THE HUMANS ****

 Stephen Karam has not only adapted his Tony award-winning play for the screen but has also directed it and an exceptional job he's made of it, too. Set almost entirely inside a virtually empty New York apartment that Beanie Feldstein's Brigid and her partner Richard, (Steven Yeun), appear to be moving into it's definitely theatrical as her father, mother, sister and grandmother join them for a Thansgiving that will turn out to be memorable for all the wrong reasons. It's the kind of apartment that Rosemary's baby might feel happy being born in, in a building that has clearly seen better days and is the kind of place that enjoys working its old black magic on anyone who visits.

In some respects it's thoroughly banal but in a deeply disconcerting way. Karam definitely has an ear for the kind of everyday, inconsequential dialogue that we call 'small talk' yet which tells us all we need to know about the people we are interacting with and his cast of six are all superb; this is a great ensemble piece with Jayne Houdyshell, repeating her Tony award-winning performance , the stand-out. Of course, it won't do any business. This is too like real life and not enough like the movies to appeal to anything like a mass audience but in its very niche way it's utterly brilliant, a horror movie in all but name and one of the best films you will see this year.

THE SIN OF MADELON CLAUDET no stars

 Madelon Claudet's sin is that she's had an illegitimate child by a rat who jilts her and will prostitute herself to provide a decent life for her son. Made before the Hays Code "The Sin of Madelon Claudet" is a 'daring' women's picture that makes Madelon something of a saint. Well, she is played by that doyen of respectibility Helen Hayes who went on to win the Academy Award for Best Actress. It's a terrible film but Hayes just about redeems it though Lewis Stone is also very good as Madelon's shady 'benefactor' yet despite Hayes' Oscar win the film is virtually unknown today. Still if, like me, you're an Oscar completist you should seek it out.

KITTY FOYLE no stars

 Ginger Rogers could clearly carry a tune and she certainly could dance. She was also a terrific comedienne; what she wasn't was a particularly fine dramatic actress so when she was cast in the title role of "Kitty Foyle" as the working-class girl who falls for a rich socialite but can't measure up to his family's expectations, she really was up against it and yet, despite some very strong opposition, the Academy gave her the Best Actress Oscar. Maybe they were amazed she could act at all. It's a nice enough performance but nowhere near her best and certainly not Oscar-worthy.

The movie itself is a rather third-rate 'women's picture', adapted by Dalton Trumbo, with a little help from Donald Ogden Stewart, from Christopher Morley's best-seller which bills itself as 'the natural history of a woman' but despite the talented Sam Wood in the director's chair it's never very engaging. In fact, it's really rather dull as Kitty is torn, (it's told mostly in flashback), between rich heel Dennis Morgan and nice doctor James Craig. Personally, I didn't care who she ended up with though enough people obviously did to make this one of the year's sizeable hits. As well as Ginger's win, the film itself was nominated for Best Picture.

NEVER GONNA SNOW AGAIN ***

 Zhenia, (Alec Utgoff), is a kind of itinerant masseur who's also something of a shamen. He was born in Chernobyl seven years to the day before the accident and as a client suggests he may be radioactive. He's now plying his trade around a fancy gated estate in Poland, the kind of place where the Stepford Wives might live. There's no backstory to Zhenia other than he can hypnotise people and momentarily take over their lives, (that's how he seems to have got his work permit), and Malgorzata Szumowska and Michal Englert's wonderful film "Never Gonna Snow Again" could be a Polish 'Wizard of Oz' before Dorothy came on the scene as Zhenia makes himself at home in other people's houses, bending them to his will while simultaneously becoming a little like them for a time.

'Realism' in the conventional sense is conspicuously absent. I mean, how did Zhenia get in touch with these clients, all living within walking distance of each other in this strangely bland community? What's his purpose there and who exactly is he and why can he move a glass across a table without touching it? Teasingly these are questions Szumowska and Englert want us to ask without giving us any answers.

Naturally, it's a comedy and a rather black one though it's never particularly funny. Whimsical would be a better term. It might even remind you a little of Pasolini's "Theorem" and visually it's often quite extraordinary. That it slipped by, virtually unnoticed, even in the art-house circuit, is a shame since it is totally engaging from start to finish. Do try to see it.