The revelatory performance of Paul Walter Hauser as the mild-mannered titular character of Clint Eastwood’s Richard Jewell (B) is the primary draw of the historical procedural movie. While the director plays a bit loose with the story elements surrounding the man wrongfully accused of masterminding the 1996 Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, Eastwood successfully conjures a trio of fine performances, including Hauser’s nuanced protagonist, Kathy Bates as his classic Southern mom and Sam Rockwell as a wry, supportive lawyer. Less successful are Jon Hamm and Olivia Wilde whose stock characters as an FBI agent and reporter, respectively, at the center of Jewell’s false narrative tend to ring false. The film is taut in its re-enactment of the inciting incident and intriguing in its examination of how easy it is to cajole a hapless man into a corner. It has flashes of humor and pathos as its themes come into focus. The story is told in a minor key evocative of its central subject and is above average entertainment even if not astonishing.

Waves (B), written and directed with a whirling dervish ferocity by Trey Edward Shults, tells an epic story of a contemporary Floridian family experiencing a variety of trials on a journey to redemption and recovery. While ultimately hopeful, it careens head-first into a Requiem for a Dream level fever pitch for some time before transitioning into a more contemplative second act. The ensemble is uniformly exquisite, led by Sterling K. Brown and Renée Elise Goldsberry as well-meaning parents to Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Taylor Russell, also a wonder as thoughtful teen siblings facing a coming tide of turmoil. Although his film is often lovely to behold, Shults employs too many cinematic tricks with an elliptical structure that weighs down the movie’s thin storyline. At times, despite good intentions, the film feels a bit like an after-school special greatest hits episode. The music by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is tense and tantalizing, and the bursts of nighttime and maritime colors are gorgeous, even if occasionally too evocative of the superior Moonlight, set in a similar milieu. The themes about savoring every moment and taking steps to heal emotional wounds are quite resonant, but sometimes the film goes to alarming lengths to administer its balm.

Even though it chronicles the sad tale of the breakdown of a marriage, Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story (A) is bittersweet bliss. Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson give career-best performances as the couple in the story’s center, a director and his actress muse, respectively, who find themselves separated by an emotional gulf and soon a geographic one as his NYC career flourishes and as she moves to L.A. to film a pilot. Their characters’ drift away from each other is less the result of a bombshell than simply desiring different approaches to matrimony and how they live their lives. And although they have become too closed-off from one another to thrive as a functional unit, the complicated mechanics of divorce – and what it all means for the couple’s sole offspring – become the trigger point for high drama. Ray Liotta, Alan Alda and Laura Dern are magnificent as acerbic orbiting attorneys, with Dern in particular delivering mightily as the woman empowering Johannson’s character to strike faster and harder. Baumbach makes his audiences deeply care about the proceedings with endearing and intimate close-ups, flashes of humor and a brilliant take on human relationships. The acting is so good, it feels like a documentary. Tragedy is tough, but this ensemble demands attention. Even Randy Newman’s sometimes spry, sometimes sanguine score is a delight, although it’s pretty much the opposite of “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.” The film is searing and sensational and will likely be absorbing must-see viewing in your queue. Prepare for the streaming, especially from your eyes.