The fiercely solitary protagonist of Kelly Reichardt’s new film, Wendy and Lucy, struggles to face an abysmal reality. The film follows a few dreary days excerpted from a long road trip across the country. The journey has already begun and it doesn’t end.

Weddings defy expectations. The grander the plan, the more likely it is that things will go awry.

In Elegy, Isabel Coixet creates a sensually lush adaptation of Philip Roth’s inert and insipid story “The Dying Animal.’’ The film reveals a tone, rather stilted at first, that slowly seeps into the psyche.

Pixar’s latest creation, WALL-E, came to me highly recommended by no one who actually saw it. WALL-E, Iron Man, and The Dark Knight all share this quality. Peer pressure seems to cancel out criticism.

This month’s Bahman Ghobadi retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art features seven of his short and feature films, all concerning his enduring subject: the daily lives and struggles of Kurdish people living in a region that exists for the most part in the imagination.