Right from the start of All About Nina, the audience sees the kind of men (Jay Mohr, “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone,” to whom time has not been kind) that uncouthly come onto Nina after her biting sets, and why she’s built such strong defenses against these unwanted advances. In the next beat, we see her topless and alone in her New York City apartment, baring her body and soul, as she workshops a particularly dark story about the abusive cop she’s sleeping with. In this moment, it is the rawness of the material, rather than the nudity, that leaves her exposed. She recounts a true story of rape and abuses of power, and plays it for laughs. In fact, most of her sets comically and cosmically align with Hannah Gadsby’s recent Netflix special “Nanette,” speaking in particular to how women are taking back the narrative of their traumas and triumphs, but also serve to diminish their pain in the process of reframing the story for laughs.

With her personal life a mess and poised for greatness on a professional level, Nina moves to Los Angeles to audition for an SNL-type sketch comedy show. She stays in Silver Lake with a hippie-dippie friend of her agent, where the obvious jokes about Reiki masters, healing crystals, and cat sanctuaries ensue. Nina is staunchly opposed to these New-Agey therapies, “This isn’t for everybody. I don’t need to sit in a circle telling my truth. I own my truth already.” She understands her hypocrisy — the fineness of the line between confessional comedy and confessional healing circles — but also needs to control the space where her truth is weaponized.

Timing is the most crucial element in both comedy and relationships, and things are going well in LA, professionally, when Nina meets Rafe (Common, “John Wick: Chapter 2”). Where Nina deploys honesty — or at least brutal truth — as a means of protecting herself by scaring others away, Rafe completely disarms her with his own potent brand of honesty. He is brutally truthful to the point of being completely himself. There is no better version to present or past to sugarcoat. And it is this self-assuredness that throws Nina off her game, personally. For it is not the openness of the stage, but openness within relationships that she fears most. Nina, who has branded herself on being forthcoming in her stand-up, has a hard time letting this philosophy bleed into her personal life. As it turns out, there is a lot she’s not letting on.

As Amy Sherman-Palladino’s “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” has demonstrated, it is incredibly difficult to incorporate satisfying stand-up comedy into film and television. There is electricity in the air, an eagerness to be entertained, and that requisite two-drink minimums that often don’t translate beyond the hallowed walls of the Comedy Cellar or the Laugh Factory. I cannot fault writer/director Eva Vives for failing to get these laughs. It is in the assured direction of the blossoming love story between Nina and Rafe where the film and its characters really shine. They are smart and sexy and sweetly redefine the conversation around the all-important “How many people have you been with?” question. The pacing of the film feels wonderfully patient at times and then unfortunately rushed during others. Not unlike comedy itself, it succeeds in its reliance on a kernel of something real and true and honest. Well, that, and the charisma of its hot leads.

In her special, Gadsby outlines the reliably consistent flow of joke-telling: “In a comedy show, there is no room for the best part of the story. Which is the ending. In order to finish on a laugh, you have to end with punchlines.” There is tension in the set-up and a welcomed release in the punchline. Abuse can be similarly patterned and often leads to patterned behaviors and self-sabotage, thus fueling a never ending cycle of trauma. Nina has been unconscionably hurt in her life. She’s experienced horrors far greater than bombing in front of a captive audience. The worst has already happened and she uses her onstage act as a means towards liberation from the past. In her act, she chooses to finish on a laugh, but that is far from the full story. All About Nina works to show the full story — the best and worst parts of it — and ultimately offers a small, hopeful glimmer of Nina’s happy ending.

Gemma Shields (Jasmine Hyde, “The Truth Commissioner”) is an audio book actor who enjoys a very comfortable life with her family, comprised of husband Will (Richard Flood, “Shameless” TV series) and son Joel. One evening, tragedy strikes: Joel is killed in a terrible accident. Naturally, the parents are shattered. Their relationship hangs by a heartstring. The pauses in their bickering are pregnant. So far, so overwrought: Whining violins, unspoken resentment and depressing sex.

Out of the blue, Gemma suffers a panic attack which causes her to go blind. Stumbling into the street, she is rescued by a handsome young charmer named Paul (Simon Cotton, “The Fall of the Krays”). Gemma recovers, and Paul befriends both she and Will. Seeing them struggle, Paul invites them to spend some recovery time at his cottage retreat in the Lake District. The Shields seem to spend most of their time hanging around the house drinking expensive wine anyway, so why not do it in the English highlands?

The countryside sucks. Vacations like this do nothing to cure the bereaved. Will becomes increasingly unhinged, while Gemma starts hearing voices, and her attacks of blindness become more frequent. Paul, apparently medically trained, is caring and attentive to Gemma’s needs — a plot development which probably acts as a spoiler in itself. Let’s just say there are hints of Rob Reiner’s “Misery” in the arc of the story, and you get the idea.

There’s nothing wrong with the audience being better aware of character machinations than the characters themselves — Hitchcock knew this, and toyed with it ruthlessly — but when the plot is presented as a bona fide mystery, as it is in The Unseen, certain major plot developments simply come across as dumb.

The film’s unique selling point is the semi-blindness suffered by Gemma. The effect on screen — a kind of extreme fisheye lens with a Vaseline smear — is disturbing at first, but by the tenth attack it’s just tiresome. And it’s not even a consistent affliction. At one point, Gemma fools a character into thinking she doesn’t know he’s in the room by feigning blindness. Except it’s already been firmly established that the blindness is only partial, so why would anyone fall for that?

It’s the kind of question of logic we ask when we’re watching a trashy slasher with dumb teenagers. But these characters are meant to be sensible, educated adults. Why would Paul allow the panic-stricken Gemma, who has already had a car accident, go for a drive in his car, rather than giving her a lift or calling her a cab? Later, why doesn’t Gemma call the police when she gets the chance, instead of phoning a mild-mannered Uber driver she chatted with once?

Nonsensical character behavior abounds, particularly with regard to Gemma and Will’s attitude toward Paul. Will invites Paul into their home more than once, apparently striking up a friendship, only to be incongruously aggressive toward Paul when the latter returns the favor. Then there’s Gemma and Will’s strange mockery of Paul’s bird-watching hobby; or their needlessly unempathetic interrogation of Paul about his absent wife.

Too often, instead of the dramatic effect being drawn from plausible actions and interactions, it is fabricated from unearned or contrived conflict — be it another character-breaking decision; another excessively horrified reaction to something quite mundane; or another moment when Gemma calls out for Paul’s help, and then screams “Just get out!” when he arrives.

Bad writing might also account for the lack of chemistry between Gemma and Will. Sure, their circumstances are extreme, but we get no sense of a history of marriage, and thus no sense of a fracturing bond. Not that any of the characters in The Unseen are recognizable human beings, anyway. With their expressionless faces they float through their minimalist houses with its alien modern art, barking at each other and making senseless choices, and it feels like we’re watching extra-terrestrials playing dress-up.

Sumptuous Cumbrian vistas can’t rescue bland framing and flat lighting; the cheap, BBC TV soap opera aesthetic. A good screenplay can make the most lifeless camera sing; but alas, the dialogue ranges from the dull to the risible. (“This is breathtaking!” Gemma exclaims excitedly as she reaches the top of a hill, as if our eyes can’t be trusted.)

If only there were engaging or surprising incidents to keep our attention, like the best bad horror films. But no, this is a horror film for people who wouldn’t confess to enjoying horror films; a film that employs endless genre tropes — a talking toy; a child’s disembodied voice; strange noises picked up in headphones — but stages them in such a boring, rote way that it’s stultifying.

The Unseen? We’ve seen it all before, and we’ve seen it done better.

Verhoeven’s new vehicle is Elle, a French thriller about icy CEO Michèle Leblanc (Isabelle Huppert, “Amour”), who is horrifically raped by a masked burglar in the opening scene of the movie. Then she gets back up, dusts herself off, and goes about her day. Michelle is certainly fazed by the experience, but she has no desire to approach the police and instead begins a casual investigation of her own.

This creates two mystery plot strands, one focused on why Michèle is the way she is and the other an attempt to unmask her attacker. Two mysteries for the price of one, especially a classic whodunit intertwined with a more personal exploration, sounds like a juicy combo, but either Verhoeven has been out of the game too long or he’s only partially committed to seeking more than mere twist reveals, because these mysteries are clunky contraptions that cripple Michèle’s arc.

Figuring out who the rapist is among a host of wily suspects is hardly any more difficult than solving a Scooby Doo caper, but Verhoeven and screenwriter David Birke continually insist on dedicating a chunk of screentime to a silly campaign of misdirection where so much evidence is stacked so loftily against an employee in Michèle’s video game company that anyone with even a cursory knowledge of mystery storytelling couldn’t possibly fall for the trick.

So, is the rapist reveal intended to be entirely obvious? This seems a strange approach if true, since Huppert creates such a captivating portrait of a mysterious woman that we hardly need so much narrative space wasted on developing such a blatant red herring. Verhoeven does implant a tinge of irony for anyone (presumably everyone) who can discern the identity of the attacker relatively early and that at least shuffles Elle inside the borders of a darkly comic zone that Verhoeven’s movies have often occupied.

Still, the mystery is a bust and dropping the preposterous attempts to obfuscate the truth would make for a tighter, more engaging, and arguably even more daring spin on the thriller genre. A traditional three-act mystery handled in a simple, straightforward fashion requires a sharp reveal to justify its use of conventions and Elle is ever reluctant to admit that its whodunit element is softly transparent.

The second mystery strand concerned with Michèle’s backstory is far more interesting and the initial pieces of hinted information are teased out intriguingly, but then the details are suddenly delivered in large exposition dumps at two different points in the movie. Michèle’s dad has a dark past and while I always appreciate filmmakers finding alternatives to flashbacks for distributing backstories, having the protagonist randomly play a TV documentary that quickly summarizes the facts for us feels much more clumsy than clever.

Whatever blanks are left after that scene are later filled in by Michèle, who opens up so conveniently and almost randomly that she might as well deliver her monologue directly to the camera. These missteps all feel rather fixable and yet their presence generates a sense of rocky narration that repels the slickly smooth Euro-thriller style that Verhoeven is grasping for.

The man who previously lambasted 80s corporate America with a cyborg cop (“RoboCop”) and WWII-era fascist propaganda with bug-squashing space soldiers (“Starship Troopers”) has long since been a very smart and effective storyteller, but the broad narrative strokes of Elle are too familiar, while its finer-tipped details around human interaction are more successful. So even though solving the mystery of Michèle’s attacker is overly simple, at least Verhoeven and Birke saddle their heroine with some offbeat supporting characters to add a slight layer of unpredictability.

Michèle’s son and ex-husband add some flavor to the movie, but are most valuable in how they further develop our understanding of the woman at the story’s center, like how Michèle aims to protect her son without coddling him and how she remains friends with her ex-husband while taking spiteful jabs at him. There’s definitely some fun being had at the expense of the male ego here and Huppert is the perfect actress to exploit that. She’s always believable in all situations, which allows even an awkward script to lay the groundwork for a compelling character. Huppert is certainly the best part of the movie even if it’s the director who steals most of my attention here.

At his best, Verhoeven has always compartmentalized his inspirations rather uniquely, so he creatively crafts a fresh experience that stands on its own, but Elle bears a little too much resemblance to its cinematic influences. Verhoeven seems to be aping regular Huppert collaborator Michael Haneke a bit here, although the somewhat trashy plot doesn’t blend well with the style, and shades of Abel Ferrera’s 80s cult classic “Ms. 45” are visible as well, but it’s Olivier Assayas’ “Demonlover” with which Verhoeven’s latest shares the most cinematic DNA.

Assayas’ 2002 thriller about the dark, dangerous intersection between sexual and business politics is a more sinuous, intense, and convoluted thriller from a director who can’t be pinned down, so it’s an unfavorable comparison for Elle. Of course, Verhoeven’s picture is very different from Assayas’ in many ways, but he’s still in territory that several great filmmakers have already explored more memorably than he does here.

But hey, Verhoeven’s back! He’s always interesting to discuss and consider, even when absence has dulled his instincts. This master’s rusty return lacks the raunchy rebellion and saucy satire of his best work, yet still flickers with a sense of celebration that the filming Dutchman is on the tips of tongues again, even if perched precariously.

Set overlooking a beautiful Puerto Rican sea, a small, nameless, and dilapidated town remains afflicted by a tragic tsunami which killed all the children in its inhabitants. The residents still grieve ten years later by wearing black mourning attire and refusing to bare anymore children. The beloved Father Douglas (played by Martin Sheen of “The West Wing” in a Spanish-speaking role) has seldom seen a local attend his church if at all. The young men and women continue to leave, but Leo (Lucas Quintana) stays in order to look after his mother who remains traumatized by her youngest son’s death. After another tragedy afflicts the town, an inexplicable occurrence involving Leo convinces the townspeople that they’ve witnessed a miracle. Father Douglas sees belief and hope quickly resuscitate in the town as a result but its return also incurs consequences for everyone.

It wouldn’t be surprising at all if it was said that Robert Bresson’s “Au Hasard Balthazar,” from 1966, greatly influenced how The Vessel explores religion (a subplot involving a donkey suggests as much). Both films are explicit in their themes of religion but set their stories in a world motivated by rationality. It works quite well as elements of both the Old Testament and New Testament are spliced into the film’s overall narrative without feeling flagrant or vexing. It invites the viewer to consider religion rather than patronizingly throwing it in their face. An unearthly mood lingers throughout each scene, creating a hypnotic sensation as the camera observes events beautifully rather than drawing us into the characters observing those events. In a manner of speaking, it’s fly-on-the-wall storytelling that creates a sense of omnipresence which, in turn, induces some of the spiritual ambiance that the film is striving to achieve.

However, as this is Julio Quintana’s first time directing a feature-length film, there are some issues with how the story is told. Although Lucas Quintana’s voice-over suggests that Leo is the main character, the story never follows that suggestion. Neither is the film entirely Father Douglas’ story. It vacillates unevenly between the two characters and leaves both undeveloped by the film’s conclusion. The conclusion itself, without spoiling anything, is heavily clichéd at best. Undoubtedly, ending a film about religion can stumble into cheesy territory but it feels particularly egregious in The Vessel because of the clear intelligence motivating the film until that point. It illustrates an uncertainty with how to finish its narrative without thematically favoring a particular position on religion over another.

Nevertheless, as a debut feature, The Vessel is a promising film of future potential from Julio Quintana (potential that producers Terrence Malick, Sarah Green, and Martin Sheen clearly see in the young director). The story creates a sense of intrigue and mystery that hovers over the entire film to great effect. Religion, as a subject, is treated with an astute observation to both its benefits and detractions which gives a sense of intelligent discussion about theology rather than a purely atheist or purely Christian perspective on the subject. For that reason alone, The Vessel stands as one of the more interesting films that 2016 has had to offer this year.

One afternoon, she spots a pretty brunette as she’s driving along, and decides to follow her. Once she determines where the young woman lives, she returns day after day, and begins tracking her every move. In one instance, Janie falls asleep in her car outside the house and is discovered by the woman, who knocks on her window in concern. Janie is thrown, but recovers enough to tell the woman, who introduces herself as Savannah (Sara Malakul Lane, “12/12/12”), that she’s just waiting for a friend. However, her obsession intensifies as Janie peers into Savannah’s window at night, uses her hidden spare house key to stealthily enter Savannah’s home, and even tracks down Savannah’s boyfriend’s home. Each day, she returns home later and later, and Irma, her caretaker, becomes more agitated about her adventures. She warns Janie to be careful, because “there are a lot of ways this world could hurt you.”

Irma’s treatment of Janie is intense (while strangely unclear); there are therapy/punishments that involve Janie lying on the couch reacting in the form of seizures to the high pitch of a tuning fork and Irma’s yoga sessions are extreme and forceful, rather than relaxing and focused. It doesn’t appear that Irma is a healthcare professional of any kind, but the established situation is never fully explained. As Janie begins to feel more and more like herself, she starts separating herself from Irma’s grasp, despite Irma’s warnings that these behaviors are what led to her illness concerns before. Irma forebodingly tells her that she promised Janie’s father years ago that she “. . . would spend the rest of my life worrying about you and caring for you, whether either one of us likes it.”

I think you see where this is going.

Sun Choke is a potent thriller that moves slowly, yet cuts deeply. Written and directed by Ben Cresciman, the film chronicles the simple tale of a woman struggling with her psychological identity and existence, and mainly exhibits scenes through her distorted points of view and tension-laden experiences. Inside her home, you worry for Janie who comes across as meek and battered at the hands of Irma; however, in the outside world, she gathers her strength and boldly violates the sanctity of Savannah’s privacy time and again. Sarah Hague is extraordinary as the enigmatic Janie, vacillating between a timid woman who answers to “little girl” in her home and an authentic, on-the-brink threat to a kind stranger just trying to be friendly. Her center-parted straight brown hair and icy blue eyes pierce whomever she speaks with, and her descent into psychological breakdown is truly chilling.

The film boasts well-executed technical elements as well. The sound design is masterful, blending a haunting original score by Bryan Hollon and the enhancement of everyday ambient noises by sound mixer Amanda Beggs. The tinkling of broken glass, the slosh of feet walking through puddles, and the swish of clothing all shout through the speakers, adding to the palpable tension. Cinematographer Mathew Rudenberg represents Janie’s weakening grip on herself through medium long shots that accentuate the isolation she feels in her own home, and editor Jason Jones wields a variety of rapid-fire extreme close-ups to amplify Janie’s increasing confusion at the stimuli she encounters, both inside and outside her mind.

While the action of Sun Choke is mostly subdued, it’s engrossing and fascinating, driven by outstanding performances by its lead and supporting actresses. There are elements of the backstory that are left vague and unexplained, but the film leaves a definitive impression on the viewer. The characters and situations latch onto you and refuse to give in, mirroring Janie’s obsession and degrading stability. It is a truly disquieting psychological piece that you won’t soon forget.

Best friends?

Trap for Cinderella dramatically explodes with a fire in a tranquil French villa leaving Micky (Tuppence Middleton) with serious burns and a complete loss of her memory. Fortunately for Micky, her guardian Julia (Kerry Fox) is there to steer her in the right direction and help her regain her past. But when Micky’s ex-boyfriend Jake (Aneurin Barnard) reveals information about Micky’s close friend Do (Alexandra Roach) that Julia has been keeping from her, Micky decides to go to her old apartment in London to investigate what else Julia’s been keeping from her. There, Micky discovers an old diary of Do’s — is this the key she has been looking for to unlock her memories? And if so, are these memories worth remembering?

Do and Micky, friends since their youth, couldn’t be more different. Micky, living it up as a photographer in London and partying till the wee hours of the morning, is confident and outgoing. Do, on the other hand, is a bank clerk who is painfully meek and mild. Do, Micky comes to realize, was more manipulative than her diminutive veneer suggested, however. Not content with her own identity, Do sought Micky’s as her own in a manner not dissimilar to “Single White Female.”

Unfortunately, Iain Softley’s adaption of Sébastien Japrisot’s novel of the same name is nowhere near as good as Barbet Schroeder’s thriller. Instead, it gets overly complicated as it cuts between the past and present in an all too obvious attempt to create suspense while trying to build a credible backstory. And the narrative is over-egged with far too many obvious twists and turns, bluffs and double bluffs, to the point where Trap for Cinderella verges on farce.

Softley, a director who has worked with big acting guns such as Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey in the past, gets it right at least with his decision to use relatively unknown actors as Tuppence Middleton and Alexandra Roach practically carry this film on their “young, British actor” shoulders (he did similar with a young Angelina Jolie in 1995’s “Hackers”). Middleton gives an admirably convincing depiction of both a pre and post-amnesia Micky (her struggles with the sense of loss, especially so). Roach, who played a young Margaret Thatcher in “The Iron Lady,” gives the outwardly mousy Do the internal dark side needed for a character who is so desperately plagued by obsession and desire.

The party girl and the DJ.

But while the leading ladies of Trap for Cinderella do their job to the best of their ability, they don’t get much support from their supporting cast. Aneurin Barnard doesn’t get much leeway to spread his wings with his minor role and the accomplished Frances De La Tour as Aunt Elinor can’t rise to the challenge to make something of the underdeveloped relative to Micky. At least Kerry Fox brings intensity as Micky’s protector, but she is very one-note and wears her character’s intentions on her sleeve which doesn’t help with the “suspenseful” nature of the movie.

Then again the movie itself doesn’t help with the suspensefulness of the movie. Trap for Cinderella unravels and inadvertently gives away its secrets so simply and quickly that audiences, unlike Micky who is trying to recover her memory, will likely think this is one experience they’d rather forget.