Is a film still considered a “white savior” story if its white protagonist never actually saves anything? In the case of Susanna White’s “Woman Walks Ahead,” it’s certainly not for lack of trying. A listless but lustrously shot biopic about the 19th century New York widow who traveled to North Dakota, painted the Sioux chief Sitting Bull, and then served as an advocate for his tribe as they fought the United States government’s attempts to expropriate their land, the movie…

Richard Eyre’s “The Children Act,” which “Atonement” writer Ian McEwan has adapted to from his own novel of the same name, begins with Jude Fiona Maye (an extraordinary Emma Thompson) imposingly perched behind the bench of her London courtroom and adjudicating an urgent case about conjoined twins. If the babies are left attached, both of them will die. If the decision is made to split them apart, then one will live. Each course of action, it could be argued, is…