• Roadside Attractions
• Jean Reno and Adriana Barraza in My Penguin Friend

My Penguin Friend
Never underestimate the ability of cute animals to carry a movie a long way, nor how relatively bland that same movie can seem when the cute animal isn't around. Set mostly in a coastal Brazilian fishing town, the fact-based drama follows a fisherman named João (Jean Reno), deeply affected by the death of his son years earlier, who nurses an ailing Magellanic penguin back to health, then finds the little creature—whom he names Dindim—returning to visit every year during his seasonal migration. Reno and Adriana Barraza (as João's wife) nicely underplay the lingering pain of parental grief, and director David Schurmann is wise enough to give us an actual real-life penguin for most of the key scenes, allowing for an audience connection to something that's not just a CGI creation. Unfortunately, the charm of that connection also makes the subplot involving a trio of marine biologists (Alexia Moyano, Nicolás Francella and Rochio Hernández) in Argentina feel extremely tedious by comparison; the actors feel like they're reciting their English-language dialogue as though reading it from cue cards for the first time, just trying to get through delivering the necessary plot points. The Incredible Journey-esque arc of the third act raises the stakes again, to the extent that it kind of makes you wish that the penguin-less scenes were left on the cutting room floor. Available Aug. 16 in theaters. (PG)

• A24 Films
• Colman Domingo in Sing Sing

Sing Sing
Everything about this premise is earnest, understated and inspirational—so why does it feel like it falls short of real emotional catharsis? The concept is based on the real-life Rehabilitation Through the Arts program at New York's Sing Sing prison, following several incarcerated men—including aspiring playwright John "Divine G" Whitfield (Colman Domingo)—as they work on their latest production under the supervision of director Brent Buell (Paul Raci). Director Greg Kwedar and the screenwriting team take an unconventional approach to this story, bypassing a lot of potential points of manufactured conflict—including Whitfield's role as alpha in this group being challenged by new arrival Clarence "Divine Eye" Maclin (playing himself, as do most of the other actors)—in favor of something that emphasizes the program's process of pulling angry, internalized men into emotional honesty. And it's a solid piece of work on that level, particularly with Domingo and Maclin anchoring the narrative with powerful performances, and rich cinematography by Pat Scola. It also at times feels almost too unwilling to be a genuine crowd-pleaser, as though naturalism couldn't go hand-in-hand with deeply-felt emotions, or even more overt silliness like the broadly comedic original play we ultimately see very little of. As a tale of men learning that they might deserve to be free, it's certainly effective; it simply feels timid about being willing to give us a place to cheer. Available Aug. 16 in theaters. (R)

• IFC Films
• Elizabeth Banksin Skincare

Skincare
Not every movie needs to be "about something," but when you get the impression that everyone involved seems to believe that it is about something, you'd better be able to make it understandable. Director Austin Peters and his two co-writers draw from real events to tell the fictionalized story of Hope Goldman (Elizabeth Banks), a Hollywood aesthetician with a client roster full of celebrities and dreams of launching her skincare products as a retail line. But that dream appears in peril when a competing salon moves in across the plaza from hers, at the same time that someone seems to be launching a campaign to destroy her reputation. There's obviously plenty of material to be mined from the surface-conscious culture of the L.A. beautiful people, and Banks does effectively capture the panic of someone trying to maintain the illusion of success while trying to stay above water financially. But the satirical components generally get buried in the details of the attacks Hope faces, and the trappings of a whodunnit—and it may just be the perspective of someone who watches way too many movies, but the perpetrator never seems particularly in doubt. With so much focus on plot-plot-plot, and no particular style to the filmmaking, there's no time to serve the ideas—and the result is something that feels just as superficial as the people it could theoretically be skewering. Available Aug. 16 in theaters. (R)