Another year is behind us. It’s time to reflect on the movies that made 2017 special. These are the 11 films (why stop at the arbitrary round number of 10?) that filled me with the most hope for the cinematic medium in the last calendar year. Read up on them here, then head out to see them, and on New Year’s Day 2019, we’ll do this again for a whole new set of great movies.
 |
| Photo credit: Get Out/IMDb |
Oh, and by the way, these are in alphabetical order. I don’t have an official ranking here, so please, no “How can you place X above Y?!” arguments. And the usual caveats apply here: I still haven't seen several movies that may potentially upend this list (I'm looking at you, Phantom Thread and The Post). Anyway, let's get to it.
Get Out
The first truly great film of 2017 hasn’t left my mind after I saw it on opening night in February. With Get Out, writer-director Jordan Peele became the most exciting young filmmaker in Hollywood to me. This thriller having its finger on the pulse of the nation’s conversations about race would make it worthy on its own, but Peele isn’t content with merely having something important to say about America’s hangups with racism. Every minor detail in Peele’s script pays off in ways that are sometimes horrific, sometimes hilarious—and always brilliant. Every shot and every cut are tuned just right to generate the most squirms and the most delight. It’s a movie in which everything works as intended, and I can’t wait to see more like it—by this film’s creative force and by those he inspires.
A Ghost Story
I didn’t see a more realistic depiction of grief in 2017 than Rooney Mara eating too much pie. Director David Lowery followed up one of 2016’s best family films (Pete’s Dragon) with 2017’s most heartbreaking with nothing more than a bed sheet draped over a silent Casey Affleck, whose ghost ambles around the home he shared with his wife (Mara) before his death in a car accident. In death, Affleck’s musician character has time to go over every mistake he made, every time he wasn’t present for the woman he loved, and he discovers grace in the process. He may not be able to make up for his actions (or inactions) in the afterlife, but he can be with his wife as a silent companion even long after he’s gone.
Kedi
The cats who wander Istanbul’s streets mean more to that city’s denizens than the stray animals you see in your neighborhood. They aren’t quite house pets, but they’re beloved. They aren’t quite employees, but they help out around shops and restaurants. Their presence has a calming effect on a people roiled by the massive societal change happening in Turkey, where secularism once reigned. Documentarian Ceyda Torun finds inventive ways to track kitties through drainage pipes, cluttered storage rooms, and cramped boats, always in search of lovely serenity.
Lady Bird
Every detail in Greta Gerwig’s semi-autobiographical film about a girl’s (Saoirse Ronan) final year of high school rings true—achingly, honestly true. Crushes and disappointments abound in “Lady Bird’s” (she gave the nickname to herself) love life, she is both understanding and disappointed in her family’s money struggles, and she is, like all teenagers, a mess of conflicting emotions. Her mistakes bite her in agonizing ways, but not in ways her good heart can’t overcome. Plus Laurie Metcalf is the most layered screen mom in anything I’ve seen in years.
Lost In Paris
Farcical and physical comedy rule the day in this athletic and sweet movie from writers-directors-stars Fiona Gordon and Dominique Abel. The two dance, trip, and blunder their way through Paris like Buster Keaton while Gordon’s character searches for her missing elderly aunt, whose side adventure resembles the many hijinks Charlie Chaplin’s Tramp character found himself in all the time. Those silent film comedians and their contemporaries take up a lot of real estate in Gordon and Abel’s hearts, and the long-out-of-fashion filmmaking techniques from the 1920s find a caring home here. It’s a home I hope to visit often.
Mother!
I love it when a movie is unafraid to go big. Mother! goes gargantuan. Although he focuses only on one woman who’s trying very hard to be accommodating (Jennifer Lawrence), her frustrated artist husband who can’t get enough attention (Javier Bardem), and their unwanted house guests, director Darren Aronofsky gives his take on the history of humanity, the Bible, and pretty much every big question known to people. It’s exhausting and enthralling, wretched and gorgeous, and deeply, darkly hilarious.
Mudbound
Netflix finally broke through and produced great movies in 2017 (see the next one on this list for further proof). Mudbound tackles how America responds to heroism differently depending on the color of the hero’s skin. Two families living on the same land in the Deep South, one black and one white, show just how tough it is for this country to get past racial differences even when people’s situations are fundamentally the same thing. This is a hard movie to watch at times, but it’s too full of necessary lessons about connection and disconnection to pass it up.
Okja
The meat industry is a fundamentally cruel thing that tortures millions of innocent creatures every year before slaughtering them because they taste good. That’s a bleak theme for a movie that is so otherwise sweet, funny, and adventurous, but hey, it’s important to remember. South Korean director Bong Joon Ho appears to have fully transitioned to Hollywood filmmaking after this and 2014’s Snowpiercer, and boy oh boy, are we lucky to have him. His eye for satire, especially in partnering with Tilda Swinton to create a character who is fueled by garishness and deep insecurities, is the type of necessary criticism we overstuffed Americans need more often.
Personal Shopper
The second ghost story on this list is a wholly different animal from the first. Kristen Stewart plays a low-level fashion industry employee in Paris who mourns the recent death of her twin brother. Her processing of her feelings, her growing disinterest in her job, and her desire to get out and do something, anything, different make this perhaps Stewart’s most extraordinary role to date. Each scene of paranormal activity doesn’t just give chills—you feel the temperature drop as if the ghost has walked through you, too. French director Olivier Assayas has fun by borrowing from other genres (especially thrillers) and sprinkling in the odd murder here and the threatening text message there. The only true flaw in this movie is in how Stewart’s character responds to those texts: She annoyingly adds an extra space before all punctuation and it’ll drive you nuts. That’s probably on purpose. Dang it, Assayas, you’ve gotten me to convince myself into liking that.
Prevenge
A woman’s (Gemma Whelan) unborn baby convinces her to murder people. What more could you want in a horror comedy (emphasis on the horror)? Actor Alice Lowe makes her directorial debut here, and it’s deliriously fun. Each kill is equal parts haplessness and cold-blooded artistry, and Whelan’s disdain for the humans around her (they are, admittedly, pretty crummy folks, even if they shouldn’t die for that) is so delicious.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
We got our first great Star Wars movie in nearly 40 years in 2017. I love The Last Jedi because it redefines what it means to be a hero in this universe. The old Rebels from the original trilogy have broken. They know what total failure looks like, and especially what it feels like. Gone are the rash, shoot-from-the-hip decisions that only succeeded thanks to “the Force” (but really pure luck). In their place is balance, measure, and the desire to protect that which is good at all costs, rather than simply destroying a few bad things. They care more about regrouping and building up something worth being proud of, even in the face of total defeat. In that, The Last Jedi becomes perhaps the most secretly hopeful film in the series.
Happy new year, everyone.
No comments:
Post a Comment