As a biopic, A Complete Unknown is obligated to show us its subject’s humble origins.  Accordingly, the movie opens with a twenty year-old Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) in the back of a station wagon.  He’s hitching his way from New Jersey to Greenwich Village to see his folk music hero, Woody Guthrie.  Dylan works on a song during the ride, scratching out lyrics in a notebook while refining the melody on his guitar.  Dylan’s workmanlike qualities, specifically how he was always working on his music at all times, is a theme the movie returns to again and again.

Anatomy of a Fall looks and sounds like a standard courtroom drama.  It opens with a startling scene, where a young boy named Daniel (Milo Machado-Graner) returns from a walk with his dog to find his father dead on the snowy ground outside the chalet where his family lives.  Daniels’ mother Sandra (Sandra Hüller) rushes outside and calls for an ambulance.  When the police arrive, she explains that she was asleep when Samuel (Samuel Theis) jumped to his death.  The police, however, don’t buy her story.  After analyzing the crime scene and digging into Samuel’s past, they conclude that Sandra pushed her husband to his death.  Charges are filed against her, and the resulting trial includes the requisite scenes of prosecutor/witness pyrotechnics.  On this level, the story would serve as a gripping episode of Law & Order: The French Alps.

Everyone knows a couple who are so perfect for each other that you can’t imagine them apart.  We think of them as soulmates, two people who were destined to be together.  The notion that there is someone out there who is only meant for you is an incredibly romantic one.  You hope that you’ll find that special someone one day, and consider yourself fortunate when you do.  Sometimes, finding your soulmate is incredibly easy.  Past Lives tells the story of Na Young (Moon Seung-ah, Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (Leem Seung-min, Teo Yoo) who, beginning when they were twelve-years old, are obviously meant for each other.  They’re inseparable at school, laughing at their private jokes.  Na’s outgoing and friendly personality and Hae’s quiet and sensitive nature compliment each other perfectly.  When their mothers arrange a playdate, they are immediately convinced that Na and Mae will be married one day.  Unfortunately, fate intervenes when Na’s parents decide to emigrate to Toronto.  This is devastating news for Hae, who is the hopeless romantic between the two of them.  Na is also sad at leaving Hae behind, but she embraces this big change in her life.  She wants to become a writer and tells her classmates that Korea has never produced a writer who won the Nobel prize for literature.