I started watching this on my own on my laptop, and then it struck me that I had no connection to this story on my own. I was enjoying it, but I wasn’t feeling it the way it seemed like I might. So I turned it off an hour in, and proposed that we watch it as a family. This story is deeply important to my mom, and she can’t even read the first page of the novel without weeping.…

A spectre is haunting the world. Fritz Lang knows it. It is a spectre whose face we cannot see, whose identity we yearn to uncover. It is a spectre whose presence is felt by every human being, simply by the hole which would be left by its absence. Some imagine it to be a violent, vindictive spectre, and others, a kind and gentle one. Still others believe it is not a spectre at all but a task achievable by men.…

Regina King is a fine director, and I’m sure she’ll go on to bigger and better things behind the camera. The whole thing feels a bit stilted and unnatural, which may not be entirely her fault, but it definitely seems like an issue a more experienced hand could solve. It’s Kemp Powers’ screenplay that grabs me most, along with a few performances.

Clearly, this is an actor’s movie, and I’m sadly quite mixed on this front. Kingsley Ben-Adir doesn’t deserve…