volumes about his character that dialogue could not convey.

One might argue that men working out their issues by beating each other to a pulp is not very sophisticated. But others might describe it as accurate. The detail that makes director Gavin O’Connor, Anthony Tambakis and Cliff Dorfman’s script so solid is the actions of the brothers in the ring speak of their complex problems. On a larger level, the film is not just about family, but what family means.

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Over the years Steven Spielberg has certainly adapted his style to fit the project. The black & white cinematography in SCHINDLER’S LIST added a grim solemnity. The desaturated colors and herky-jerky photography of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN only matched the gritty war sequences. In WAR HORSE, he tackles the first World War with a touch that matches the melodramatic nature of the source book and play. He channels the melodramas of the 1940s and 1950s like John Ford’s HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY, creating an almost surreal fable.

Ted Narracott (Peter Mullan, BRAVEHEART) is a war vet who drinks away his bad memories. He’s a poor farmer who decides one day at auction to not let his rich, pompous landlord Lyons (David Thewlis, HARRY POTTER) to outbid him for a thoroughbred horse. When he brings it home to his wife Rose (Emily Watson, BREAKING THE WAVES), she gets that look that only long-suffering wives get in movies like this one. Their son Albert (Jeremy Irvine, TV’s LIFE BITES) promises to train the horse. When the rent comes due and they are short, Albert, as hard headed as his father, sets out to turn a race horse into a plow steed.

But as one might expect, Albert and his horse Joey get separated when the war breaks out and the young man is determined to reunite with his four-legged friend. Like Robert Bresson’s AU HASARD BALTHAZAR, the story of an animal allows the viewer to peek into the lives of the people the creature comes in contact with. Capt. Nicholls (Tim Hiddleston, THOR) embodies the British term of keeping a stiff upper lip. He uses Joey to challenge the snobby Major Stewart (Benedict Cumberbatch, TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY). The young fragile Emilie (Celine Buckens) and her beloved grandfather (Niels Arestrup, A PROPHET) get a new lease on life thanks to the horse. The beast’s encounters will also include helping two young German defectors, motivating an animal loving private and inspiring a momentary truce.

This lush production shines with Janusz Kaminski’s vfx assisted cinematography. Spielberg doesn’t hold back with unnatural red and orange sunsets and vast green landscapes. The Narracott’s farm is like a fairy tale cottage. These idyllic images of the home are is stark contrast to the bleak, dark trench warfare scenes. The image of Joey trapped in barbed wire in the middle of No Man’s Land between the English and German sides is classic.

Spielberg finds grand moral themes about life and death much like he did in RYAN. Albert’s friend from Devon is assigned the terrible task of shooting any of his fellow soldiers who turn back from their run across the battlefield. So often, luck determines whether one lives or dies. Grander motivations mean nothing and the soldiers are fighting for their fellow solider… and in this case that means man and horse. Spielberg brings to light the great service that horses provided in WWI and the idea of them being drafted into fighting without a choice is not a light metaphor.

WAR HORSE earns the waterworks it creates with archetypal characters that we care about. Spielberg explores one of his favor themes of family on a grand scale. Chiefly, fathers and sons reconnect over shared experiences. Albert, played with the perfect dose of innocent gumption by newcomer Irvine, doesn’t understand his father, brought to life by Mullen as a proud working class man that only Ireland and the movies can produce. But in the final shot words aren’t needed to communicate that Albert’s opinion has changed. Spielberg’s skills as a master filmmaker make this happen so well.

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This is not the first AIDS message film to come out of Africa and it probably won’t be that last. It touches on many of the issues that the Oscar nominated African film YESTERDAY tackled. But what makes this film different is its perspective. The innocent children of the pandemic are at the center. It’s tale of struggle and sacrifice works on the audience slowly reaching a power crescendo.

In the first scene, tweenaged Chanda (Khomotso Manyaka) is buying a coffin for her dead infant sister. Her mother Lillian (Lerato Mvelase) is too grief stricken to leave the house. Her stepfather Jonah (Aubrey Poolo) is passed out drunk at a bar with another woman. He has taken all the family’s money so Chandra has to go recover it in order to pay for the funeral. Lillian’s friend Mrs. Tafa (Harriet Lenabe, HOTEL RWANDA) reminds Chanda that the baby died of influenza so no one will talk. No one shall dare say what they think it really was.

AIDS is a stigma that most families cannot bare. If word gets out, the community will drive them out, because they are afraid on a superstitious level. When Lillian gets sick, a medicine woman is called who throws out incense and snakes and says the woman must find her missing part left behind in her birthplace. So on this advice Lillian leaves her children to fend for themselves. But sadly, the spiritual healer is no better than the “doctor” who has an herbal cure for which the plaques on the wall show he is the #1 salesman of for months in a row.

Chanda looks at all this quackery with skepticism greater than any adult she knows. She is not afraid to challenge those in authority, but sadly too many disregard her as just a child. In a world where public opinion seems more important than reality, Chandra would rather risk it all to do what is right. Look at her best friend Esther (Keaobaka Makanyane), a young girl who lives in abject poverty whose parents are no longer in the picture. The young girl sadly needs to sell herself to truckers just to survive.

Manyaka gives a strong performance as a young girl thrust into a terrible position by circumstance. Her bond with her mother is stronger than social norms or the opinions of adults. Her mother was a outcast because she married her father for love, rejecting an arranged marriage. When her husband died, she remarried poorly, making her status in her family’s eyes even worse. Her mother tells her that her baby’s death is what she gets for the life she has lead. And these are the people she goes back to when she is sick? We fear this cannot turn out well.

Chandra’s journey to find her mother is truly touching. She has given up so much, but for those she loves she doesn’t hesitate to give more. Chandra’s strength and defiance is inspiring to those around her and the audience. She is the hope of an Africa ruled by education not fear. The same song opens and closes the film. In the beginning it’s a dirge. In the end, it’s a chorus.

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Michel Hazanavicius’ effortlessly charming dramedy is really like discovering a lost film from the silent age. The director of the popular French OSS 117 spy spoof series recreates every aspect of a black and white silent film of the 1920s. From the classic 1.37:1 aspect ratio to the title cards to the dramatic pitch, he gets all the details right. His performers nail the acting style, which is a key to the film’s success. But it’s not just a gimmick. It’s a reminder that sometimes words get in the way of visual storytelling.

George Valentin (Jean Dujardin, OSS 117: CAIRO, NEST OF SPIES) is the biggest silent movie star. During the red carpet for his latest international action film, he bumps into Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo, A KNIGHT’S TALE), a pretty young fan looking for an autograph. Embarrassed at first, soon she’s posing for the cameras along with Valentin. The next day she goes to the studio looking to get a job as an extra and lands a role in Valentin’s next picture. He is so charmed by the young woman that he flubs scenes just so he can dance with her over and over again.

The problem is that Valentin is married to Doris (Penelope Ann Miller, CARLITO’S WAY), a prune-faced woman who seems constantly perturbed with her husband even when he and his trained dog are being utterly irresistible. Peppy moves on and gets better and better parts. Meanwhile, studio head Al Zimmer (John Goodman, THE BIG LEBOWSKI) shows Valentin a test of a sound film. Valentin laughs it off as a fad, but Zimmer sees it as the future. Defiantly, Valentin goes out on his own and produces a new silent adventure. But then the stock market crashes even worse than his film does and he is broke.

Dujardin, who won Best Actor at Cannes for this performance, is a big star in France and one can see why here. He has screen presence like any movie star of the Golden Age or today. He performs in the more conscious style of 1920s and 30s. For his films within the film, he mugs it, but contrasts that with a more honest performance for his character’s downward spiral. Bejo is his equal and even has the more difficult role. Her character is plucky in that way that only 1930s film ingénues were. She doesn’t hold back and goes for it without a moment of self doubt that she might come off corny. Their dedication to what Hazanavicius is trying to do is crucial to why I fell in love with this film.

Hazanavicius uses imagery that just doesn’t work the same way it would if there were dialogue we heard. After sadly watching his old films, Valentin curses the man he has become as his shadow appears on the screen. He literally is a shadow of the man he once was. Watch the melodramatic direction Hazanavicius uses during a scene where Valentin frantically pulls sheets off hidden treasures from his past. In any other film, this scene would have come off over-the-top, but in this one it has a power in a purely cinematic way.

As true to the silent era style Hazanavicius is, he doesn’t make this film in a vacuum. He has fun with the conceit right from the first title card. Valentin is being tortured in his action film and the title card reads, “No I won’t talk!” He has a great deal of fun with Valentin’s bad dream about talkies. And Valentin’s resentful co-star Constance (Missi Pyle, GALAXY QUEST) uses a gesture that certainly wouldn’t have been in a 20s flick, but does convey her feelings quite well without words.

And I would be remiss to not mention two other performances. James Cromwell (BABE) is the perfect steady figure as Valentin’s dedicated chauffeur Clifton. Uggie is one of the breakout performers of the year. He plays Valentin’s dedicated Jack Russell terrier, who hits his cues like a comic genius. There hasn’t been a dog this charismatic since his screen soulmate Asta from the THIN MAN series graced the screen.

Despite being a black and white silent film, this is accessible to a wide audience even across language barriers. It establishes its characters through comedy and romance and then connects us with them through tragedy. Like the films that inspired it, emotions move quickly in melodramatic ways, but that is part of its soul and its allure. Like a vintage movie poster would have said – You’ll laugh! You’ll cry! You’ll fall in love!

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It’s been given the dreaded NC-17 rating. But how could an honest film about sex addiction be otherwise? Director Steve McQueen pushes his actor Michael Fassbender to the edge like they did in the IRA hunger strike drama HUNGER. This time Fassbender does things on screen you might not do at home with your spouse or girlfriend. But this is far from pornography.

Fassbender gives his best performance to date as Brandon Sullivan, a hot exec at a web firm who has terrible sex addiction. His mind is consumed with sexual impulses to the point where he has cut off his family and is getting into work later and later each day. Sex for him is just one extreme fantasy or fetish du jour. He hires prostitutes, buys volumes of porn videos and mags and is a steady customer to online sex cams. But his routine of anonymous sexual acts is disrupted when his troubled sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan, AN EDUCATION) shows up at his door needing a place to crash after another relationship has crashed and burned.

Sissy’s presence jeopardizes Brandon’s denial and cover-up of his problem, which makes him lash out angrily. He is ashamed of his behavior and in a purging gesture throws out all his porn even his laptop. But like any addict, he is back using again soon. Watch how Fassbender makes Brandon seem disgusted with the lecherous acts of his married boss David (James Badge Dale, THE PACIFIC). When David hits on Sissy, Brandon’s reaction is like an alcoholic with the shakes. His sister, who knows his secrets, has put his faux organized world into disarray. But was it really stable before?

To Brandon sex is a momentary high. There are no emotions involved. Frankly, he has a problem dealing with genuine emotion. He hides his true feelings when he goes to see his sister sing. He’s never had a relationship that has lasted more than four months. This is not a big selling point when he’s trying to seduce his pretty co-worker Marianne (Nicole Beharie, THE EXPRESS). Because Brandon is so controlling and easy to anger, we fear his reaction to a woman who isn’t being paid to do everything he wants her to do when he wants her to do it.

Fassbender’s performance is brave beyond the full frontal nudity and graphic sex scenes. It’s the hidden vulnerability that is so powerful. The title is dead on. Just watch the subtle panic that Fassbender portrays when David confronts him about all the porn viruses the IT staff found on his work computer.

McQueen, who penned the script with Abi Morgan, is a true visual artist. HUNGER showed off his prowess as a visual storyteller, but this film shows off his talents as a narrative director. There is a dialogue-free scene early on as Brandon checks out a woman on the subway that is filled with all sorts of tension, created through performance and pacing. First it’s sexual tension and then it transforms into something completely different.

SHAME is one of the premiere films of the year. This lean drama doesn’t have a wasted moment in it. Brandon Sullivan looks like a sophisticated man, but his secrets are as dirty as the gutter. The film is like a Bukowski poem.

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Here is a unique use of sci-fi. For the most part this film is a drama regarding recovering from a tragic event that fundamentally transforms one’s life over night. The concept of a doppelganger planet is used as metaphor for how decisions we make create new lives and even selves.

Rhoda Williams (Brit Marling, upcoming THE COMPANY YOU KEEP) is a high school student who has just gotten into MIT. After a night of drinking, she makes the mistake of driving home and along the way hits another car putting college professor John Burroughs (William Mapother, TV’s LOST) into a coma and killing his pregnant wife and young son. In an instant, she transforms from a promising future astrophysicist into a convict who must serve four years in prison.

By the time Rhoda gets out, humans are planning a trip to Earth 2. With seemingly no prospects, she decides to enter an assay contest to win a seat on the space ship set for the approaching planet. Meanwhile, she gets a job at the high school as a janitor; she tells her counselor that she wants a job where she doesn’t have to talk to people. Consumed with guilt, she seeks out John to apologize, but when she knocks on his door, she panics, and in seeing the disarray his house is in, says she is from a maid service giving out a free trial. She doesn’t know what to do when he hires her.

As they get to know each other, we see the lives they lost, but also see an alternative to the miserable lives they have now. They discuss the nature of their doppelgängers on Earth 2. Are they exactly the same or did they make other choices? Does it all come down to perspective? I mean the people on the approaching planet aren’t calling themselves Earth 2 one would suppose. To them they are simply Earth. If the number of universes is infinite then mathematically anything is possible.

Director Mike Cahill, who wrote the script with Marling, creates a rich drama and then uses the sci-fi as a hook to talk about deeper emotional ramifications. It’s ingenious. When dealing with his two main characters or the sci-fi elements, he never get pretentious. The droning Emo score gets a little heavy handed at times, but does set the right mood for the material. The only misstep comes with Rhoda’s fellow janitor Purdeep (Kumar Pullana, THE ROYAL TENEBAUMS), whose philosophical grand gestures beat the viewer over the head with New Age metaphorical platitudes.

Marling isn’t a name I knew before, but her performance makes it certain I won’t forget. In the few scenes before the accident, she embodies promise and then afterward, she becomes a shell. With each scene with John, she becomes slightly more whole again. It’s a layered and nuanced performance that even makes us question her sanity at times. Mapother matches her work, making John a man struggling to emerge from darkness where he has lived for years. Some days are better than others.

ANOTHER EARTH proves why plot and character need to be intertwined. Cahill and Marling find the emotional core to the idea of parallel universes. The idea was discussed in last year’s wonderful RABBIT HOLE, which also dealt with picking up after extreme loss, but this film takes it further. It’s nice to think that there is another version of ourselves living out what we perceive as our perfect life, but it’s another thing entirely to seek out that person in ourselves on Earth.

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The film claims to be based on a true story. Indeed it is based on Slavomir Rawicz’s novel THE LONG WALK, but since its publication the BBC has discredited its account. Some critics have used this to attack the film’s faithfulness to the book, which has a great deal of surviving and little interpersonal conflict that makes survival stories really compelling. While I agree that ramped up drama helps, but I found the lack of it here refreshing.

Janusz (Jim Sturgess, ONE DAY) has been sent to a gulag for crimes against the state in which his wife was forced to rat him out. The first person he meets in prison is Khabarov (Mark Strong, STARDUST), who tells him of his plan to escape, which fills Janusz with hope. However, the American Mr. Smith (Ed Harris, APOLLO 13) tells him that Khabarov is a fraud and tells the same story to all newbies as way to parasitically live off their optimism. But Janusz isn’t interested in living off dreams and decides to go through with the seemingly impossible escape.

Siberia serves as the virtual walls of their prison. To escape across the frozen tundra is tantamount to suicide. But Janusz decides to do it in a blizzard using the storm as cover. If they make it through the storm, they could freeze or starve to death. If they survive that they have to endure the 4,000-mile walk to India through deserts, disease filled swarms and Communist controlled lands where anyone would jump at the chance to turn in escaped escapees. To live to the next they must steal, hunt, scout, take risks, improvise and ride on a dose of luck.

Some in the group are simply types, but others stick out. Janusz is motivated by love. He wants to find his wife to tell her that he still loves her and understands she had no choice. Mr. Smith is a pragmatist who is good at thinking on his feet. He likes his odds with Janusz in the group, because the young man in kind and an idealist so he wouldn’t leave Smith behind if he ever go injured or sick. Valka (Colin Farrell, IN BRUGES) is a convict who was only out for himself at the prison, but see the value in their numbers in surviving… for a time. Despite being sent away due to Stalin and Lenin, he remains a true believer in these “great men.” The men run into Irena (Saoirse Ronan, ATONEMENT) is a young Polish girl who has a heroic story to tell, but one wonders if it is true.

Surprisingly, the group works well together. As some complains, it takes one level of tension away, but it adds focus. Peter Weir (MASTER AND COMMANDER) is more interested in the sheer scope of what these men would have had to endure. It’s unlikely that they could have done it on their own. Survival tales tend to support the human spirit and this one adds another layer because it shows people of different walks of life coming together and forming a family of sorts.

The worst thing I could say about the story is that after awhile the threat lessens because we know right from the start that most of the group survives. Obstacles keep coming, but the group doesn’t suffer huge setbacks.

That said, Weir, who adapted the book with Keith R. Clarke (IN SEARCH OF DR. SEUSS), presents the facts and makes us wonder if it is really possible. If these characters were really the ones attempting it, I believed, yes, it could be possible. They have what they need — Mr. Smith’s planning, Valka’s ruthlessness and Janusz’s determination. Without one of those, the rest might not be enough. Whether the story is real or not doesn’t matter here because it’s a story told well and we can believe in that.

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This dramedy frustrated and delighted me in equal measure. Writer/director Michael J. Weithorn (THE KING OF QUEENS) proves himself an observant chronicler of human nature and a sitcom gag craftsman. He develops rich comedic scenarios and weaves them together, but leaves us hanging at times. All of it is held together by the wonderful performance of THE OFFICE’s Jenna Fischer.

Fischer plays Laura, a dental hygienist, who suspects that her husband Bob (Chris O’Donnell, BATMAN & ROBIN) is cheating on her. He denies it, which finds a way of costing him his life. Now Laura, who was drinking a bit too much before becoming a widow, is left to care for her son Dennis (Daniel Yelsky), who has a way with coming up with massive lies to win friends.

Laura’s mother Joan (Lesley Ann Warren, VICTOR/VICTORIA) and her sister Katie (Brooke Smith, SILENCE OF THE LAMBS) sit her down to discuss her financial situation. Laura doesn’t want to talk about it, but they keep harping on it and demand that she see Mel Kaminsky (Kim Coates, BLACK HAWK DOWN), a malpractice lawyer who will sue the hospital. Joan has nothing ever good to say about Laura and Katie resents being called the organized sister instead of the pretty one. Laura’s father Warren (Ron Leibman, NORMA RAE) is no help, because he’s too busy reminiscing about his days as a top sports reporter.

Laura isn’t the best mom, but she does her best. She drinks to just get through her day. Her husband says she’s let her self go, but if Fischer is “let go” than God help us what hot is. She is short and sometimes mean when dealing with her son. A good example is not what she is setting for him. So she’s not one to really complain when he tells is new classmates that his dad was a firefighter who died saving people during 9/11.

Her brother-in-law Paul (Rob Benedict, STATE OF PLAY), however, is a good parent and Laura recognizes it. He sees that his son Kyle (Zach Page, AUGUST RUSH) has real talent at playing guitar. He tries to encourage him, but his wife undermines it, because she sees no real future in music and wants her son to focus on getting better grades. Paul deals with his oppressive wife with humor, but it usually just makes her more agitated. In high school, he had a crush on Laura and started dating Katie just to be closer to Laura.

Laura’s life is certainly spinning out of control. Each misstep or lie that she engages in only sets her up for bigger failure. The problem is that all the pieces build and come to a head right before the credits close. I wanted more. In many ways, Laura is at her lowest point when the film ends, but we see her on her way to a better life. But I wanted to see her work her way back. I felt like I was watching the two-hour pilot to a new TV series.

When it’s watching the way families interact for better or worse, the film is a refreshing look at imperfection. The film gets a little lost in sitcom-like scenarios to pump up the humor, because it feels like it’s from another movie and distracts. A perfect example is when Laura’s father keeps the bathroom door open when the family is discussing Laura’s future. He wants to keep in the conversation. It’s funny, but out of place.

Though it’s flawed like its characters, A LITTLE HELP is still always entertaining. Fischer makes Laura relatable. We understand why she tells little lies, because she just wants one moment when someone isn’t on her case. We understand why she loses her temper when her son makes her the bad cop when her husband is off playing bad cop with someone else. We understand when she wants a little help from anyone who will give it to her even if it’s only for a fleeting moment and could cause her even more problems as a result.

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What could a 3-D family film from Martin Scorsese be like? With HUGO now as an example, the answer is magical. And it’s a magic that Scorsese is best suited to bring to life — the magic of the movies. At one point, a young boy visits a movie studio and the director leans down to him and tells him if he’s ever wondered where his dreams come from this is where they are made.

Based on Brian Selznick’s celebrated illustrated novel THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET, the story follows its title character (Asa Butterfield, THE BOY WITH THE STRIPED PAJAMAS) as he survives as an orphan in the clockworks of a Paris train station. After his father (Jude Law, A.I.), a clock maker, died, he has been trying to finish a project they were working on together — fixing an automaton. This mechanical human is a complex one that seems to be designed to write something and Hugo believes it will give him a message from his dad. But the boy loses his notebook filled with calculations to Papa Georges (Ben Kingsley, GANDHI) after the toyshop owner catches him trying to steal. What Hugo doesn’t know is that Georges is Georges Melies, the once famed filmmaker who is best known for A TRIP TO THE MOON, where a rocket sticks into the eye of the man on the moon.

In order to get his book back, Hugo befriends Georges’ goddaughter Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz, KICK-ASS), who loves secrets and adventures. Their friendship soon grows around fixing the automaton, which they discover has connections to Isabelle’s heart shaped key, Papa Georges and his wife Mama Jeanne (Helen McCrory, INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE). Hugo shares his philosophy that the world is one big machine and because no machine has extra parts, everyone must have a purpose. He is struggling to find his though. Isabelle suggests that he is meant to fix things.

Every moment is filled with the joy of filmmaking. Leave it to a master filmmaker like Scorsese to transform the novelty of 3-D into something more. We’ve seen dozens of versions of epic clockworks, but never with this kind of tension. The heights and whirling gears seem far more threatening. Take the Lumiere brothers’ pioneering 1897 film ARRIVAL OF A TRAIN AT LA CIOTAT. It was just a train arriving in the station approaching the camera, but when it was screened for the first time people were frightened as the locomotive came toward them. Using 21st century 3-D filmmaking techniques, Scorsese recreates this sensation for an audience with film in their DNA.

For the film buffs, Scorsese works in references to a great deal of Melies’ work, as well as another famous clock scene from Harold Lloyd’s SAFETY LAST to stick with the theme of time. When the automaton isn’t working, Hugo says that it is just waiting to do what it was meant to do and we can’t help but believe this also refers to Melies. Before cinema, he was a magician and he brought his talent for illusion to film as a profound innovator in special effects. After WWI, tastes changed and his films weren’t popular anymore. Desperate for money, he sold most of his films to a company that melted them down to make shoe heals. Preservationist Scorsese comes through loud and clear.

But this isn’t just a history lesson about film — it captures the joy of film from the creator to the spectator. The surreal version of Paris glows electric and has a touch of steam punk to it too. Films bring people together to share experiences. In this film, Hugo brings people together. He watches stories unfold in his station. Monsieur Frick (Richard Griffiths, WITHNAIL & I) can’t seem to get a moment with Madame Emilie (France de la Tour, HARRY POTTER) because of her snippy dog. The station inspector, played by Sacha Baron Cohen (BORAT) in full on Peter Sellers mode, is obsessed with catching thieves, but can the sweet flower girl Lisette (Emily Mortimer, MATCH POINT) make him smile? Can Hugo make Georges accept his past and do what he is meant to do?

Now that I’ve seen this film I couldn’t think of a better filmmaker to have made it. Scorsese has recreated past worlds in films like THE AGE OF INNOCENCE and GANGS OF NEW YORK, but not like he’s done with 1930s Paris. He’s done comedy before in AFTER HOURS, but not like the classic slapstick and word play as he does here. He’s dealt with real life figures in films like RAGING BULL and THE AVIATOR, but not like the loving tribute he pays to Melies, whose work is the reason we have a film like HUGO. This film leaves no doubt what Martin Scorsese was meant to do.

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