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“Arkansas” is one of those country-fried crime capers in which Hollywood actors affect Southern accents and personality quirks in service of a shaggy-dog tale about lawbreaking and bloodletting. Clark Duke (“The Office”) makes a respectable directorial debut, working from a screenplay co-written with Andrew Boonkrong (based on a novel by John Brandon). Along with Liam Hemsworth, Duke plays one of two drug couriers who get in over their heads when the park ranger they take orders from (John Malkovich) is killed. This introduces complications into their relationship with the park ranger’s boss (Vince Vaughn), but those complications are merely a way to pass the time in a meandering, “Ozark”-esque tale that offers a cast of colorful characters (including Vivica A. Fox, Michael Kenneth Williams and Josh Brolin’s daughter, Eden Brolin). Nothing really resembles the real-world Arkansas. Rather, it’s an eccentric, Hollywood version of the state – one in which singer Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips can be heard performing George Jones’ “He Stopped Loving Her Today” at a seedy roadhouse. Realism it ain’t, but it is fun. R. Available on various streaming platforms. Contains violence, crude language throughout, drug material and brief nudity. 115 minutes.
– Michael O’Sullivan
In the enervated, not-quite-erotic thriller “Clementine,” a messy breakup prompts a young woman named Karen (Otmara Marrero) to stalk her ex in absentia, by breaking into her gorgeous mid-century lake house in Oregon and setting up a form of fugitive housekeeping. When a mysterious girl named Lana turns up, things get ... stranger? Not really. Writer-director Lara Gallagher makes a muted feature debut that evokes such films as “Swimming Pool” and “Always Shine,” but without the narrative momentum and psychological depth that made them so engrossing. With its breathy tonal atmosphere and wispy story, “Clementine” bobs along on the surface, with nowhere particularly interesting to go. A bright spot is Sydney Sweeney, who does an impressive job of shape-shifting from a childlike teenager to something wilder and more feral. Unrated. Available at clementine.oscilloscope.net. Contains teen drinking, drug use and adult themes. 90 minutes.
When an Illinois plastics factory shuts down in the blue-collar Trump Country that is the setting of “Working Man,” a laid-off employee (Peter Gerety) continues to show up at his old work station, scrubbing down the equipment in the absence of electricity to power his old machine. But after a co-worker (Billy Brown) finds a way to get the juice turned back on, many of the other fired workers start showing up too – in hopes of a promised payday – by fulfilling unfinished orders for former clients. What starts out as a drama about Quixotic resistance in the face of a failing Rust Belt economy, and the false promises of politicians, gradually turns into something deeper and more moving, thanks to the fine cast (which includes Talia Shire). Slowly, quietly, writer-director Robert Jury’s debut feature becomes not just about finding money in tough times, but finding meaning. Unrated. Available on various streaming platforms. Contains coarse language, mature thematic elements and smoking 108 minutes.
– M.O.
ALSO STREAMING
Set in an unnamed Northern Irish city, “A Good Woman Is Hard to Find” tells the story of a single mother (Sarah Bolger), whose home is invaded by a criminal (Andrew Simpson) looking for a place to stash drugs. According to the Guardian, the movie, which combines gritty, kitchen-sink realism with elements of a thriller, “holds together thanks to vivid performances.” Unrated. Available on Film Movement Virtual Cinema. 97 minutes.
In “Accommodations,” a Manhattan wife and mother upends her family’s upscale status quo when she stops accommodating those around her and sets out on in search of creative self-fulfillment. TV-MA. Available on various streaming platforms. 68 minutes.
Robert “Bronzi” Kovacs, a Hungarian actor who has made a career as an action star out of his resemblance to the late Charles Bronson, stars in the psycho-killer horror throwback “Cry Havoc.” Unrated. Available on various streaming platforms. 85 minutes.
“Becoming” is a documentary that follows former first lady Michelle Obama on a tour promoting her best-selling 2018 memoir of the same name. PG. Available on Netflix. Contains some mature thematic elements and brief strong language. 89 minutes.
In the supernatural screwball comedy “On a Magical Night,” a French woman with a history of marital infidelity (Chiara Mastroianni) is visited by the ghosts of former lovers. According to Slant, “The result is a little like a gimmick masquerading as plot.” Unrated. Available at afisilver.afi.com. In French with subtitles. 86 minutes.
Filmmaker Sasha Neulinger’s documentary “Rewind” excavates a history of child abuse in the director’s family using copious camcorder footage shot by Neulinger’s father when the filmmaker, born in 1989, was a boy. According to Variety, the documentary “has the effect of a moral thriller.” PG-13. Available on various streaming platforms; also airing on PBS’s “Independent Lens” on Monday. 86 minutes.
The food documentary “The Delicacy” explores the harvesting and consumption of the sea urchin. Unrated. Available on sommtv.com. 70 minutes.
Shot on low-res video, but artfully edited, according to the New York Times, “The Plagiarists” tells the story of a young couple (Lucy Kaminsky and Eamon Monaghan) who are taken in – in more ways than one – by an enigmatic stranger (William Michael Payne, aka Clip, of Parliament-Funkadelic) during a snowstorm.