Skip to main content
film review

Start your weekend planning early with The Globe and Mail’s guide to every feature film arriving this weekend, from would-be blockbusters to under-the-radar indies

    This week's new releases
  • Alex Holmes’s Maiden is a story of personal redemption tacking drama by the nautical mile
  • The killer-alligator movie Crawl is exactly what you think it is, and blessedly so
  • Documentary Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love is a love letter to a complicated relationship
  • The high-concept ride-share-meets-buddy comedy Stuber doesn’t earn anything close to a five-star rating
  • Anti-abortion film Unplanned is a disgusting piece of propaganda that may endanger the health of women
Open this photo in gallery:

Courtesy of Mongrel Media

Maiden

  • Directed by Alex Holmes
  • Starring Tracy Edwards and Jo Gooding
  • Classification G
  • 98 minutes

Rating:

3.5 out of 4 stars

A sort of seafaring Battle of the Sexes, Maiden is an enlivening bit of documentary filmmaking about a full-female sailing crew that takes on harsh oceanic conditions and even rougher treatment from the sexist international sailing community. (Opens July 12 in Toronto, July 19 in Montreal and July 26 in Vancouver)

Open this photo in gallery:

Photo Credit: Courtesy Paramount Pictures/Paramount Pictures.

Crawl

  • Directed by Alexandre Aja
  • Written by Michael Rasmussen and Shawn Rasmussen
  • Starring Kaya Scodelario, Barry Pepper and a whole lotta gators
  • Classification R
  • 87 minutes

Rating:

3 out of 4 stars

Let’s be serious for a second, because Crawl certainly has no patience for such a thing. This movie is not “original,” or even “good,” in the traditional sense. But in a Hollywood ecosystem obsessed with brands and inoffensive genericism, there is something admirable and fresh about a movie that has nothing on its mind other than delivering 87 minutes’ worth of gory gator-chomping thrills. (Opens July 12)

Open this photo in gallery:

Aviva Layton/Courtesy of Roadside Attractions / Elevation Pictures

Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love

  • Directed by Nick Broomfield
  • Starring Leonard Cohen and Marianne Ihlen
  • Classification PG
  • 102 minutes

Rating:

3 out of 4 stars

With a softened lens, British documentarian Nick Broomfield adoringly examines a fascinating relationship in a fascinating time that saw Cohen transition from a poet to a world-class songwriter. Previously unviewed footage of Marianne from the vault of D.A. Pennebaker is employed, as are the recollections of people such as a member of Cohen’s band, folk singer Judy Collins and one female friend who observed that Cohen “could make women feel good about themselves, but he couldn’t give himself to them.” (Opens July 12 in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver before expanding across Canada)

Open this photo in gallery:

Hopper Stone/20th Century Fox

Stuber

  • Directed by Michael Dowse
  • Written by Tripper Clancy
  • Starring Kumail Nanjiani, Dave Bautista and Karen Gillan
  • Classification 18A
  • 93 minutes

Rating:

2.5 out of 4 stars

Exactly as contrived as the title would suggest, and sometimes a little too thick on both the clash of masculinities and jokes about five stars, Stuber nevertheless only needs its two stars to be a worthwhile ride. (Opens July 12)

Open this photo in gallery:

Handout

Unplanned

  • Directed by Chuck Konzelman and Cary Solomon
  • Written by Chuck Konzelman and Cary Solomon
  • Starring Ashley Bratcher, Brooks Ryan and Robia Scott
  • Classification 14A
  • 106 minutes

Unplanned will make you writhe in agony over how such an ugly, malicious and potentially dangerous piece of religious and political propaganda could have made its way into this world. (Opens July 12)

Interact with The Globe

Trending