A QUIET PASSION

of money or influence. A pusher, a hustler, an eternal searcher for the exploitable angle, Norman has nothing to go on but his drive. In a wise but unorthodox move, Cedar doesn’t try to explain or psychoanalyze Norman, doesn’t provide his back story or reveal his secrets, doesn’t even tell us where Norman lives or whether his claims of family beyond his nephew Philip (the protean Michael Sheen) are true or not. It simply presents his actions in their confounding single-mindedness. Always dressed in the same camel-hair topcoat and gray flat cap over a serviceable black suit, a bag slung across his body and phone earplugs at the ready, Norman is a one-man army. — Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times PG-13, 125 minutes. Through today only at Mystic Luxury Cinemas. “A Quiet Passion,” Terence Davies’ masterful new movie, plays out in the sunny gardens and lamp-lighted drawing rooms of 19th century Amherst, Mass., where Emily Dickinson spent most of her 55 years patiently making her monumental contribution to American literature. At first glance, the film, with its lovingly appointed interiors and its excerpts of poetry on the soundtrack, might strike you as a dull and dutiful enshrinement of Dickinson’s brilliance, another ordinary film about an extraordinary artist. But Davies, one of the leading lights of contemporary British cinema, is temperamentally incapable of doing anything ordinary, and he has little interest in advancing the reductive narrative of a troubled, reclusive genius. His eye for lighting, color and movement — the way his camera prefers to inhabit a room, rather than simply follow the action — would distinguish this picture alone, though his chief inspiration turns out to be verbal as well as visual. — Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times

SNATCHED

H1/2 R, 91 minutes. Through tonight only at Niantic. Still playing at Waterford, Stonington, Westbrook, Lisbon. The promising young writer Katie Dippold, who wrote “The Heat” and “Ghostbusters,” strikes out with her third feature, “Snatched.” This mother-daughter kidnapping comedy starring Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn is a huge disappointment, and for Schumer, this is a low moment of a career that’s been peaking. As Emily, Schumer plays her characteristic problematic white girl character, a selfish, selfie-taking narcissist. But there’s no sharp satire to puncture that image, as some of the best work from her Comedy Central show “Inside Amy Schumer” has managed to pull off. Instead, “Snatched” feels like a rough sketch of a movie rather than a fleshed-out, joke-dense script. Perhaps it’s a bad match of writer and star, with Schumer and Dippold working together for the first time. The story follows Emily, in the wake of a bad breakup, as she brings her mom, Linda, on a nonrefundable vacation to Ecuador, for lack of a better option (all of her friends seem to hate her). “Put the fun back in ‘nonrefundable,’” she whines to Linda, and one can’t help but wonder how an audience member might want to do the same. On their second day in Ecuador, Emily manages to get herself and her mom kidnapped while trying to impress an attractive Brit, James (Tom Bateman). The two hapless blondes set off on an unlikely journey while trying to escape their captors, and along the way, learn a little something about themselves. The story has about as much suspense as it does laughs, which is to say: not much at all. The script can’t decide whether we’re supposed to like Emily or hate her — she’s a bad person who treats her loved ones poorly, and leans on her perceived stupidity and naivete to make her way in the world. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service

Tish Rabe Christine Ieronimo Peter Mandel Mena Buscetto