You don’t need to know that Prime Video’s seven-part mini-series “The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart” is based on a book to sense it. With a narrative that sprawls over years and ties various traumas and their associated grief into complex character beats, it’s the kind of thing that clearly worked on the page. That’s why Holly Ringland’s novel of the same name became an international hit, attracting one of our best-living actresses to director Glendyn Ivin and creator Sarah Lambert’s adaptation. Inconsistent Australian accent aside, Sigourney Weaver’s work here is among the best of her luminous career, tackling a challenging role with subtlety and grace. There are times when the pace of “Alice Hart” can be glacial, but it’s worth being patient with its early chapters, which set the stage for a study of generational loss and the horrible mistakes people make in protecting loved ones.

Introduced as a child, Alice Hart (Alyla Brown) lives in a state of constant threat at the hands of her abusive father, Clem (Charlie Vickers). She adores her mother, Agnes (Tilda Cobham-Hervey), who is captured almost as a mythical creature in the early chapters in how a child can view an adult they want to save. Mom can’t be human. She must be a selkie who can escape this horror. When Alice wanders into town one day, she catches the attention of a librarian named Sally (Asher Keddie), setting in motion a sequence of events that will lead to the death of Agnes and Clem, forcing Alice to go live with her grandmother June (Sigourney Weaver) on a flower farm called Thornfield that’s actually a women’s shelter. At first, Alice doesn’t speak, but the other residents of the farm, particularly Candy (Frankie Adams) and June’s partner Twig (Leah Purcell), help her recover.

June Hart is a fascinating character, a distant, cold woman who seems almost put out by having Alice around even though she fights with Sally for custody of the child. The narrative jumps halfway through the season to Alice as a young adult (now played excellently by Alycia Debnam-Carey), and several decisions that June made in that time-leap come to the fore, which she thought were protecting Alice but at a great cost. The final stretch of the season also gives June a disease, which seems manipulative at first, but allows Weaver some of the richest dramatic material of her career as she comes to terms with the choices she made, the traumas that shaped her, and how both planted the seeds for Alice’s lost flowers.

“The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart” is clearly a melodrama, but Ivin centers character and setting over manipulative plotting in its best chapters. He alternates shots that linger on minor details with gorgeous shots of the Australian landscape from cinematographer Sam Chiplin, set to a moody, effective score by Hania Rani. It’s a remarkably well-made piece of adult drama, even if the pace undeniably drags at times. In the era of “Everything is the Wrong Length,” it truly does feel like there’s a great 130-minute-or-so movie in this story. But that version would admittedly lose the show’s accumulation of small joys and how the writers let these excellent performers live in these roles instead of just running in and out of the spotlight.

That lived-in sense really anchors the work of Debnam-Carey, who viewers feel like they know by the time she’s stuck with the very-wrong guy after running away from Thornfield. The final episode forces too many revelations on Alice via exposition dumps and flashbacks, but the young actress sells every response as genuine. Along with Weaver, she grounds the piece in a way that can’t be undervalued, never allowing her key role to spin off into soapy melodrama. The residents of Thornfield learn to communicate with flowers instead of words, and the show is arguably at its best when it’s saying less with actual language, letting an emotional stare or heartfelt hug convey all that needs to be said and all that can someday be found.

The whole series was screened for review. “The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart” is on Prime Video now.

Ben (Justin H. Min) is a snobby cinephile and Japanese-American living in Berkeley, California. He’s the kind of guy who, at the beginning of “Shortcomings,” dismisses the crowd-pleasing Asian action film he watches at a movie theater with his girlfriend Miko (Ally Maki) on arrogant grounds. Miko loves the representation on screen, believing it’ll lead to greater opportunities for Asian-American filmmakers. Ben doesn’t see the wonder “in a garish mainstream rom-com that glorifies the capitalistic fantasy of vindication through wealth and materialism.” He can barely hide his disdain for the picture when he meets its giddy filmmaker.  

Ben is a failed film student who spends his days managing an arthouse movie theater and watching Criterion discs such as Ozu’s “Good Morning.” He can’t fathom a world where he isn’t the prime arbiter of taste. Much to his chagrin, however, Ben loves white women. His attraction is tested when he hires the oddball performance artist Autumn (Tavi Gevinson) to work the ticket window at the theater. Will he cheat on his girlfriend, Miko? If he, along with the premise, comes off as loathsome, that’s sorta the point. 

“Shortcomings” is a wickedly funny, absorbing character study and solo feature directorial debut by actor Randall Park (“Fresh off the Boat”). In the hands of Park, Adrian Tomine’s graphic novel (adapted here by Tomine) finds cutting new dimensions in the miserabilism of an unabashed asshole. 

It works because the film fully embraces the wretched unlikability of Ben. Park worms through Ben’s many relationship troubles: He gets with Autumn, for instance, and then turns his sights to the politically charged Sasha (Debby Ryan), endangering each with his caustic humor. Min savors the script’s savage barbs and quick sarcastic one-liners. You can never tell if or when you’re seeing the real Ben. The same goes for the women he dates. They initially like his corrosive wit, believing it’s a charming feature rather than an unfixable glitch. Surely, more lies beneath the surface? But there is no there, there. And Min, who found critical acclaim as the android in “After Yang,” demonstrates his immense range as he plays with Ben’s surface-level features with the exhilaration of a man dancing on an electric fence.

The other major highlight in the cast is Sherry Cola as Ben’s loud, gregarious Lesbian best friend, Alice. The film’s heart is the balancing act between Alice and Ben’s friendship, including open dinner talks and double-teaming at parties. She puts up with his idiocy as he sometimes acts as her beard for her traditional Korean parents. When Miko moves to New York City for an internship, Alice, recently transplanted to the big apple herself, allows Ben to stay with her as he searches for Miko. But Ben is poison to everything he touches. 

While “Shortcomings” aims at identity, particularly Ben’s inability to be comfortable with his attractions—which causes him to default into an oppressed versus oppressor stance—the film relies on keen jokes to make a punchy mood. The tight dialogue runs the gamut from quips about experimental music and international and blockbuster cinema (“Snowpiercer is a sequel of Willy Wonka” is a theory one theater worker shares with another) to gags concerning representational movies and assimilation.

The film doesn’t break new ground in the genre, hewing close to rom-com tropes that’d feel at home in Judd Apatow’s late aught works. When the raw emotional outbursts need to flourish, Park can also slip into less-than-flattering coverage coated by less-than-snappy editing. Luckily, this isn’t a picture that lives and dies on big fights or charged monologues. 

Even when you expect “Shortcomings” to land on a redemptive note, it surprises you. Park doesn’t pull the easy lever. Instead, the film’s ending is far more truthful to the character than you’d expect in your usual rom-com because the happiness of others doesn’t bank on Ben’s evolution. In fact, their joy is firmly separate. Such honesty allows Park’s vision, comedic sensibilities, and fruitful work with actors to remain indelible even in a familiar package.   

Now playing in theaters. 

French documentary director Claire Simon appears just a little over three times in “Our Body.” At the beginning, we see her walking from her home to the hospital, past, as she points out, the cemetery where her father was cremated. She tells us the idea for the movie came from one of her producers. There was “an encounter.” Her producer had an illness “that brought her into a female world.” And so Simon and her camera entered that world of “gynecological pathologies that weigh down our lives, our hopes, our desires.”  She jokes darkly that she hopes she will not catch cancer there. 

And then in a Frederick Wiseman “fly-on-the-wall”-style film, Simon takes us into the most intimate, terrifying, and sometimes joyful moments faced by the people who come to the hospital. But unlike Wiseman, whose films focus on institutions and bureaucracy, the focus here is on the lives of the patients and their interactions with very patient, sympathetic, and capable health care professionals. We see very little of the lives of those professionals. There are only two scenes without any patients. One is a very businesslike clinical discussion of care plans and prognoses.  The other is a truly astonishing scene of doctors in a lab, carefully joining an egg and sperm for a couple who need help getting pregnant.

Even with an almost three-hour run time, this is not the kind of film where experts weigh in with facts about health care policy or particular diseases or treatments. And it is not the kind of film where we see what happens to the patients we observe with their caregivers. Every scene is just a tile in the mosaic, not a part of a linear storyline arc. Very occasionally, we hear Simon ask a question off camera, and sometimes there is a light trickle of music on the soundtrack. But most of the film is quiet conversation, punctuated only by the hospital sounds echoing in the hallways and examination rooms. 

Americans will be especially interested to see that patients never feel rushed. No one worries about insurance or Medicaid or filling out forms or not being able to pay for care. While all the caregivers we see are compassionate and professional, at one point there is a protest rally outside the hospital, with angry patients complaining about abuse.

Inside, a teenage girl wants to terminate her pregnancy. A pregnant woman with cancer wants to be able to deliver her baby. Operation scenes (sometimes graphic) show us how the medical professionals work as a team. A trans man has to wait 11 months, until he is 18, to consent to the medical treatment his father will not approve. Doctors find a way to communicate with patients who have difficulty understanding the implications of their medical issues and evaluating the options they have to consider. Some of them are not native French speakers. In one case, they pass an iPhone back and forth to translate. An older trans woman learns she has to go through her own version of menopause. It is time to stop taking the estrogen that has been a foundation of her transition. A doctor points to the places in his own body to help the patient understand. Another doctor uses words that are gentle but vague. “Sometimes the disease can defeat bravery and defeat medicine.” Her words may not be clear but the way she grasps the patient’s hand tells her and us what she means.  

We notice those hands because Simon has an exceptional eye for the small details that illuminate the quiet but devastating, literal life and death moments. In another scene a slight widening of a close-up subtly reveals a wig removed from a patient receiving chemotherapy.  We also see a woman giving birth attended by just one medical professional, who gently coaxes and encourages her. The father is at home, caring for their other children. There is that moment of pure magic when suddenly a baby is welcomed to the world and the very first words she hears are her mother’s whispers of hope, love, and joy.  There are people who hear bad news and people who are learning what their lives will be after debilitating and sometimes disfiguring treatment. There are people who need medical assistance to become pregnant and some who learn that they will never carry a child. 

The patients are very diverse (except that none of them are wealthy; apparently the rich have other sources of health care). The medical staff are all kind and thoughtful. The film would have benefitted from more about their perspective, how they manage the stress of the job. 

Simon tells us at the end that the doctors have many stories, but the patients have just one. Those stories together create what she calls “a crazed waltz of destinies.” And as Simon finds herself on the other side of the camera, hearing her own results from a doctor, it underscores the movie’s most important message that we all dance in the crazed waltz some day. 

The melancholic melodies of Donnie and Joe Emerson don’t quite feel of this world. Particularly “Baby,” a song which always sounds like something out of a dream. The duo, who grew up on an insular family farm in rural Fruitland, Washington, were teenagers when they self-released their only album—the wistful, soul-inspired “Dreamin’ Wild”—in 1979, without much fanfare. Over 30 years later, the album got a second life when the reissue from boutique label Light in the Attic Records became a cult success. A standard biopic of a story like this could easily write itself. 

Thankfully, writer/director Bill Pohlad has brought their tale to the silver screen with the same thoughtful, humanist lens with which he made the excellent Brian Wilson biopic “Love & Mercy” a decade ago. While his new film hits all the cursory beats of their rediscovery, including a few scenes of Chris Messina playing their record company savior Matt Sullivan, Pohlad is less interested in the album’s resurrection than he is in the psychological effects this had on the duo, especially on the more naturally talented Donnie (Casey Affleck). 

The film begins in the forest surrounding the Emerson farm. The dark blue night sky is illuminated by the amber lights of their homemade recording studio. A young Donnie (Noah Jupe) strums one of their songs, “Good Time.” Its reverb-laden vocals, slick guitar riffs, and crashing drums echo as the scene shifts to the boy performing on a stage, the audience hidden by shadows. The lyrics “Did you have a good, good time?” repeat on loop until the adult Donnie awakens, as if it were all a dream. 

Throughout the film, Pohlad employs this hazy, dreamlike editing as Donnie remains haunted by his younger self and the broken promise the album represents. At first, it seems Donnie, who runs a flailing recording studio and plays weddings and dive bars with his wife Nancy (Zooey Deschanel), is mourning solely the loss of his artistic dreams. But as Donnie spends more time with his brother Joe (a tender Walton Goggins) and father Don Sr. (Beau Bridges, never better) preparing for a comeback concert, it’s clear there’s more emotional baggage here than meets the eye.

While in “Love & Mercy,” the two Brian Wilsons were played in lockstep by John Cusack and Paul Dano at different ages, the lines between the past and present here are a little more blurred. Jupe’s young Donnie is filtered through Affleck’s memories. At first, he’s the wide-eyed, hopefully teen legend printed by the New York Times. But soon, a more realistic, somber portrait of his youth and his rocky relationship with young Joe (Jack Dylan Grazer) and their father is revealed. 

The director also flirts with flights of magical realism. When Donnie and Joe play their first big gig—an anniversary show for Light in the Attic at the Showbox in Seattle—like a specter, a disappointed young Donnie stares at older Donnie on the stage. Later, the two sit together outside the old recording studio to broker a peace between what once was and what now is. It’s an incredibly effective way of visualizing Donnie’s internal attempt at coming to terms with his own self-loathing. 

It also is a wonderful payoff for how Pohlad films the early scenes with Donnie and his family. Whenever Sullivan gives them good news, or Joe and Don Sr. happily reminisce, Pohlad often holds the camera directly on Affleck’s emotive face, under which he’s holding back a sea of unexpressed feelings—about these shared memories, these “good times,” and his guilt at not only not fulfilling his own dreams, but in pulling his whole family down as well. 

Although Pohlad successfully crafts a complex and tense dynamic between Donnie, Joe, and Don Sr., he fails to bring that same dimensionality to the women in the film, including their sisters and mother, and especially Donnie’s wife, Nancy. This is a pointed failure for Pohlad, considering the wonderful showcase the role of Melinda Ledbetter was for Elizabeth Banks in “Love & Mercy.”

Despite this, Pohlad’s film, like the music at its heart, has a beguiling, oneiric quality. “Dreamin’ Wild” is a rich and evocative portrait of the weight of broken dreams and the strength one can find in a family as unwaveringly supportive as the Emersons.

Now playing in theaters. 

Usually, when a road movie sticks you with two characters, you’re supposed to like at least one of them. Carter Smith’s “The Passenger” bravely denies this comfort as part of its queasy, then curious, then underwhelming embrace of extremes. One character is Randy (Johnny Berchtold), a legendary pushover and fast food employee who would rather swallow bites of a force-fed, day-old cheeseburger than stand up to a bully co-worker. The other man is Randy’s silent co-worker Benson (Kyle Gallner), who then shoots up the Bayou burger spot, killing all his co-workers except Randy. After making him hide the bodies in the freezer, Benson lets Randy live but forces him to come along. 

Benson and Randy are incredibly striking contrasts as these nightmarish characters, intriguing conceits of this Blumhouse project not sticking to the rules in part because it’s going straight to the modern grindhouses of streaming anyway. Much of the movie relies on their odd pairing after such an abhorrent opening scene and in place of any greater tension. It’s not about waiting for justice or that gibberish about “being a man.” The control that Benson has over Randy as they drive around is not asserted by a smart plan but rather the dominating sense of power Randy has seceded. Benson doesn’t really have to consider whether he’s setting himself up by being near a phone or an open field. He knows to his core that Randy won’t challenge him, won’t call for help. And he doesn’t. 

The script by Jack Stanley toys with this dynamic for a long while, eventually running out of ways to vocalize its initial boldness. But it has a do-or-die commitment to this knowingly frustrating character dynamic, a deconstruction of an adult who is as spineless as one can believe, another provocation from this tale meant to mirror a more relatable, psychological reality. Randy eventually trickles out to Benson about why he is, to put it politely, such a decision-averse wuss. Blinded by his frustrations from such passivity, Benson decides he will help Randy face the people he fears—the girlfriend who dumped him after her cat died, and the teacher he accidentally half-blinded in second grade. 

The main spectacle from these scenes comes from its two performances of physical opposites: Berchtold hardly squirms as his captor pushes him along and gives a believable voice to his frailty beyond tears that are at the ready. Meanwhile, Benson is always buzzing with adrenaline, anger, and god knows what else, from Gallner’s fingers and in a few carefully placed and thankfully brief monologues. It should be noted that “The Passenger” does not turn Randy into the Magical Mass Shooter. 

“The Passenger” lacks a greater plan, but such a journey is compelling more thanks to its various inspired pieces. Cinematographer Lyn Moncrief has numerous striking compositions that readily use negative space and the movie’s growingly cryptic color palette, and such shots are given a bite by Eric Nagy’s editing, who uses them like individual statements from the film’s lurking notions of fear, control, and trauma. Smith’s direction, in general, maintains an air of being off-kilter, like with the fluffy sweater Benson dons midway through or the blast of neon purple that fills a climactic diner scene. 

Even if this movie doesn’t achieve a great epiphany at the end of the darkest route, it offers a great showcase for Gallner in particular. He has the playful intensity of Jack Nicholson without ever aping the legend’s grin. Nor does Gallner overplay the imposing presence Benson readily assumes, especially as the story has Benson leaning over Randy’s shoulder as he meets with these two people from his past who have made him fearful. Gallner has such an ease in the role; he can do so much else, as we’ve seen from his previous films, but he’s a natural with the unnatural. “The Passenger” projects a future for Gallner of roles that may not win Oscars, but they’ll be far more exciting and daring than that. 

Now playing on digital platforms and available on demand.

Pregnancy makes you pragmatic. Yes, your body is bulging and your hormones are raging and anxiety is plaguing you over the great unknown of it all, especially if you’re expecting your first child like Oksana Cherkashyna’s Irka is in the Ukrainian drama “Klondike.”

But someone’s still got to milk the cow and dust the cabinets and do all the canning for winter—and that someone is you. The fact that Irka must maintain all these mundane tasks in the midst of increasing instability—she lives in Eastern Ukraine on the Russian border at the start of the Donbas war in 2014—provides both the absurd conflict and dark humor in writer/director/editor Maryna Er Gorbach’s film. Irka is performing all these chores, for example, in an already modest house where the living room wall now has been blown wide open, the accidental target of an errant mortar blast. This adds a degree of difficulty in keeping a tidy home.

Cherkashyna gives a stoic and steely performance, and Er Gorbach lingers over her quietly determined features in the kinds of long, single takes she favors throughout her understated film. “Klondike” is a patient and observant movie, giving us time to notice the small details in the rundown but functional house Irka shares with her husband, Tolik (Serhii Shadrin), or the way afternoon clouds play across the barren, rural landscape as Irka stomps away in frustration, seeking a moment of peace. Working with cinematographer Sviatoslav Bulakovskyi, Er Gorbach skillfully uses steady pans and slow zooms – both in and out – to reveal devastating details as the film reaches its dramatic conclusion.

The situation is already stressful at Irka and Tolik’s meager farm when Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 plummeted from the sky en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur on July 17, 2014, killing the nearly 300 people on board. (“Klondike” is inspired by true events.) The crash was the work of Russian-backed Ukrainian separatists, one of which Tolik is on the verge of becoming himself. This heightens the tension in his marriage with Irka, which ranges from perturbed teasing to tearful screaming. “They bombed the stroller. Where will I put my child?” Irka wonders aloud in a way that straddles the line between wry humor and dire need.

But because she is about to give birth so soon, everyone is trying to get her out of the house and into a hospital. This includes the mostly useless Tolik and her concerned brother, Yaryk (Oleh Shcherbyna), whose suspicions about Tolik’s alliances are growing. Irka insists on staying put, despite the danger surrounding her. Er Gorbach’s film becomes more harrowing but maintains a matter-of-fact tone, which makes the fear feel even starker. The subtle, deep strings of Zviad Mgebry’s score enhance the haunting atmosphere. The crunch of truck tires carrying tanks into town and the shrill crow of a rooster in the distance pierce the quiet. Anything could happen at any moment, but you get the sense that Irka is prepared to withstand it.

This is especially evident in the film’s lengthy final shot, which provides a fascinating juxtaposition between total disregard for human life and the possibility of hope for the future. When Cherkashyna lets the emotions flow, she reveals such a deep reservoir of pain that it’s startling. Er Gorbach’s film may feel too slow and restrained at times, but moments like this in which she lets her powerful imagery play out in unadorned fashion show why this was such a wise choice. And while this particular story takes place nearly a decade ago, it remains unfortunately timely as Russia’s horrific war in Ukraine rages on; “Klondike” helps put a specific, vivid face on a faraway conflict.

Now playing in theaters. 

The last few years have seen some very thoughtful, empathetic films that tackle the thorny subject of grooming, specifically of teenage girls by older men. These include Jamie Dack’s Sundance-winning “Palm Trees and Power Lines” and Sarah Elizabeth Mintz’s Tribeca-winning “Good Girl Jane.” The unfortunate misfire “What Comes Around,” from director Amy Redford and screenwriter Scott Organ, is what happens when filmmakers lack tact and land squarely in the realm of exploitation.

We meet Anna (Grace Van Dien) the day before her seventeenth birthday. She’s texting about poetry with a man named Eric (Kyle Gallner), whom she assumes to be a college student who lives 900 miles away. She’s all smiles as he compares her to Emily Dickinson. She lives with her single mother, Beth (Summer Phoenix), who has just become engaged to her boyfriend, Tim (Jesse Garcia), the Assistant Chief of Police. 

Everything is going well for the trio until Eric shows up on her doorstep the morning of her birthday to hand deliver to her a book of Dickinson’s poetry. At first, Anna balks at this grand gesture, calling it inappropriate and aggressive. But eventually, his puppy dog apology wins her over, despite the revelation that he’s actually 28 years old. As he walks her to school, Redford hammers home their age difference by dressing Anna in a classic Catholic schoolgirl style garb.

One abrupt cut later, and she’s hiding him in her closet—they’ve clearly slept together—from Beth and Tim, who have set up the kitchen with a very child-like birthday celebration, complete with unicorn hats and a pink vegan cake. This is where you expect the film to explore the psychological effects of Eric’s grooming behavior. Instead, the film zags with a twist straight out of an old-school Lifetime movie. 

Beth and Eric, whose real name is Jess, have a secret history from when he was a teenager and she was his student; his relationship with Anna was all plotted out to reconnect with her and exact revenge, or at least some sort of emotional catharsis. The film is so slippery with its character motivations it’s never clear exactly what his endgame is.

In a sharper vision, the details of this twist could have explored the bias in how the stories of groomed teenage boys are treated compared to teenage girls. But the script only briefly touches on the subject. Instead, it opts for soapy dialogue about unreliable memories, which is just a poorly hidden attempt by Beth at gaslighting Eric.

Filmed entirely in Utah, Redford’s minimal use of settings—Anna’s bedroom, a schoolyard, a forest, and a few living rooms—amplifies the story’s theatrical roots. As does the film’s dialogue, in which the actors always seem to be reciting each other’s cues rather than talking with any semblance of natural speech. 

Icky plotting aside, you need strong actors to make a chamber piece like this work. Van Dien does her best with her underwritten character but is often overshadowed by the dynamic presence of Reina Hardesty, who plays her best friend, Brit. Phoenix is out of her depth after the twist, especially in the penultimate scene, which itself contains yet another twist. Garcia is just sort of there, playing a character whose reactions to the film’s plotting make little sense, given his profession.

As Eric, however, Gallner seems to be the only actor given room to craft a little nuance. He’s charming and crafts a believable chemistry with Van Dien. Although Redford chooses to film these early scenes with Eric seducing Anna in a flowery way, they play like stereotypical young love rather than grooming scenes. After the twist, Gallner also brings pathos to Eric, revealing a very broken young man. It’s unfortunate, again, that Redford chooses to film these scenes with as much flair as a generic made-for-TV potboiler. 

“What Comes Around” ultimately exploits the stories of groomed teens like Anna and Eric without bringing insight into its lasting effects. Redford’s film uses this deeply tragic form of abuse as a launching pad for a shallow psychological thriller without much psychology, a morality tale without any morals. 

Now playing in theaters. 

Although it resembles the far sleekier “Ready or Not,” Timothy Woodward Jr.’s actioner “Til Death Do Us Part” never gets near that level of competence. Instead, screenwriters Chad Law and Shane Dax Taylor keep their audience in the dark, any semblance of world-building or storytelling be damned.

We start at what looks like a stock footage recreation of a wedding, but the Bride (Natalie Burn) looks uneasy. Then we cut to what looks like a honeymoon on a sandy Puerto Rican beach. The Bride is flirting and embracing her groom (Ser’Darius Blain) as they talk along the shore. Later that night, they can’t keep their hands to themselves, earning the judgment of an older couple (Jason Patric and Nicole Arlyn) who tells them their love will also fade as theirs has. The story jumps back to the couple’s wedding night, where the Bride gets cold feet and runs off to a family cabin to regroup. Her groom’s coterie of dimwitted and misogynist bachelors show up, inciting violence. It turns out the “university” that the Bride and Groom joked about on the beach wasn’t an academic setting but some kind of nebulous syndicate of assassins that only seem to kill other assassins. If folks complained that the High Table in the “John Wick” series was too much, at least it’s an ethos with rules. Here, it seems like “the university” rules don’t matter or are only meant to be recited through gritted teeth and rewritten but a few moments later. 

The problem with keeping your viewers in the dark about what is happening when and who is attacking who for what reasons is that you can confuse them, and all they can focus on is the mess you’ve made. Not that there is much else to look at: the action sequences are tough to watch between the lackluster fight choreography and the extra shaky camera work during fights that detract from the combatants. The bachelor party’s dialogue is so unpleasant I wanted the Bride to hurry up and finish them all off already. 

There are also occasional filmmaker mistakes and sloppy one-liners, like, “If you’re so tough, come and get me, you piece-of-shit,” delivered with a deadweight thud. Other questionable story and direction choices make the movie downright silly. Towards the end, a major backstory detail is revealed after all the cutting between the bloody wedding day and the beachy honeymoon. It’s as comical as putting a hat on a hat. At this point, it’s a parody. 

Is there anything worth salvaging if your action movie falls flat on the action front? Not in “Til Death Do Us Part.” It feels as if Burn might be channeling a tough Bride character, a la Uma Thurman in “Kill Bill,” but her inability to move past a scowl for most of the movie flattens her performance. Her main antagonist, the Best Man (Cam Gigandet), is more annoying than frightening, especially when leading a group of dudes with nicknames like T-Bone and Big Sexy. Although he doesn’t have much screen time, Blain as the Groom plays the ominous part of a controlling partner, a confident co-conspirator, and a charming date all in one. He may have the movie’s best performance. 

But none of this exhausting movie’s various elements come together at any point—not the story, filmmaking, and acting. It practically assaults its viewer with its dullness; each punch is a reminder of how tiresome each verbal and physical exchange is. I wanted a divorce long before the credits rolled. 

Now playing in theaters.