2.5 stars (out of four)

Before evaluating documentarian Alex Gibney’s (“The Armstrong Lie”) look at Scientology, it’s worth considering how challenging it can be to understand any beliefs that are different from your own, even if they don’t involve galactic overlords.

It’s also worth acknowledging that as compelling as it is to see vivid anecdotal evidence of the controversial organization’s sinister practices—who takes on the IRS and wins?!—it’s arguably more valuable to consider who joins this world, and how thousands remain despite reports of torture and intimidation. Gibney’s proven that he’s unafraid to go after big-time subjects (“We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks”), but he also again winds up with limited opportunity to really dive into the more veiled side of his subject. Most of the film’s talking heads are ex-members. What personality type joins Scientology, and if, as “Going Clear” seems to suggest, they are vulnerable people becoming victims to manipulation and brainwashing, why Scientology and not something else?

Gibney fails to address this, and a late-movie note about the accumulating power of the religion—by the way, it’s also worth considering how to define “religion,” as Scientology had to fight for that designation for tax purposes—doesn’t reconcile how declining numbers and bad PR can still lead to influence just because Scientology leader David Miscavige (who in his younger days sometimes kinda looked like Seth Meyers) has purchased property around the world. Though what “Going Clear” does very effectively in adapting Lawrence Wright’s book of the same name is identifying founder L. Ron Hubbard as a calculating, deceptive, ex-sci-fi-writer huckster who somehow converted a legion of followers, including stars like Tom Cruise and John Travolta, and then used their own personal information against them. Billion year contracts? Planetary origins based on space planes? Um, to each their own. And Gibney also should have acknowledged that Scientology is hardly the only religion that seeks to garner money from its members and sometimes engages in questionable practices.

While there’s no denying the chilling implications of the film and this organization, it’s hard not to wonder about the many threads “Going Clear” leaves untouched. On a related note: “The Master” is sensational.

2.5 stars (out of four)

Like the waves of the ocean its characters occasionally and semi-fearfully embrace, “The Strongest Man” continually goes in and out, connecting and drifting away. It’s the low-stakes story of a Cuban man named Beef (Robert Lorie), whose life in Miami takes a major hit when his bike is stolen. Not that this has much of an impact; he’s just upset about it. He also struggles to articulate his feelings for Illi (Ashly Burch) and mildly resents his best friend Conan (Paul Chamberlain) for bringing him to the street where the bike was ultimately taken.

Writer-director Kenny Riches has a unique eye for depicting personal relationships and crafting a tone; he refuses to mine laughs from irony, crafting endearing characters and an offbeat story that’s elusive but never mean-spirited. That said, an oddball yoga teacher (Patrick Fugit) doesn’t fit, and it’s one of several ways in which the film’s bizarre, dreamlike elements (monsters?) clash with everyday realities (like Beef’s ignorant, bigoted coworkers on a construction site) and charming details (Beef needing to borrow $1 after giving $1 to a person in need). There’s a certain lyricism in its breeze, depending on which way it’s blowing.

Viewed via screener before the festival

3 stars (out of four)

Call me surprised: The breakout part for Cobie Smulders at Sundance isn’t her lead role in the Chicago-made, just-OK “Unexpected” but as Kat, an intense personal trainer in writer-director Andrew Bujalski’s minor but consistently amusing “Results.”

Whether Kat’s angry or vulnerable—and it’s awesome to see Smulders get furious and profane like this—the actress commands the movie, a strong character to offset a number of more restrained ones. She begins working with a new client named Danny (Kevin Corrigan), who’s recently divorced and has little to do with his riches and no one to do it with. He’s bad at working out and lazy enough to post an ad offering to pay someone $200 to come figure out how to turn the TV on. (The guy who arrives mostly instructs Danny on the on/off button.)

Danny’s also the kind of guy that posts a selfie of himself eating a slice of pizza while shirtless. This is a sad man in need, and his trainer tries to help him. But it turns out she’s missing something too, complicating their relationship as well as Kat’s with her boss/fellow trainer, Trevor (Guy Pearce, who Bujalski says was a teen bodybuilder, FYI), with whom she has a history.

This is the first Bujalski (“Computer Chess,” “Beeswax,” “Mutual Appreciation”) movie I’ve liked, partly because “Results” actually has pacing and a way into a story that actually goes somewhere. The laughs may be small, but sometimes it’s all right for a character-driven comedy to hold your attention and make you smile/chuckle rather than crack up at its wackiness. All of these people have something attainable that they want, but none of them really know how to get it, and they usually focus more on what they don’t have (a different body, money, sex, opportunity or otherwise) rather than what they do. Bujalski injects the truth that having or not having certain things, particularly money or the body you want, sometimes comes from a result of arbitrary elements people don’t decide.

Not every motivation really makes sense here, and “Results” kinda moves in fits and starts. Yet what begins as a study of potentially hopeless self-improvement becomes a funny, appealing look at loneliness and the motivations behind life’s little fixes.

Patrick Wilson, playing another guy who can't resist. #Sundance # zipper

John Cho quotes a movie he loves. #Sundance #groundhogday #zipper

Dianna Agron on resisting temptation. #Sundance #zipper

Penelope Mitchell quotes a movie she loves. #Sundance #zipper

Alexandra Breckenridge has been on a million shows, wishes she could do these. #Sundance #zipper