Short reviews of MSPIFF movies, week 3 of festival

today

★★★★

Jean-Luc Godard remains the champion of the politically radical, aesthetically thrilling headscratcher. What his latest -- shot in part with a cellphone, subtitled in "Navajo English" -- will mean to neophytes is anyone's guess. But for followers, the film resonates deeply with the director's half-century of defiant provocations. Godard has intimated that "Socialisme" is his "farewell to language" -- but, as usual, he may have been kidding. Better to think of it simply as a gift. (101 min.)

ROB NELSON

★★★ 1/2

Actor Paddy Considine goes behind the camera to expand on his 2007 short film, "Dog Altogether," with the same lead actors. Joseph (an excellent Peter Mullan), a widower and alcoholic, struggles to keep his life intact until he meets Hannah (an impressive Olivia Colman), a devout Christian. When Joseph and Hannah form an unlikely bond, their friendship is threatened by her abusive husband, James (Eddie Marsan). Considine's film is bleak and harrowing but injects enough levity to make it an eye-opening affair. (91 min.)

JIM BRUNZELL III

Joseph Gordon-Levitt goes scary crackhead in this deranged coming-of-age comedy. Looking like a tattooed Motörhead roadie, he veers from scary-cool to total Molotov cocktail in a blink. He walks in the door of a 13-year-old boy (Devin Brochu) mourning the loss of his mom, and his devastated, pill-popping father (Rainn Wilson in a solid dramatic performance). Hesher plunks down on their sofa and becomes the troubled family's grief counselor/repressed id. Natalie Portman is a sad-sack cashier who becomes the boy's first crush. Gonzo, grungy, one of a kind. (100 min.

COLIN COVERT

★★★

A German-Dutch-Ukrainian co-production, shot in Russia by a Belarus-born director (and premiered in Cannes), "My Joy" is the definition of international cinema, although the focus of its considerable rage rests squarely on the former Soviet Union. The film's title is ironic and then some, as the film depicts a nation overrun by casual cruelty, thievery and murder. A dark and difficult movie, it spends nearly an hour following Georgy (Viktor Nemets), a young trucker, only to abandon him in favor of flashbacks to World War II, as if to reveal the origins of the brutality that ends up engulfing our would-be hero. (127 min.)

R.N.

★★★ 1/2

A rich and haunting portrait of the unbridgeable gap between kindred species, this documentary "King Kong" recounts the mid-'70s experiment in which researchers sought to raise a young chimp within a human family. Nim learns to communicate in sign language, but declines -- heroically, perhaps -- to supply scientific evidence that an ape can live comfortably among people who often appear less intelligent than he is. As in "Man on Wire," director James Marsh makes such brilliant use of archival footage that one could swear he had shot it himself. (93 min.)

R.N.

★★★ 1/2

A wonderfully eccentric throwback to '80s American indies, this deadpan screwballer is nevertheless futuristic in its vision of Manhattan as an underpopulated burg where masters of the universe are nowhere to be found. Asya (Elodie Bouchez) is a well-off artist who falls for a sexy med student named Javier (Jose Maria de Tavira) while fretting about her childhood sweetie Faisal, a suspected terrorist. Will our glam heroine hook up with Javier long-term? The only thing predictable about director Zeina Durra's farcical fantasy is its unpredictability. (90 min.)

★★★ 1/2

Refreshingly devoid of teen heartthrobs, this vampire flick adopts themes central to most zombie movies: post-apocalyptic survival and blood-splattering death scenes. After vampires kill Martin's parents, the teen is taken under the wing of a consummate bad-ass known as Mister (think Woody Harrelson in "Zombieland," sans humor), who through Mr. Miyagi-style lessons, teaches the boy how to survive. Never is there a dull moment while our protagonists encounter cannibals, murderous cults and countless vampire attacks. (98 min.)

MICHAEL RIETMULDER

sunday

★ 1/2

CHRISTY DESMITH

★★★

The Pruitt-Igoe development was a group of high-rise, low-income apartments built in downtown St. Louis circa 1954. In 1972, the then-crime-and-drug-infested complexes were imploded on national TV. The presumed culprit? Modernist architecture. But Minnesota-bred director Chad Freidrichs' compelling documentary busts that myth, providing another explanation via interviews with urban historians and former residents. Among them: a midcentury exodus from cities, socioeconomic plight and racism. The film smacks of an NPR radio doc and is executed in a clean, thoughtful Ken Burns-ian style. It's a thought-provoking, sometimes heart-wrenching look at urban development and society at large. (83 min.)

JAY BOLLER

monday

Minneapolis photographer Alec Soth has a serious international reputation, which is why a couple of young European filmmakers spent a year documenting him roaming U.S. back roads, looking for the hermits, recluses and survivalists featured in his 2010 Walker Art Center retrospective. Soth is an engaging onscreen presence, ruminating about childhood fantasies and his desire for a cave in which to hide out. And the "broken men" he photographs are surprisingly articulate and often much wiser than you'd expect given their desolate lives. Still, only diehard Soth fans are likely to thrill to this tour-de-tumbleweed. (57 min.)