MY OLD LADY
⋆⋆ out of four stars
Rating: PG-13, for thematic material and some sexual references.
Theater: Edina.

While there is pleasure in watching three fine actors act, even Maggie Smith, Kevin Kline and Kristin Scott Thomas can't pin a bow on this downer of a movie, written and directed by Israel Horovitz. Not that Paris must always look postcard-lovely on film, but has the City of Light ever looked so underlit, so bleak, so Gloomy Auguste? Mathias Gold (Kline) arrives in Paris from New York to claim a big apartment he inherited from his late father, but discovers that it is inhabited by 92-year-old Mathilde (Smith) and her daughter, Chloe (Thomas). The apartment is a "viager," meaning that the longtime tenant has the right to stay there until she kicks the bucket. Hilarity does not ensue. In a manner somewhat predictable, Mathias and Chloe are transformed from arch-foes to special friends. Smith is reliably ornery, even cruel, as details of her past with Mathias' father flicker forth. If sad, fearful adult lives wrecked by depression, divorce, disappointment, adultery, addiction and family dysfunction are your thing, "My Old Lady" is pour vous.
CLAUDE PECK

The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby
⋆⋆ out of four stars
Rating: R for language and drug use.
Theater: Showplace Icon, Grandview, Lagoon.

Self-indulgence runs amok in this pretentious trudge through the breakup of a marriage following a devastating occurrence. As the title character, whose first cross to bear was being named after a Beatles song by parents William Hurt and Isabelle Huppert, Jessica Chastain goes into hiding after a suicide attempt, while her struggling restaurateur husband, Conor (James McAvoy), broods and gets cross with his chef/confidante Stuart (Bill Hader). The incomparable Viola Davis is wasted as a professor who befriends Eleanor, as is the great U.K. character actor Ciaran Hinds as Conor's jaded father. Ten years in the making and originally split into two films, one depicting the point of view of the husband and the other of the wife, it deserves kudos for writer/director Ned Benson's ambition alone. But the blended result being released in theaters this week lacks the chemistry and cohesion to make us give a hoot about any of the people portrayed by a stellar cast.
Kristin Tillotson

Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter
⋆⋆⋆½ out of four stars
Not rated.
Theater: Walker Art Center. 7:30 p.m. Fri., 2 p.m. Sat. Director/writers David and Nathan Zellner will be present at both screenings.

Shot partly in Minnesota, this odd, mystical, strikingly original gem and Sundance favorite observes Kumiko (the enthralling Rinko Kikuchi), a lonely Japanese office worker with grandiose dreams whose only friend is a pet rabbit named Bunzo. By day she furtively spits in her horrible supervisor's coffee, by night she obsessively watches a VHS tape of the movie "Fargo," believing it is based in fact and will lead her to a hidden fortune, the briefcase full of ransom money hidden in the snow by kidnapper Carl. Determined to prove her mettle as a latter-day conquistador, she uses her boss' credit card to travel to wintry, windswept central Minnesota, evoking a vulnerable Little Red Riding Hood as she cluelessly slogs through snowdrifts. She meets a farm widow (Minneapolis actress Shirley Venard) who offers her leftover tuna hotdish, and a kindly policeman (David Zellner, the film's director) befuddled by her quest. As Kumiko's journey approaches its ambiguously tragic end, Sean Porter's gorgeous, haunting cinematography goes into overdrive.
K.T.

THE ZERO THEOREM
⋆⋆⋆ out of four stars
Rating: R for language and some sexuality/ nudity.
Theater: St. Anthony Main.

If "Brazil" director Terry Gilliam had ground up his previous films in a blender and extracted the juice, he couldn't have provided clearer proof of the auteur theory than this inspired compendium of his preoccupations. The movie's story, such as it is, follows another of Gilliam's meek, depressed clock-punchers (Christoph Waltz) through comically futile struggles with Management, whose Big Brotherly control extends across a diseased futurama stuffed with festooned misanthropes and antiquated artifacts. Somehow granted permission to work from home (a musty cathedral of an artist's loft), Waltz's Qohen Leth is an "entity-cruncher" tasked with figuring out human existence through something called the Zero Theorem. Dialing down the Gilliamesque noise, the director can nearly be heard to giggle at the absurdity of his own kindred role as an existential doodler in an industry that's all about the numbers. Gently mocking Hollywood convention and going his own merry way, he's aided again by old-school FX, painterly production design and playful supporting turns — from Tilda Swinton, David Thewlis and Matt Damon, give or take Melanie Thierry as a virtual reality hooker. Maybe "The Zero Theorem" doesn't add up to much on paper, but, particularly for Gilliam fans, it's infinitely watchable.
Rob Nelson

THE GREEN PRINCE
⋆⋆⋆ out of four stars
Rating: PG-13, for for thematic material and some disturbing images.
Theater: Edina.

As readers of spy fiction know, every secret agent has a handler, the person to whom the undercover operative reports, but how might it work in real life? If the intense and fascinating "The Green Prince" is any indication, it takes unforeseen turns even the best of novelists would have trouble imagining. The documentary goes into the psychological and power dynamics of one specific spy/handler relationship. The protagonists are Gonen Ben Yitzhak, an agent for the Shin Bet, Israel's super-secret version of the FBI, and Mosab Hassan Yousef, who spied on Hamas for Israel for 10 years. Hassan Yousef was not just any informant. He was the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, one of Hamas' founders and current leaders, and having him spying for Israel was beyond shocking. Both Hassan Yousef and Ben Yitzhak sit down for extensive interviews about how Israel recruited and worked with its prized spy. This is not great filmmaking, but their story is so involving that it doesn't matter as much as it might.
Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times