Photo by www.NicoleRivelli.com © 2012 Topeka Productions

Benicio Del Toro and Mathieu Amalric in Jimmy P.

In Arnaud Desplechin's English-language Jimmy P. (Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian), Benicio Del Toro--freed at last from the tyranny of playing bit-part heavies in American thrillers and action movies--is James Picard, a Blackfoot Indian who has lost his way in post-World War II America.

Considering that the Cannes experience consists mostly of critics and other assorted ornery types shambling into theaters, sitting in front of a screenful of flickering images for a few hours and then, like Flash Gordon’s Mole People, tumbling back out into daylight, news travels surprisingly fast.

Earlier today, a colleague and I had just stepped out of a midmorning screening of a rather steamy and interesting little thriller, Alain Guiraudie’s Stranger by the Lake, when a third colleague began thinking aloud about what he might see next. Earlier in the morning, some of our friends who are surprisingly adept at being in two places at once had seen a picture called The Selfish Giant, screening not in the main competition, but in the Quinzaine, or Directors’ Fortnight, section of the festival. Our colleague told us what he’d heard about the movie, and warned us that it was probably going to be upsetting; a Cannes programmer had told him he still feels a little melancholy every time he thinks about it.

Let’s say that you and your friends get accused of being racist. And let’s say there’s nothing in your heart that fits that accusation. You know you’re a celebrator of freedom, a passionate American who wishes all people could enjoy the best that this country has to offer.

You’re white, incidentally.

One of the most exciting things about attending the Cannes Film Festival is being among the first people to see the films the world will be talking about. That's one of the terrible things, too: There's no one to warn you when you're about to see a puppy murder, a 12-year-old girl borne away toward rape and misery, or a penis doused with lighter fluid and set ablaze.

François Ozon's Young & Beautiful, a portrait of a 17-year-old French call girl is a story about a family in crisis: Isabelle (played by Marine Vacth, a stunning-looking if ultimately inert actress) is a student who still lives at home with her mother, stepfather, and kid brother; no one, least of all mom (Géraldine Pailhas), is too happy when her secret profession comes to light.

The biggest puzzlement of these early days of the festival comes from Sofia Coppola, one of my favorite working directors. Until now, I have loved every one of Coppola's movies: I love her sure and delicate touch, and she's better than any other contemporary filmmaker at capturing the greatness of small moments. The Bling Ring is the first of her pictures that I actively dislike—I sense no mystery, no depth there.

Haphazardly veering between bloody prison stabbings and angelic orphans out-wholesoming the von Trapp brood, the bilingual Aussie drama 33 Postcards is a film as rootless as its foundling protagonist.

There's one key truth that separates the tank-topped gearheads of the Fast and Furious movies from the rest of us. Every problem these lugnuts face can be solved by doing the one thing these lugnuts love most: driving really fast. It's like if you could deal with your taxes by hunkering down with a season of Justified.

Seemingly crafted to validate the fears of those conservatives who rage that the white man can't get respect on the big screen these days, Katie Aselton's smart-till-it-isn't thriller Black Rock centers on a tense scene of hero-pantsing and gender inversion. The piece-of-shit bad guys, a couple of vets of our desert wars, have tied up a trio of Massachusetts women who sport New Girl bangs and an understanding that this world has a use for them. The vets—who throughout most of movie history would be the heroes—have all been dishonorably discharged, are given to fits of inarticulate rage, and stand psyched to gut the women. But the women—who throughout most of movie history would be saved by some other soldier or hero—turn out to be the one thing these stone killers can't handle. One of them, Abbie (Katie Aselton, who also directed), faces down the lead killer and snarls, "You fucking pussy!"

New York is a cruel and beautiful place, just as 27 is a cruel and beautiful age. In Frances Ha, Greta Gerwig plays a woman who's feeling the weight of both. Frances is an aspiring dancer who has reached the age when "aspiring" really means not cutting it. Life with her best friend and roommate, Sophie (Mickey Sumner), has taken on the dull glow of old cutlery swiped from the college dining hall—"We're the lesbian couple that doesn't have sex anymore," Frances observes.