Capsule reviews for Jan. 31

The Assistant

Layered with real-world resonance, this provocative drama simmers beneath its restrained and unassuming surface. Jane (Julia Garner) is an executive assistant to a boorish Hollywood mogul. She works tirelessly and thanklessly performing mundane tasks, plus concealing his womanizing behind the scenes. When the latest young blonde arrives for a meeting, Jane decides she’s had enough. The screenplay by director Kitty Green, making her feature debut, clearly is inspired to some degree by Harvey Weinstein’s indiscretions. Despite the low-key approach to such incendiary material, the outrage is palpable, with Garner’s skillfully empathetic portrayal spotlighting a woman whose anonymity is both a detriment and a galvanizing asset. (Rated R, 87 minutes).

Beanpole

Both a quietly captivating character study and a bleak snapshot of life in post-World War II Leningrad, this offbeat Russian drama is evocative and richly textured, even during its slow and emotionally detached stretches. The title is a nickname for Iya (Viktoria Miroshnichenko), a lanky nurse at a hospital where the physical and emotional wounds from the city’s involvement in the war are omnipresent. Iya and her troubled friend (Vasilisa Perelygina) navigate motherhood and an uncertain future. The acting newcomers in the lead roles flesh out the potent subtext about women finding their voices as the deliberately paced film builds to a powerful yet heartbreaking climax. (Not rated, 137 minutes).

Incitement

Although its harrowing true-life backstory takes place a generation ago, this character-driven Hebrew thriller is conveyed with a powerful contemporary urgency. The subject is the 1995 assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, as told from the perspective of his killer, a Jewish law student (Yehuda Nahari Halevi) with extremist political views. The film chronicles the year leading up to the murder, when he battles anger and delusion as an underground militia leader. A provocative and unsettling attempt to speculate on the motives of a killer, the film provides a valuable history lesson while finding a new way to illustrate lingering unrest in the region. (Not rated, 123 minutes).