A guide to the Philadelphia Film Society's Spring Showcase, the one chance to see certain movies in a local theater

THE KIDS AREN’T ALL RIGHT: God Help the Girl, the directorial debut of Belle and Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch, is just one of the films premiering at PFS’s Spring Showcase.

Giving Philadelphians a jump on the months to come, and a shot at a few movies that may not open here at all (don’t hold your breath waiting for Kim Ki-Duk’s Moebius to return), the Philadelphia Film Society’s Spring Showcase crams 17 one-off showings into a long weekend, followed by a more leisurely four-day tribute to Alfonso Cuaron.

There’s plenty to choose from, but if you have to narrow it to one movie, the answer is simple: Frank. One of the best movies at Sundance and already a shoo-in for my year-end list, the story of an aspiring musician who lucks into an art-rock band headed by a singer with a giant papier-mâché head is not an easy one to summarize without sounding ridiculous — which makes the fact that it works all the more delightful. The singer is played by Michael Fassbender, whose comely face is judiciously hidden from view, and this decision only deepens the sense of gleeful strangeness, while also serving as an extratextual comment on the absurdity of financing “difficult” films. While Frank’s early going earns it a place in the cult canon, it doesn’t prepare you for the emotional wallop of its final act, which among other things centers on an insightful depiction of the pros and cons of social-media fame.

When Richard Ayoade told me he was following up his modest but intensely pleasing debut, Submarine, with an adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s The Double, I wondered what his second feature would actually end up being. But with Jesse Eisenberg as his protagonist(s), he pulled it off, though Ayoade’s The Double is more impressive than it is satisfying. Dropping the novel’s Russian setting for a Stygian warren of crumbling apartment buildings and cramped offices, the movie is as much Kafka, via Terry Gilliam, as it is Dostoyevsky, but Ayoade and co-writer Avi Korine don’t share their fear of (or pride in) persecution. The identical man who appears at Eisenberg’s workplace and proceeds to outdo him at his own life isn’t part of some shadowy conspiracy; in fact, his ascent is deliberately unexplained. That gives the movie the requisite sense of existential paranoia, but it feels pasted-on rather than bone deep, a pastiche of influences that never quite becomes its own distinct thing.

Written and directed by Belle and Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch, God Help the Girl is a winsome musical about eating disorders and a crisis of faith — yes, another one of those — and if neither the sometimes clunky visual nor even the songs are Murdoch at his best, it feels in some ways like a Rosetta stone for his body of work, the most naked exploration of themes that he typically buries. (Let’s just say the “God” in the title is not merely idiomatic.) In bowler hats and berets, Emily Browning looks like a twee-pop Jeanne Moreau, but the movie’s nearly stolen out from under her by best friend Hannah Murray, whose amiable gangliness is so genuine I was surprised to find out she was an experienced actress. Belle and Sebastian fans, of course, need no urging to see it, but it’s also recommended for anyone who’s ever wished screen musicals had followed in Jacques Demy’s footsteps rather than Bob Fosse’s.

By the time Sundance was over, Kat Candler’s Hellion ran a distant second for movies about families dealing with the loss of a parent (sadly, no sign of The Babadook in the PFS Showcase). But it’s a fine, if not enormously inventive drama, held down by Aaron Paul’s soulful turn as a grieving father and especially by newcomer Josh Wiggins as his teenage son, whose hurt and anger steer him to increasingly dangerous places. Movies about sullen, traumatized teens aren’t rare, but Candler is exceptionally good at keeping track of the child inside the not-quite-man, including a deliriously on-point scene where Wiggins gorges himself on whipped cream, cranks up the Metallica and bounces on the furniture, the threat of looming maturity staved off for a few restorative minutes.

In addition to the new movies — Obvious Child, The One I Love and Wetlands are among those coming to town with above-average buzz — PFS has slated a complete retrospective of Alfonso Cuaron’s films, with most being shown on 35 mm, including the 2-D version of Gravity. For those who are only familiar with his blockbuster work, early movies like Y Tu Mama Tambien and the misunderstood Great Expectations are essential. At this point, it’s safer to assume that every 35 mm screening is the last time around, so it’s worth making these showings a priority and wait-ing for the newer films’ return engagements.

Fri.-Thu., April 11-17, $13 per screening, PFS Theater at the Roxy, 2023 Sansom St., 267-639-9508, filmadelphia.org/springshowcase.