Top Films of 2021

 

The Top Films of 2021

And here we are, still wrapped up in a pandemic, but seemingly able to start returning to life. We spent another year mostly confined to our houses, turning our home theaters into the focus of our labor, leisure, and entertainment. Box office receipts may never recover to the levels we saw before COVID, but our time spent watching and streaming content has never been greater. The benefit of this rather strange environment is that we now have easier access to art house movies, foreign films, and experimental features, which all may have struggled to find audiences and financial viability. The amount of foreign films garnering Oscar nominations in categories outside of International Feature is extremely high this year: Flee, Worst Person in the World, Drive My Car, and Parallel Mothers all received multiple nominations. This augurs the possibility of the Oscars becoming a truly international film honor. This is certainly not to say that not every year has a set of audacious, stirring films from around the globe, but Americans' aversion to subtitles has made their incursion into the domestic market a rare feat. The proliferation of streaming platforms provides a venue by which these films can be viewed by broad audiences. If this could provincialize American films and open our eyes to the wider world, then all the better for all of us. 

1. The Power of the Dog. Jane Campion's strange, disturbing depiction of Montana in 1925 sets forth the tale of dueling male archetypes in the Wild West. The film is imbued with an ominous atmosphere, nothing is right in this mountainous territory. The landscape may be stunning, but there lies rottenness at the core. Benedict Cumberbatch's erudite, Yale-educated rancher embodies a certain Whitmanesque vision of manliness and he is repulsed and attracted to the long-limbed, awkward adolescent who is son to a widow innkeeper. The tension between these two threatens to explode, especially after Cumberbatch has driven the Twink's mother to the bottle and has subdued her to the point of oblivion with his mind games. The way Campion turns her incisive gaze on these competing men, who both understand deeply that they fail as men, is an illuminating and disturbing vision of how these demands to uphold masculinity can eat one's soul. 

2. Drive My Car. A three-hour movie about a recently widowed Japanese theatre director who is helming a multi-lingual version of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya with much of the plot taking place in his chauffeured Saab sounded like a slog. I was dreading seeing this. I was told repeatedly by several that no one was forcing me to see this, but the reviews were rapturous. It is undeniably long; the opening credits do not appear until the fortieth minute (!). The emotional payoff at the end is worth the time devoted to watch this tale of a man overcoming the ambivalent emotions that come from grief. Each detail becomes crucial to understanding the emotional trajectory, and each supporting character is shaded in surprising and unique ways. The film is thematically and visually rich. Even if it is difficult to set aside three hours and the intense concentration needed for this narrative, it is well worth the investment. 

3. Flee. This Danish animated documentary is visually rich and remarkable in detailing the experience of a gay Afghan refugee who fled Afghanistan after the Soviet War of the 1980s. The film is animated to mask the identity of the film's subject, but so much is added in telling his story in this inventive fashion. The impact of escaping war and suffering human trafficking is made immediate through Jonas Rasmussen's deft direction. On top of the trauma he faces, he must face his emerging sexual identity and how his culture demonizes it. For a film that follows such dark instances of human failure, the film ends on a surprisingly hopeful note. Maybe we can all muddle through this thing we call life. 

4. The Lost Daughter. Maggie Gyllenhaal never struck me as the next actress that would become an auteur, but with this adaptation of an Elena Ferrante novel, we have our latest female gaze. Olivia Colman, in yet another layered, complicated performance that she can whip out so effortlessly, is struggling on a new book project and gathering her thoughts on a Greek island vacation, but this trip surfaces many of her uncomfortable memories of her previous marriage and its demise and her true, deep ambivalence to being a mother. The film does a superb job of giving us female characters who are unsure of their relationship to their children and yet does not demonize them. We have spent decades watching movies about terrible fathers who are somehow still sympathetic, but the bad mother is always a monster. This film quite simply asks what if she's just human? It's a revolutionary question to pose. 

5. Passing. How Ruth Negga is somehow not the leading contender to win Best Supporting Actress for her fine-tuned performance of a woman passing in 1920s New York, I will never know. I may have been surprised that Maggie could turn in such a precise film with the Lost Daughter, but I was bowled over by Rebecca Hall's directorial debut. Her adaptation of Nella Larsen's novel had a very personal meaning to her because it allowed her to understand her mother, the operatic soprano Maria Ewing, who passed for white for much of her life. Tessa Thompson runs into an old school acquaintance and realizes that she has now passed her life as white and has even married a man with deep racist sentiments. The beautiful cinematography lends an elevated light and casts everything in black and white, but those shades of gray are where we all live. 

6. Tick, tick boom. A musical biopic of Jonathan Larsen based on his incomplete musical one-man show seems like a tough sell for a movie, but with Andrew Garfield in the lead and the deep care brought to bear by Lin-Manuel Miranda, the film became an ode to Broadway. This is worth watching for the beautiful act one finale that references Sondheim's Sunday and marches in a bevy of Broadway stars, including Andre deShields, Chita, and Bernadette. Garfield is the energetic master of this film, and he proves that he can lead any movie. Along with his complicate and sympathetic portrayal of Jim Bakker, this is really his year. 

7. Worst Person in the World. Why do we always assume women have it more together than men? This Norwegian film follows a young woman just emerging from her adolescence and years in college to realize that the real world is not a lark. She finds herself in a complicated relationship, only to realize that she isn't thrilled with this. Nor does she love her retail job, but when she ditches one man for another, she realizes that the grass ain't greener, and she realizes that life is just a series of weird choices and you'll never know if you're doing anything right. At one point she surmises, "the things I always worried about were never the things that caused me pain." Joachim Trier has done a remarkably fine job subverting the male gaze, and gave Renate Reinsve a star-making turn. 

8. Encanto. We may not talk about Bruno, but we should. What a delightful Disney family flick. This tale of an enchanted family who has one misfit daughter who sticks out for her lack of magic is a simple delight, and shows that Disney can still harness its specific brand of movie magic. It looks like Lin-Manuel Miranda will become our latest EGOT this year, when he picks up the statuette for Best Song; however, I wish the music branch had nominated the Bruno song for that honor. 

9. Mass. This dark character study follows the aftermath of a mass shooting at a high school, but the incisive writing and acting allows us a firsthand look at how the damage of such a shooting affects the families of the victims and the perpetrators. Is forgiveness even possible? A quartet of great character actors (Martha Plimpton, Ann Dowd, Reed Birney, and Jason Isaacs) dominate the screen as they struggle to come to terms with their loss, their grief, and their unfathomable anger at what disaster has been unleashed. the nuance is in itself a marvel and provocative on its own terms. It avoids easy sermons, and leaves you uneasy as to what your own reaction to this situation would be.  

10. Summer of Soul. Questlove had long been fascinated with a Harlem Arts Festival that took place in the summer of 1969, but was long overshadowed by Woodstock. He spent years piecing together videos of the concerts and gave us this delightful documentary of a forgotten moment in the history of black excellence. Hundreds of thousands of denizens of Harlem gathered together to see Gladys Knight and the Pips, the Fifth Dimension, Sly and the Family Stone, and Nina Simone play their greatest hits. At the very same instance, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were walking on the moon. When reporters asked them why they weren't at home watching history being made, festival goers would say, "why watch all that money being spent to go to the moon when we have so many problems down here?" Virtually, the same sentiment my generation argued when the US became deeply enmeshed in endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. History doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme. 

11. The Green Knight. This interpretation of a medieval text slipped by most audiences. This retelling of Sir Gawain and his hero's journey to rediscovery demonstrated how these texts still have the power to rouse us today. It felt relevant and compelling (and more so than Joel Coen's rather lugubrious Macbeth), and gave us a sumptuous visual feast with a layered performance from Dev Patel, proving that historical film can, in fact, have a colorblind cast. 

12. Dune. It appeared impossible that we would ever have a decent cinematic version of Frank Herbert's sci-fi saga of imperialism and mysticism. Jodorowsky could not get financing for his vision; David Lynch failed mightily in his David Bowie-Ziggy Stardust fantasia. Denis Villeneuve, however, managed to craft an adaptation that held true to the original while bringing it into our century in a changing artistic medium. Although this is the first part and it could have been culled a bit--Zendaya was only in a handful of minutes of this film if you delete all her appearances in Timothée's dreams--but we have an encouraging take on how sci-fi can be both more cinematic than the endless stream of Marvel movies, and grapple with some serious philosophical issues. 

13. The French Dispatch. Wes Anderson does as Wes Anderson does. If you do not like fey characters, in twee settings, you will never like these set pieces, but oh the notes he can strike. This homage to the world of The New Yorker is delightful and is embedded with performances from Anderson's stable of stock players (Tilda, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson) and some turns by recent additions (such as the winsome turn from Benicia del Toro as a troubled and incarcerated outsider artist). The visuals are neat, and the cast has fun with what they are given. There are some troubling weaknesses; the final storyline does not add much value, but why not surround yourself in his aesthetic for 110 minutes? 

14. The Hand of God. Paolo Sorrentino's ode to his childhood in Naples may have divided some audiences, but this tale about an awkward teenager spending a summer devoted to soccer and film in the early 1980s presents an enthralling bildungsroman narrative. This coming-of-age tale combines the beauty of the world with the concomitant agony that comes with life. They're both necessary for us to feel connected to anyone else. That's the power of a well-told story: allowing us to accept that truism. 

15. Parallel Mothers. Oh, how I love a film following a woman on the edge of a nervous breakdown. And this year, we had a trio of such masterpieces. Lost Daughter, Worst Person in the World, and Almodóvar's Parallel Mothers brought us complicated female characters who were having difficult experiences and attempting to bring a semblance of sanity to their uneven lives. In Parallel Mothers, we find Penelope Cruz becoming accidentally pregnant, but difficulties ensue when she discovers that she didn't give birth to the baby she's raising. The film interweaves her trauma and grief with Spain's trauma as it continues to come to terms with the generation of men killed by fascists during the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s. so clearly linking personal trauma with historical national pain could have resulted in a confusing, heavy-handed narrative, but Almodóvar has the light (but at times camp) touch to make this balancing act work. 

16. The Humans. This film, based on a play by Stephen Karam, shortlisted for the Pulitzer, brings us a mess of a Thanksgiving dinner hosted by a struggling young couple in Manhattan's Chinatown. They are both eking out a living: one in grad school for social work, the other attempting to pursue creative work. Her family has driven down and the internecine warfare of family members continues apace. It turns out everyone thinks they hold on a monopoly on misery, but each member of the family is equally depressed. Amy Schumer is surprisingly good in a dramatic role, and she holds her own in a talented cast headed by Richard Jenkins, Steven Yeun, and Tony winner Jayne Houdyshell. But beware, this is a real downer. 

17. The Mitchells vs. the Machines. I loathed "Don't Look Up." Just hated it. How can I take a satire of our modern media landscape when several members of the cast and crew (I am looking at you, Tyler Perry, Leo, and Adam McKay) are as implicated in that landscape (and profit handily from it)? Further I prefer my satires to be humorous. The Mitchells vs the Machines manages to satirize our media landscape in a way that is illuminating, surprising, and funny. The Mitchells are a rather sad bunch, who cannot get their acts together, but when a big tech company somehow unleashes a robo-apocalypse on the globe, the Mitchells are the only family that can save humanity. They manage to do it, and you feel better for having watched this family unite to battle evil. 

18. CODA.  Last year, Sound of Metal was one of my favorite films, but the deaf community had some serious concerns, especially in the fact that CODA Paul Raci played deaf. In this film, we have three deaf actors, including Oscar winner Marlee Matlin, surrounding a hearing child, and the ensuing dynamics and drama of such a family provided us with one of the sentimental hits of the year--and far superior to Branagh's "Belfast." The film is marred by its rather silly and fantastical storyline of this girl somehow getting into Juilliard based on a lackluster rendition of Joni Mitchell, but the heart wrenching scene where she bids farewell to her family as she sets off to college should wring a tear from even the coldest, stoniest hearts. 

19. Licorice Pizza. PT Anderson has long been the bard of the San Fernando Valley. He had branched out to far-flung territories with his complex portrayal of a British fashion designer in 1950s London in "Phantom Thread." He returned to his homeland with this year's comedy, Licorice Pizza. This may be Anderson's chance to win an Oscar for writing after nominations for "There will be Blood" and "Boogie Nights," but this film a bit lightweight after the complicated themes and imagery he has navigated in his previous work. However, the undeniably delightful set piece of driving a delivery truck backwards through the canyons as a crazed Jon Peters chases these water-bed merchants gave us one of the pure visual delights of the year. 

20. Nightmare Alley. Guillermo del Toro's remake of a 1947 film noir attempts to restore the devilishly dark ending to this tale of a group of misfit carnival barkers. In the original film, Tyrone Power is redeemed at the last possible second by his girlfriend and saved from a life of alcoholism and becoming a sideshow spectacle. That, however, betrayed the darkness of the original novel. Del Toro has restored the bleak finale of the novel to this film, which is a powerful image. I just wish I could have foregone having to watch Bradley Cooper for two-and-a-half hours. Cate Blanchett is a devious, fascinating femme fatale, portraying a lady psychologist who deploys her Freudian theory in an effort to play Bradley Cooper. I just wish I could have plopped the suave Tyrone Power in the stead of Cooper. Now, that would have been a sideshow to which you could have stepped right up. 

21. Luca. Pixar's charming fable about sea creatures who can exist on land (as long as they don't touch water) was a charming visual tale with its own little queer sensibility. Luca and Alberto are a type of male friendship we rarely encounter in animated films. Wise beyond their years, yet naive to the human world surrounding them, they risk danger to experience human connection in the Italian Riviera. As Pixar has cornered the market on sentimentality with a streak of well-earned wisdom, Luca is now just the latest addition to their library of valuable films. 

22. Cruella. Who knew that one of the freshest most enjoyable films I would see in the theater this year would be a live action remake of 101 Dalmatians, especially when we had two of these in the 1990s with Glenn Close. I went into this just thinking that it would be a distraction from the world and it would be fine, but this delightful romp through the London fashion scene with the dueling Emmas (Stone and Thompson) defied expectations. There was high fashion, there were high jinks, there was comedy, and a compelling backstory for one of our favorite villains. 

Films that failed to thrill me. 

Old. Exactly what we needed this year: a movie about evil clinical trials on a secluded island that mysteriously ages people. What a mess. 

West Side Story. The critics fell over themselves to praise this, and it garnered multiple Oscar nominations. But what did it do that the original film did not. Making everyone's backstory so explicit was dull, and even though some of the camerawork was stunning (but why so many lens flares?!?) and could not have been attempted in 1961, the film felt lifeless. And let us stop trying to make Ansel Elgort a leading man, please. 

Belfast. Of course, Judi Dench can do no wrong in my book, and I was thrilled to see her receive her 8th Oscar nomination this year, even if it was for this weird, vacillating movie. The film manages to give one whiplash as the audience is led down the travails of a Catholic family facing violence in Protestant Belfast, but then interspersed with bizarre zany family anecdotes. If the film built to the trauma of sectarian violence, or if the humor was handled as a strategy to cope with the devastation, that would make sense. The way it is currently structured, it doesn't make a lot of sense. 

Don't Look Up. I just hated it. Everything about it. Loathed it. I hated the acting--I think Meryl was not good in it. I hated the editing. I hated the wink, wink, nudge, nudge tone. All of it. Hated it. 

House of Gucci. Now this camptastic mess was actually enjoyable--just not in the way intended. What did Ridley Scott do? It was as if every actor was in his/her own little universe. Adam Driver valiantly tried to create a subtle characterization, as Jared Leto in a fat suit went around sobbing in a bonkers Mario Bros. accent. Jeremy Irons who plays one of the heads of the Gucci family decides no Italian accent for him, since I guess he is Jeremy Irons. And then there's Gaga. She's actually fine, but her desperate, blatant attempt to get an Oscar nomination was such a sad, strange thing to witness that it actually made the performance seem sillier as she told any interviewer who would listen how she used every Meisner, Adler, Stanislavsky trick she could find. Her greatest line may have been in an LA Times Zoom round table where she asked several other actresses: "Do you guys ever get drunk off the prop drinks?" Umm no, said everyone in unison.