THE THING ABOUT MY FOLKS
PG-13, 94 minutes

Paul Reiser’s empire of domestic schtick spans books (“Couplehood,” “Babyhood”), a television show (“Mad About You”), and now a new movie about a grown-up son and his father. Mr. Reiser’s screenplay for “The Thing About My Folks” sabotages the film’s main accomplishment – a resourceful performance by Peter Falk.

Mr. Falk plays ex-workaholic Sam Kleinman, a retiree who one day pays his son Ben (Reiser) a surprise visit, bearing shocking news: His wife of 40 years has left him. While Ben’s wife and sisters try to figure out why, Ben distracts Dad with a trip to the country. A road-trip blossoms with revelations, reconciliations, and fart jokes.

It might seem silly to expect more of a movie that starts with the predictable sitcomesque joke: Opening choral music is deflated with a cut to Mr. Falk showering. But early scenes with Ben’s own family have a bluff, unadorned warmth that seems promising – no such luck.

But viewers can at least enjoy Mr. Falk, who fleshes out a stock character – the gruff but caring father who embarrasses everyone with his fogey antics – into a sympathetic, if hard-headed, human being. Mr. Reiser’s strongest emotion, in contrast, is a menacing peevishness.)

Mr. Falk can’t overcome a script that makes him win a bar brawl or, in an unforgivably cheesy scene, snuggle under a chintzy starry backdrop. The mystery about his wife is like every sitcom episode that hangs on some pending misunderstanding. And, sure enough, the (perfunctory) resolution carries a little personal lesson: If you’d been watching at home you’d have changed the channel long ago.

– Nicolas Rapold

SEPARATE LIES
R, 87 minutes

Like Don Roos’s satire “Happy Endings,” the new British drama “Separate Lies” begins with an abrupt, mysterious hit-and-run that sets off an entangled plot. But while “Happy Endings” micromanaged every last twist, “Separate Lies” seems uninterested in following up on emotional repercussions.

The discontent in this, the directorial debut of Julian Fellowes, an Academy Award-winner for his “Gosford Park” script, lurks in a common place: a marriage between James Manning (Tom Wilkinson), a well-to-do lawyer, and his wife, Anne (Emily Watson). Their crisis is at once revealed and inextricably complicated in a shattering scene set in the kitchen of their picturesque English country house. Anne both confesses to having an affair with a local lordling (Rupert Everett), the chief hit-and-run suspect, and admits her own role in the accident.

The trio’s cover-up-of-convenience lends this case of infidelity even greater intrigue. All the suspicions overlap in interesting ways, aided by excellent performances by Mr. Wilkinson and a deliciously supercilious Mr. Everett. Only Ms. Watson seems miscast.

Then, unaccountably, the story drifts. James reconciles himself to his wife’s behavior, she elopes, and the hit-and-run imbroglio seems destined to work out. There is admittedly something attractive about this inertia and the lack of interest in pushing the usual buttons. To reflect James’s resigned point of view, it’s even fitting.

But as the film closes, we realize we never really knew the characters in the first place. It’s not as bad as its Lifetime channel title, but the 87-minute “Separate Lies” feels incomplete.

– Nicolas Rapold

THUMBSUCKER
R, 96 minutes

What seems just another tale of suburban malaise is – wait, sorry, “Thumbsucker” is just that. The debut feature by Mike Mills puts another teenaged misfit through familiar paces, resorting to gimmicky dramatic development and stylized packaging.

Can indie quirk remain quirky once it’s become obligatory? Justin (Lou Pucci) can’t just be a teenager who sucks his thumb. He also must look for answers in hypnosis, ADHD medication, pot, sex, and, of course, college education. His mother (a squandered Tilda Swinton) can’t just have past-due-date dreams – she must have a crush on Ben Bratt, who plays a parody of a cop-show hero. It goes without saying that Dad (Vincent D’Onofrio) missed the big break playing college football.

Mr. Mills could give the excuse that these elements simply come from the original novel, Walter Kirn’s “Thumbsucker.” But whereas Mr. Kirn’s bundle of oddities came alive as satire, Mr. Mills expects us to believe in Justin’s story as one of uplift. He distracts us with breezy skill stringing together scenes, like a riveting sequence where Ritalin temporarily transforms the boy into an ubermensch debater.

Perhaps Mr. Mills is too mesmerized by his star to care about satire. His camera luxuriates in Mr. Pucci’s Miranda July pallor and anime-character bangs. Mr. Pucci perfects a pleading stare that is at first touching, then exhausting, and finally boring. He isn’t helped by plot-point encounters too fraught even for an adolescent; or by Keanu Reeves as a spiritual orthodontist, the most succinct example of satire taking itself seriously.

And so we learn that adults and kids alike must grow up, and that it all really does work out. The print ads for “Thumb sucker” have a mannered, handscrawled quality like the bottle poster for last year’s “Sideways.” Let’s hope that critics don’t fall over this reheated journey of discovery.

– Nicolas Rapold

PIGGIE
Unrated, 90 minutes

“Piggie” is like those super-smart, under-achieving kids in high school: If they just applied themselves, they could do great things, but they’re so intent on their own weirdness that they never go anywhere.

Farm girl Fannie (Savannah Haske) lives with her dad Jim (Robert Burke) in upstate New York, where life feels like an endless Saturday afternoon. She has a job taking care of an elderly woman and spends most of her time tickling the old gal’s face with road kill and taking her on near-fatal strolls. Enter Nile (played by Dean Wareham of the bands Galaxie 500 and Luna). Nile has a stolen car, a fistful of hot credit cards, and a life that’s lubricated by buckets of cranky charm. But he doesn’t deserve what happens next: Fannie decides that he’s her boyfriend.

Running around naked, trying to drown old ladies, screaming that she needs to save prostitutes from her AIDS-riddled boyfriend, and wrapped in a tragic wardrobe that looks like she found it on the side of the road, Fannie is a fate worse than death. “Piggie” quickly establishes itself as a comedic riff on “Fatal Attraction,” but it’s ultimately frustrating to watch a movie that’s almost good but never quite comes together.

Still, the digital video visuals are lush and seductive, and the soundtrack (by Mr. Wareham) keeps the movie bopping along. Mr. Burke’s Jim is the coolest dad on earth (he even massages his daughter’s menstrual cramps), and Ms. Haske is terrifically awkward as the misguided Fannie. Unfortunately she’s also about eight years too old for the part. The result is a character that comes across more like a mentally retarded adult than a naive 15-year-old in love.

– Grady Hendrix

ONE BRIGHT SHINING MOMENT
Unrated, 125 minutes

Sometimes political losses are victories in disguise. Senator Barry Goldwater, for example, temporarily held the title for worst-ever presidential contender before ultimately transforming the Republican Party. Eight years later, when Democrat George McGovern received the lowest-ever percentage of the popular vote, it was a different story: McGovern left a legacy of single-interest factions, anti-war extremism, and political ineffectiveness within his party.

“One Bright Shining Moment,” Stephen Vittoria’s new documentary about McGovern’s life and failed campaign, raises the question of how America would be different if McGovern had become president instead of Richard Nixon. But this heavy-handed celluloid hagiography never quite attempts an answer. Narrator Amy Goodman, host of Pacifica Radio’s “Democracy Now!” gushes with uncritical praise for the honest and decent “prairie statesman” while righteously intoning against “patriot imposters … who make nothing of minimizing a child’s bloody entrails as collateral damage.”

While some of the footage from the McGovern campaign helps capture the passionate grassroots fervor for the candidate, Mr. Vittoria’s editing is incomprehensible. He includes a series of interviews with McGovern insiders, including Gloria Steinem, Gore Vidal, Howard Zinn, and Warren Beatty – but not a single McGovern critic was interviewed for the film. Are we to believe that three decades out, McGovern supporters are still so out of touch that, like Pauline Kael, they have yet to meet anyone who voted against him?

– Mollie Ziegler

VENOM
R, 85 minutes

At their best, teen-slasher films are like roller coasters – thrilling, terrifying, and impossibly fun. Story, characterization, and plausibility are secondary to the main purpose, which is showing a group of people, primarily sexy teens, beaten and butchered with gusto. Yet even within this spotty genre, it’s rare to see the sort of indifference to filmmaking that characterizes “Venom.” Directed by Jim Gillespie, this film’s unwavering adherence to worn-out ideas, poor production values, and moronic dialogue make for a stultifying ride.

“Venom” takes place in the backwaters of Louisiana, something that would be easy to forget, given the actors’ accent-less delivery and the Ed Wood-era sound-stage look of the scenery. Through some sort of voodoo mix-up, the body of Ray (Rick Cramer), a local pariah and sometime auto-mechanic, has been taken over by the rarified evil of several vicious criminals, thus precipitating his transformation from borderline psychopath to all-out psycho-killer.

What follows is scene after endless scene of youngsters going to some dangerous-looking places and doing some rather ill-advised things, making it all too easy for Ray to hit them with his trusty crowbar. Although “Venom” possesses a few solid moments of suspense, even its most violent scenes lack fangs.

– Kevin Lam