There’s something vaguely sinister about those talking GPS navigators that now seem to come standard with every new car. Maybe it’s the robotic voice, which could never speak to the frustration of running late or sitting in traffic. More likely, it’s the illusion of control — the false sense that everything is going to be fine so long as you follow instructions and keep your eyes on the road.

Marja-Lewis Ryan’s “6 Balloons” hinges on such modern details of disquiet, with most of this perceptive (if not especially powerful) drama set inside a chatty sedan as a woman named Katie (“Broad City” star Abbi Jacobson) drives her heroin-addict brother (Dave Franco) around Santa Clarita in a desperate search for the…

Dave Franco has been on some kind of roll lately. His work in the Disaster Artist was his best, but his performance as a heroin addict in this movie was a close second. He plays the part very well. Abbi Jacobsen is the lead and is fantastic. Her performance is layered and very realistic. Their relationship is everything about this movie. The dialogue between them is strong. The scene at the pharmacy is a good chunk of the movie and is easily the best part. Though the acting is spot on, the film is pretty boring. For just going 74 minutes, it feels like it drags and it's quite easy to stop paying attention and lose focus. None of the…

Viscerally unpleasant without offering anything to make the experience worthwhile. This is one of those movies where it wouldn't surprise me to find out that they wrote dialogue just minutes before a scene was shot. Almost every word of this felt inauthentic, even if the underlying emotions were ones I could relate to. Abbi Jacobson's character, in particular, is nonexistent. Despite the actress herself doing her best to imbue the character with some sense of personality, her arc feels forced and out of place, and her decisions throughout the film just confused me. Dave Franco's character is marginally better in terms of personality and objective, but his performance is much, much worse. As I mentioned before, so much of this…

the saddest movie i’ve seen all year, a film where personal catharsis can only stem from abandonment, where a baby girl sees her father pumped full of heroin trying not to die, and he has to feel himself fading next to her. has the most haunting final shot i’ve seen in a long time, the brevity of the runtime makes it feel even more tragic, like it’s over before everything becomes okay. doubt there will ever be a better performance by dave franco than his turn here, he made me cry more times than i counted. a film based on pain and love and how so often the two are inexorably linked. addiction is a curse and the addict is…