In “Ammonite,” Kate Winslet plays Mary Anning, the English paleontologist whose ramblings along the West Dorset coast in the 19th century yielded a wealth of fossilized treasures, including bones from the Jurassic-era Ichthyosaurus. She sold her discoveries in her Lyme Regis shop and is said to have inspired the classic tongue-twister, “She sells seashells by […]

Imagine a mash-up of J.M. Barrie and Lewis Carroll, with a dash of Charles Dickens for Victorian miserablism and an all-star cast including Angelina Jolie, David Oyelowo and Michael Caine, and you get the sense of “Come Away,” a fitfully engaging reworking of “Peter Pan” and “Alice in Wonderland.” Here, screenwriter Marissa Kate Goodhill imagines […]

Simone Signoret won a César award for her performance in the 1977 film “Madame Rosa,” which leads to an inevitable question when it comes to making “The Life Ahead”: Why bother? Like “Madame Rosa,” “The Life Ahead” is adapted from Romain Gary’s novel “The Life Before Us.” Unlike the earlier version, this one features Sophia […]

With a wink and a nudge, “Freaky” begins with the on-screen title “Wednesday the 11th,” signaling that, despite the gruesome violence by a Jason Voorhees-like serial killer in its first five minutes, it’s not a straight slasher film but slasher-adjacent. Meaning that this mildly amusing body-swap horror-comedy (whose title references the supernatural high school comedy […]

The only thing lacking from the Portland Stage production was more applause.