“Miss Sloane” (Drama: 2 hours, 12 minutes)

Starring: Jessica Chastain, Mark Strong, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Jake Lacy and John Lithgow

Director: John Madden

Rated: R (Profanity and sexuality )

Movie Review: “Miss Sloane” rests upon the acting chops of Jessica Chastain. Her talents here are fascinating. She is definitely Oscar-worthy.

Chastain plays Madeline Elizabeth Sloane, an ambitious and successful lobbyist in Washington, D.C. In her latest venture, she decides to take on the powerful gun lobbyists. 

Miss Sloane’s greatest asset is she likes to surprise her rivals and not let them surprise her. She pulls out all of the stops to get a gun bill through Congress, but winning has consequences. 

John Madden last worked with Chastain in “The Debt” (2010). The two make a dynamic pair. Madden directed “Shakespeare in Love” (1998) and “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” (2011). He knows how to create engaging movies. He does so here with Chastain as the film’s main staple.

Chastain lavishes much attention in this role. She is an incredible actress. She has an old Hollywood style, a la a Bette Davis form, that makes her roles appear real. Chastain becomes her characters in a manner that is beautiful.

Sloane is no saint. She is cutthroat and does what it takes to win. Her actions are nowhere angelic, yet Chastain manages to give her plenty emotive qualities worth acknowledging. Enough is provided to appreciate and like Sloane, even if you disagree with her actions.

Also noteworthy, Gugu Mbatha-Raw (“Concussion,” 2015) is superb in her supporting role. She is as talented as she is beautiful.

Mark Strong joins Mbatha-Raw and Chastain. Their scenes together are good entertainment.

The one cast mishap is Sam Waterston, playing chief lobbyist George Dupont, and John Lithgow as Congressman Ron M. Sperling. The two appear in roles that would have worked better if they had switched.

“Miss Sloane” (2016) is the first screenplay writer Jonathan Perera has ever written. He has a good screenplay, but it could be better. He tries to sensationalize his plot. That is the greatest flaw of this well-acted and directed feature.

Perera’s writing is keen until he tries to become like Miss Sloane. He wants to surprise his audience. He does during the conclusion, but his tactics move from a good drama at that point to a lesser thriller. Sometimes, less is more.

Grade: B (Chastain is an able Miss Sloane.)

“Office Christmas Party” (Comedy: 1 hour, 45 minutes)

Starring: Jason Bateman, Olivia Munn, T.J. Miller and Jennifer Aniston

Directors: Josh Gordon and Will Speck

Rated: R (Crude sexual content, profanity, drug use, violence, thematic elements and nudity)

Movie Review: The office party appears to be a reason for actors to get together and party. The problem is the comedy becomes too silly. Adults start acting like a class of middle-school students when the substitute teacher is in charge. 

The “teacher” is Jennifer Aniston. She plays Carol Vanstone, an uptight chief executive officer of a major corporation. She threatens to shut down the site where her brother, Clay Vanstone (Miller), is the branch manager. 

Against his sister’s wishes, Clay decides to throw a Christmas party with the aid of trusted department heads Josh Parker (Bateman) and Tracey Hughes (Munn). Clay believes an epic Christmas party will help land a big client and save his branch from closure. 

The party becomes an out-of-control event leading to catastrophic mishaps. 

Multiple characters are at the heart of this comedy. None really are the movie’s focal point. Instead, the movie is about several people and they all have equal footing and their own agendas. The predicament is similar to life but makes the feature similar to an extended sitcom. 

Adolescent behavior is prevalent throughout. Adults behave like kids until they are unbelievable in their roles, even if they are likable characters. The office party is not very professional because of some elementary actions. 

Grade: C (Party goes overboard.)

“The Bounce Back” (Romance: 1 hour, 44 minutes)

Starring: Shemar Moore, Nadine Velazquez and Bill Bellamy

Director: Youssef Delara

Rated: PG-13 (Sexual content, profanity, violence and drug use)

Movie Review: “The Bounce Back” tries to be an earnest romance, but novice comedy interferes. In addition, it features a beautiful cast, but their physical attributes are not enough to sell their relationships.

Matthew Taylor (Moore) is a single father, author and relationship guru. He is on a cross-country book tour to promote his best-selling book, “The Bounce Back.” 

He believes he has life mastered. Then, he meets Kristin Peralta (Velazquez), a mental-health therapist. They become friends despite their disagreements with each other’s technique regarding matters of love. 

They become regular guests on numerous television shows about how to handle relationships. Their views oppose each other, but their chemistry for each other is in synch. 

Moore and Velazquez are beautiful. His handsome movie-star looks and her naturally pretty appeal make them good to see. These facets are not enough to make the romance full proof.

Youssef Delara (“Filly Brown,” 2012) directs this distracting romance that tries to be a modern “When Harry Met Sally …” (Director Rob Reiner, 1989). He does a good job, but the biggest problem is the movie’s half-baked attempt to insert unneeded comedy. Bill Bellamy, playing Terry Twist, Taylor’s manager, inserts odd moments of comedy. The jokes feel flat because the humor is ill placed, cheap or unneeded occasionally. 

Delara and co-writers script a nice story, but they allow comic moments to distract in an untidy manner. This may be because the romance is thin. The characters fall for each other quickly. Moore and Velazquez do have adequate scripts to achieve the goal of making their character’s relationship tangible.

Even more, the movie has a good steady play out until its formulaic ending. At that point, it has no rebound. It cannot bounce back.

Grade: C+ (The bounce good until it trickles downward with commonplace themes.)

“Nocturnal Animals” (Drama/Thriller: 1 hour, 56 minutes)

Starring: Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Shannon

Director: Tom Ford

Rated: R (Nudity, violence, sexuality, thematic elements and profanity)

Movie Review: Masterful director Tom Ford gave audiences the powerful “A Single Man” in 2009. 

“Nocturnal Animals” is Ford’s second big-screen production and this photoplay is another masterpiece, too. Ford creates an artistic adventure, even if the story is too abstract at times. 

Susan Morrow (Adams), a Los Angeles art-gallery owner, receives a book manuscript dedicated to her from her ex-husband, Edward Sheffield (Gyllenhaal). 

Sheffield wants Morrow’s opinion about his book called “Nocturnal Animals.” As Morrow deals with a failing marriage with Hutton Morrow (Armie Hammer), she reads Sheffield’s manuscript, which details a husband’s struggle to find his family after their vacation takes a violent turn. 

As Susan continues to read Sheffield’s words, she ponders her marriages, her family and some elements about herself.

Ford writes and directs this cunning production. “Nocturnal Animals” is similar to 2001’s “Mulholland Drive” (David Lynch). It takes multiple stories and merges them into thoughtful scenes of consideration.

Each scene delivers morsels of information regarding cast members. A number of the moments happen in silence. Ford’s script tries to provide audiences with notions about his characters without totally letting audiences enter the cast’s mind.

Audiences must make sense of the characters through their actions. The notion works.

Moviegoers must understand the characters through their interactions with others, the art they create or the words these characters write. This is especially true for Amy Adams’ artist Susan Morrow and Jake Gyllenhaal’s writer Edward Sheffield. We come to know the characters via their affiliations with others and their actions in situations.

This is where Ford effectively uses silence to convey a narrative based on Austin Wright’s 1993 novel, “Tony and Susan.” He also uses visual imagery via well-lit cinematography, some shocking and some charming, to create expressive moments that excite. 

That part of the movie is artful expression and it is engaging. However, Ford, an American fashion designer, goes overboard with some abstract thoughts that appear unfinished. The moments distract but Ford still provides considerably brilliant cinema.

Grade: B (Night or day is a good time to glimpse this appealing screenplay.)

*Playing in larger cities.