An intimate film about the lives of a small cast of characters, this simple masterpiece by director Mike Leigh manages to be at once philosophically expansive and physically claustrophobic. Personalities too large for their surroundings compound the effect of poverty on spaciousness—there is merely too little room to accommodate everyone, their needs for privacy and their individual desires. Imelda Staunton gives a tight performance as the title character, a mid-century London mother who tests light bulbs in a factory and keeps house for the wealthy to provide for her children and aged mother. In her spare time, she performs simple abortions to “help out young girls,” as she conceives of it, in a British cultural climate in which doing so is almost unthinkably wrong. The pendulous arm of justice, too, presses down on Vera Drake. By the end of the film, it is not just women as a social category who must live without freedom but Vera herself, forced to exchange liberty for captivity and the ultimate sort of crowdedness—that of a prison. (ABM)

Woman, Thou Art Loosed

Woman Thou Art Loosed is a misnomer. Titling this film Movie Thou Art Disturbing, Depressing, Not Very Uplifting Nor Powerful At All! would be far more appropriate. The main character, Michelle, played by Kimberly Elise, is raped by her mother’s boyfriend at the age of 12, and cannot reconcile her painful past with her spiritual quest for God. To Elise’s credit, she does as much as possible with such a weak script. On her time in jail: “I was getting raped in the shower and a woman was pulling my leg, just like I’m pulling yours.” This movie should be overnight Fed-Ex’ed to Lifetime, where they can show it over and over again in their next “Girl Has a Troubled Childhood, and Her Life Is Filled with Rape, Drugs, Prostitution and Murder Movie Marathon.” (TBB)

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason

Bridget (Renee Zellweger) is back and this time she’s counting carbs, not calories. There are some other surface changes in the life of the world’s favorite singleton: she’s shacked up with the dreamy Darcy (Colin Firth) and is no longer, well, single. But the script is furnished with the same jokes from the first movie, except the second time the “watch Bridget fall flat on her face in a very short skirt” routine is less vaudeville and more ritual humiliation. The movie seems to perpetuate, rather than poke fun at, the ridiculous conventions of the Hollywood romantic comedy. There are some glimpses of the old Bridget: smart, funny, wholly lacking in decorum. But these moments are outnumbered by the formulaic structure of the narrative, to the point where we’re not sure whether this is Notting Hill, Love Actually, or just some hideous amalgam of all the other resolutely WASPy, sickly-sweet Richard Curtis creations. (AEL)

After the Sunset

It’s difficult to understand how this project actually made it through production, when the actors, screenwriters, director and cinematographer are so obviously phoning in their work. Sunset begins with two master thieves, Max Burdett (Pierce Brosnan) and the luscious Lola Cirillo (Salma Hayek), completing the heist of a one-of-a-kind diamond and then jetting to a tropical island paradise to enjoy their retirement. Unbeknownst to them, FBI agent Stanley Lloyd (Woody Harrelson), still simmering from his botched attempt to prevent their robbery, has tracked them down and means to nab them with a brilliant scheme. There are a few decent comic moments thanks mostly to Harrelson, who seemingly takes on the daunting task of playing himself. But the sad truth is you would be better served catching up on some sleep than finding out what happens in this mind-numbing dud. (TAO)

—Happening was compiled by Vinita M. Alexander, Jessica A. Berger, M.A. Brazelton, Theodore B. Bressman, Mary Catherine Brouder, Ben B. Chung, Julie S. Greenberg, May Habib, Nathan J. Heller, Steven N. Jacobs, Bryant Jones, Amelia E. Lester, Timothy J. McGinn, Kristina M. Moore, Tony A. Onah, Will B. Payne, Geneva Robertson-Dworet, David B. Rochelson, J. Hale Russell, Zachary M. Seward, Julia E. Twarog and Julie Y. Zhou.