The Best Films of the Annus Horribilis of 2020

The Best Films of the Annus Horribilis of 2020

 

 It has never taken me until late April to compile my best films of the previous year, but then again I have not lived through a global pandemic previously. However, the protracted awards season has brought us one unqualified positive: the widespread availability of most of this year's nominees on streaming platforms, even live action shorts, independent features, and documentaries. This will be a strange Academy Awards, regardless of who wins, and Hollywood seems deeply worried about a cratering of the ratings.  But without further ado: my top films of the odd year that was 2020.

1. Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Director Céline Sciamma constructed a beautiful film following the passionate affiar of two women in 18th-century France.Stolen glances, furtive touches, veils, windy beaches, portraits in candlelight! It's almost too much beauty to bear. With Sciamma's penetrating eye, we have scenes of lesbian passion that never feel framed by the male gaze. The film sidesteps much of the characters' politics, which could have made for some interesting storytelling in a film set in the deacades leading up to France's great internal conflagration, but that is a complaint akin to "you didn't make the movie I wanted you to make." Rather taken on its own terms, the film upends the stories we expect about female sexuality, and it opens up the door to new ways to fashion such narratives, even in the rarefied world of the costume drama.

2. Sound of Metal. Riz Ahmed gave one of the finest performances of the year as a heavy metal drummer who loses his hearing virtually overnight. The film's intricate and stunning sound design manifests the experience of sudden hearing loss in a terrifying manner. The terror and desperation faced by this character whose life has been predicated on music seems to be slipping away. His fast rejection of the advice of the deaf people with whom he is brought into conflict leads to the real tragedy of the film as he fights futilely against his new reality. This film may have the finest final shot of any film this year, when Riz Ahmed sits in a park and for the first time experiences the silence. A truly remarkable film and performance.

3. Promising Young Woman. I was shocked to discover that Emerald Fennell, who wrote and directed this incisive and witty riposte to our culture of sexual assault, plays Camilla Parker Bowles on the Crown. Most of my surprise came from the fact that she ceded this brilliant part to another actress, rather than giving it to herself (à la Damon, Affleck, Billy Bob, Costner). However, when that actress is the sublime Carey Mulligan, I can understand the sentiment. Shockingly, Fennell had to fight for this casting; studio executives and financiers kept pushing for Margot Robbie, because they felt that the part was only believable with a hotter (?!) actress. Carey Mulligan, who received an Oscar nomination over a decade ago for the charming and serious An Education, shines as Cassie who is set to avenge herself and her best friend for crimes they suffered while in medical school. She pretends to be drunk to entice seemingly "good guys" to take her home to see if they attempt to take advantage of her vulnerability. They invariably do, when she then pounces on them seeming to awaken from her stupor to ask: What are you doing? It is such a clever, shocking device. The film clearly has a political edge for this moment, but it questions intentions and the ethics of it all. It is a complex, fascinating tale that ends up raising more questions than providing any firm answers.

4. Minari. This touching story of Korean immigrants attempting to make it in the farmlands of Arkansas was more melancholic than I expected, but it is buoyed by a stunning performance from Yuh-Jung Youn as the cantankerous grandma of the clan. The film's vitality comes from its attention to how this family negotiates not only its presence in this seeming alien land of the southern midwest, but how it also transforms their relations with each other, fraying the bonds of some and bringing together others. The alst half hour may have one too many plot twists resulting in feeling overwhelmed--and then the conclusion is a tranquil shot of trimming the Minari plants that seemed jarring--but the film tells us a truly American story that we have never seen before. 

5. Never Rarely Sometimes Always. Eliza Hittman's harrowing look at a teenager seeking an abortion is anchored by two outstanding performances from Sidney Flanagan and Talia Ryder, as the camera follows them from Pennsylvania (where state law mandates that parents must sign off on the procedure) to Manhattan, where even in deep-blue New York waiting periods must be followed. Every male character in this film is a potential threat and unwilling to live up to any responsibility. The film ends as a searing indictment of our current policies around choice and demonstrates conclusively that women will always suffer for policy choices that are sold to the populace as "common sense," when in fact they are reactionary moves that end up denying women the ability to make medical decisions over their own bodies. 

6. I Care A Lot. This dark comedy provides an extraordinary vehicle for Rosamund Pike to display her gifts. Pike plays a despicable guardian of the state to elderly patients that she has conned into signing over to her their power of attorney. She has crafted an ingenious way to defraud the elderly while wrapping her avaricious ways in a seemingly benign cloak of caring and protecting those who cannot care for themselves. This all goes awry when she attempts to prey on Dianne Wiest, who unbeknownst to Pike, is the mother of a Russian mobster. It is a tense and taut thriller pierced with some much needed humor, and leads to an unexpected, sardonic ending. Sometimes the most entertaining rides are taken with some of the most vile characters.

7. Mrs. America. In a year where we streamed everything, the lines between television and film became even more blurred. Can anyone precisely label a film, miniseries, or television movie with any accuracy anymore? No. Gloria Steinem may not have enjoyed this expansive look at the unwieldy influence that Phyllis Schlafly wielded in the GOP during the 1970s, but the miniseries that depicts the women's liberation movement and the backlash generated by the proposed Equal Rights Amendment provides detailed portrayals of the many voices in support and against that landmark legislation (which was never ratified, thanks partly to Schlafly). With an all-star cast that saw Uzo Aduba as Chisholm, tracey Ullman as Friedan, Margo Martindale as Bella Abzug, and Cate the Great Blanchett, there was always some fascinating detail in the performances to provide insight into this historical moment that we never truly left behind.

8. Pieces of a Woman. Another harrowing story about pregnancy in America. The film opens with a thirty-minute saga of Vanessa Kirby having a difficult birth with only her husband (Shia) and her doula on site. The complications worsen and finally the baby dies shortly after birth. The rest of the film, based on a Hungarian play, follows the dissolution of the extended family as they grapple with the effects of this trauma. Kirby's mother, played by Ellen Burstyn in a performance almost as explosive as her Oscar-nominated part in Requiem for a Dream, demands justice for her dead grandchild, while her daughter has more ambivalence towards this, and Shia just flutters in the background unsure of everything. It concludes as a story of a woman putting the pieces of her life back together, and mostly without the aid of anyone around her.

9. Quo Vadis, Aida? This movie about the massacre of Srebrenica in July 1995 demonstrates what a great film can accomplish. It educates about a terrible historical incident, but moreover it deepens the understanding by relating that story through the affecting story of one of its victims. We follow a UN interpreter (played by Jasna Djuricic, who should have been nominated for Best Actress), as she fights to have her family protected from the invading Serbain forces led by convicted war criminal General Ratko Mladic as he begins his methodical killing of Muslim men in Bosnia. Spoiler alert, it does not end happily, but the film does portrays the terror and grief of this trauma poignantly. The film will stay with you for days and weeks after you finish it. 

10. Ammonite. This year's other historical lesbian melodrama. This time Kate Winslet is a 19th-century paleontologist in Lime who collects fossils at the beach. She is saddled with the ailing wife of a rich gentleman scientist (played by Saoirse Ronan, in the type of waifish but steely women that she has now cornered the market on). Once again, furtive glances, stolen touches, Kate draws her by candlelight (is this a nod to Titanic??), and they engage in several very graphic sex scenes. This film was made for me, and perhaps only for me.

11. The Mole Agent. The most charming documentary of the year follows a recently widowed senior in Chile who responds to a help wanted post in his local newspaper in order to take his mind off his grief. He is tasked with infiltrating into a nursing home to investigate whether any elderly abuse is taking place. He finds a nursing home that is run competently, but filled with aging women who feel abandoned and alone. He becomes a calming presence and friendly ear to these ladies. It is a charming, heartwarming piece that provides you with a few glimpses of the best of humanity in a year where that appears to be in short supply.

12. Another Round. Have you ever wondered what it would be like if you went to work every day really drunk? Well, then this movie is for you. Mads Mikkelson convinces a group of his fellow teacher friends that they would be better at their jobs if they just got really drunk before classes started. It all starts out as a bit of a hoot and holler, until in normal Danish fashion we take a turn for the worst, and everything goes awry. Afterwards, my inclination to grab another drink diminished in a statistically significant way. 

13. Crip Camp. This inspiring documentary that charts a summer camp created for disabled children in the 1970s ends up becoming a detailed history of the disability rights movement and the passage of the Americans with Disability Act. Many of the kids who attended this camp realized that a world that accommodated them was possible and radicalized and galvanized them to effect substantial changes to how disabled Americans are treated in this country. 

14. Palm Springs. If I had seen this movie in the summer of 2019 at a movie theater on a warm July night at the Arclight before grabbing a drink in Hollywood, it would have hit different than when I watched it on my couch after sitting staring at these same four walls for almost nine months. I would have thought this quirky comedy that is Groundhog Day meets string theory was just a cute little flick; however, after months and months of living our own weird feedback loop out of which we cannot escape, this film took on much deeper philosophical implications. Maybe like Andy Samberg, I am sick and tired of being trapped here, but simultaneously the comforts of home provide real solace, and perhaps I don't want to venture out of this pandemic. In short, this movie shook me. 

15. News of the World. Hollywood has created a bit of cottage industry of making revisionist Westerns. Westerns used to be one of the most popular genres in classical Hollywood, with their own set of stars (and a superstar in the form of John Wayne), but as the Native American rights movement gained momentum, these flicks began to appear more and more offensive. Starting with Little Big Man in 1970, Hollywood started asking, are the heroes of these movies the real heroes of these stories? News of the World, from Paul Greengrass, follows in the tradition set by Unforgiven, Dances with Wolves, and Hostiles (2017). This follows a Civil War vet (Tom Hanks) as he ekes out a living by traveling around Texas reading newspapers to mostly illiterate crowds who are too far removed to hear what may be happening in areas far removed from them. He gets saddled with a young girl of German descent who years before had been kidnapped by the Kiowa tribe. She had been raised by the tribe and now only speaks Kiowa and does not wish to be carted off to her only surviving white family, whom she has never met. The flaw of this film is the constant insistence on protecting this white girl's "purity" (read virginity). Would we have structured this tale in the same way if she had actually been Kiowa? Doubtful. The performance by Helena Zengel as this misunderstood captive to her circumstances is stunning.

16. Nomadland. On one hand, Chloe Zhao has marshaled her considerable talents to compose an epic story of the American pioneer myth that persists to this day. She utilizes her signature touches, such as the incorporation of non-actors into key roles of the film, and tender cinematography that captures the American landscape luminously, to tell the story of a group of nomads who travel to Amazon warehouses and national parks to make ends meet so they can commune with nature. However, the book on which this film was based was a scathing indictment of the American economy where a corporation can bankrupt their workers' pensions and leave these people high and dry, forcing them to forage for pittance in the years where they had thought they would be fully retired. Although the film addresses this in the beginning, this narrative is sidelined into one where Frances McDormand rejects offers from friends and family to house her in order chase her liberation. Jessica Bruder's reporting demonstrated just how devastating and labor-intensive are the jobs of the gig economy, and pointed out how the destruction of the social safety net has left some of our most vulnerable citizens in an untenable situation. I just wish the film had followed some of this reporting.

17. On the Rocks. Bill Murray is Rashida Jones' salacious, gossipy art dealer dad and is convinced his daughter's husband is cheating on her. He insists they must investigate. This film follows the pair as they romp through Manhattan following him in a red convertible roadster as they drink champagne and eat caviar while staking him out. It may have a bit of an anticlimactic ending, but the relationship between these two (and the appealing chemistry of our two actors) is more than worth the watch of Sofia Coppola's latest.

18. The Prom. This was one of the first movies I saw in 2020 where I wished I had been able to see it in the theater. I wanted to experience that communal high of watching actors sing and dance in an unbelievable musical number , and laugh and clap, rather than sitting on my couch in three-day-old PJs, while eating ice cream out of the carton. Of course, the film suffers from some of Ryan Murphy's usual heavy-handed insistence on originary gay trauma, and the miscasting of James Corden (wasn't Nathan Lane available??), but watching Andrew Rannells kick up his heels in the Northridge Mall, Nicole Kidman zazz it up, and Meryl chew up all the scenery was just a delight. And also, how pissed off was Patti LuPone that Meryl's character was clearly based on her and to add insult to injury, she didn't even get to play the part?!

19. The Father. What a downer. Anthony Hopkins is suffering from the effects of advancing dementia and he is beginning to lose his mind, and he realizes it. The film does an excellent job of making you realize how jarring it would be to feel as if you are swimming in quicksand. All that is solid melts into air; there is nothing to grasp. What you are convinced of is reality is simply a mirage. There is very clever production design here, too: all the sets resemble his apartment, so the audience is never certain of space and time. Hopkins is superb--and could be a big upset winner at the Oscars, but the film itself never reveals what is or isn't real, and not in a way that feels revelatory, rather you just keep thinking about the film and realize it just doesn't quite all add up. This may be the point, but this could have been constructed in a more definitive manner.

20. Emma. I sometimes resent the imposition of millennial pink and our current aesthetic obsessions on historical dramas or films based on the literary canon, but when it's Emma, it works. Anya Taylor Johnson, who found superstardom with the Queen's Gambit later in 2020, made her first mark as Jane Austen's conspiratorial, gossipy heroine. As one would expect with any Austen adaptation, the social preening of obnoxious men and the audacity of these women seeking marriages that won't wear down their souls are on full display. And you get the added kick of Josh O'Connor (who has somehow made us sympathetic to Prince Charles on the Crown) is delicious as the obsequious vicar. It's a film that tastes like candy.

21. Judas and the Black Messiah. Fred Hampton was only 21 when he was murdered in an illegal FBI raid on his home in an attempt to limit the reach of the Black Panthers. The FBI's greatest asset in gathering intel on Hampton was a teenager who they coerced into being an informant after he was captured trying to steal a car while impersonating an agent. It is a dramatic story (and shameful chapter of American history). Kaluuya is effective and Hampton, and Lakeith Stanfield has finally received the mainstream acclaim he deserves. However, these actors are clearly not teenagers, and the story has a much different impact when you think these are men in their 30s (the age of these actors). When you realize that a teen was coerced to infiltrate the Black Panthers to build a case against another teenager, the framing of the motives and intents of these characters in the film would have a much different perspective. Although I felt these performances and the film overall was quite effective, I wonder what was missed by not casting more age appropriate actors in these roles.

22. Soul. As one expects with any Pixar film, the animation is stunning. The jazz score deployed in this film following a musician who somehow gets trapped in purgatory right before his big musical break is catchy, whimsical, and thoughtful. It may not provide the same emotional wallop we have become accustomed to with these films, but nonetheless it is touching. 

23. Trial of the Chicago 7. I understand most of the Twitterverse hates this movie, and it does come with every trick that Aaron Sorkin has concocted in the last 25 years (walking and talking, courtroom reveals, idealistic characters who are confronted with their inabilities to function), but it did tell the story of the seven activists brought up on trumped up charges after the 1968 Chicago democratic convention with effective concision. There may be too many soapbox moments for these characters, and it may play with the chronology a bit too much, but tell me that JoGo's final scenes in the courtroom didn't make you reach for your handkerchief.

24. Mank.  You know, it was fine. Nice sets and costumes. But to be frank, I wish it had been 110 minutes long and was called Marion and we just followed Amanda Seyfried around as she drank champagne and made fun of Hearst and Mankiewicz. Now that would have been a good movie.

25. Ma Rainey 's Black Bottom. The cinematic adaptation of one of America's great landmark plays falters from being a bit too faithful to August Wilson's play. viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman are excellently cast. There are times where the performances could have been pared down a bit to add a bit more nuance. The one great disappointment of the film is that Davis is not allowed to sing and the voice chosen to be that of Ma Rainey does not match in any respect the timbre of Viola's earthy tones. It is just so jarring to hear. It really removes one from the experience of the movie as you wonder whose voice it is because it ain't Ma and it ain't Viola. 

And the worst of the year: 

Hillbilly Elegy. Ron Howard's misguided attempt to bring to the screen the memoir of JD Vance, the self-appointed savior of the GOP, is laughably bad. For instance, Glenn Close, in the most bizarre makeup job she has ever endured in her long career, lays in a hospital bed after a mild heart attack. Her grandson stands next to her pleading with her not to die. "JD," Glenn intones, "No one knows when they're going to die." JD exclaims before a smash cut: "Native Americans do!" Excuse me, what now? Also, pay attention to the scene where Amy Adams steals her first two Vicodin that begins her crushing addiction to opioids. She steals them from a patient and then is so high that she roller skates through the hospital. That's not how oxy works, Ron!

Music. It would be so bad it was good, if it wasn't centered on a truly offensive portrayal of an autistic child. Sia's directorial debut probably should not have been seen by the world, but it received an unexpected boost when the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., in their infinite wisdom, nominated it for Best Picture and Best Actress (at the Razzies, it won Worst Director and Worst Actress). Moreover, the film isn't even focused on the autistic teenager (played to horrifying stereotypes by child dancer Maddie Ziegler). Rather, we are following how the autistic child inspires Kate Hudson on her path to sobriety and responsibility. What I want to know is how are we supposed to buy that Kate Hudson who is in her 40s is the older sister to this teenager? "Oh," Kate exclaims when pouring out a box of legos, "playing with these when we were kids." Umm, when you were 22 and she was an infant? This doesn't make any sense. 

Dick Johnson is Dead. Here's an idea, your father is descending into dementia, why don't you make a movie where you, as his daughter, direct his death in ever-increasing bizarre scenarios. Sounds like a great way to honor your ailing father! Who wants to give me funding? Cringe.