The traditionally quiet Labor Day weekend at movie theaters gets a few Sundance 2016 entries in addition to a period romantic drama and a science-fiction thriller.

Derek Cianfrance's adaptation of The Light Between Oceans  (pictured) starring Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander mostly manages the balancing act between pulp tearjerker and prestige literary drama. Little Men finds writer-director Ira Sachs crafting a quiet, wonderfully observational story about a teenage best-friendship complicated by tensions between their respective parents.

Eric D. Snider comments on the clunky familiarity at the core of the A.I.-turned-possibly-evil thriller Morgan. Kevin Smith brings exactly one joke—"Canada, am I right?"—to the painfully unfunny Yoga Hosers.

MaryAnn Johanson cheers for the indomitable spirit of the subject of Barbara Kopple's documentary Miss Sharon Jones!

Also opening this week, but not screened for press, Jamie Dornan plays a psychologist trying to help a young boy after a near-fatal accident in the fantasy/mystery The 9th Life of Louis Drax.

In this week's feature reviews, the real-life story of Roberto Duran makes for uninspired boxing drama in Hands of Stone, and Eric D. Snider is charmed by the expatriate coming-of-age story in Morris from America.