Best Films of 2019

Best Films of 2019

I was afraid that I would be unable to come up with twenty films for 2019 that represented the best in American cinema. After seeing 33 movies in the past two weeks, I am proud to say that 20 was an attainable number. And there are still some acclaimed foreign films that I have yet to view (the latest from Almodóvar, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, etc). I offer you here below the films that made me think that in these troubled times, films can still bring us  together to feel something. 

1. Little Women. We have seen this tale adapted for the screen repeatedly. Kate Hepburn (1933), June Allyson (1949), Winona Ryder (1994) have all been acclaimed for their performances as Jo March, one of the great American literary heroines. PBS aired a miniseries with Angela Lansbury as Aunt March just two years ago. Why more Alcott now? Greta Gerwig does a masterful job tweaking our beloved novel to make it as relevant as ever. She cleverly adds some details from Alcott’s travails trying to publish her roman a clef as some of the final scenes of Jo’s narrative. Laura Dern’s Marmee tells Jo that her everlasting patience is an act that covers up her failed dreams and ambitions. Saoirse, Florence, and Timothée emote, overact, and tenderly pull at the heartstrings. I left once again affirmed in my love for Jo March.

2. Parasite. Bong Joon Ho’s analysis of class conflict in Seoul is necessary viewing for 2019. A family living in a rather wretched basement apartment schemes its way into a wealthy family’s abode designed by a world-renowned architect, replacing their entire household staff. The labyrinth even contains a secret bomb shelter unknown to the owners that contains an even more abject societal reject. The film pops off the rails in the last act and the simmering violence blows up into a perhaps unearned ritual sacrifice, but rarely does a piece of contemporary film portray the fissures among classes in such an intelligent fashion. 

3. 1917. Sam Mendes is an actor’s director, to the point that when he had begun his directorial process for American Beauty, quite a bit of film had to be tossed out because he had yet to grasp the technical aspects of cinema. However, twenty years later, Mendes has teamed up with Roger Deakins to give us one of the great technical marvels of the year. A two-hour film that feels like one uncut take. Deakins and editor Lee Smith have seamlessly created a film that is breathtaking in its pacing and vision. It is like Dunkirk and Darkest Hour, another British film celebrating British aloofness in the face of war, but yet there is something more here. I would be hard pressed to say the narrative structure enlightens its audience about the experience of war, but the technical marvels allow one to feel the terror and anxiety in the closest simulacrum imagined, one  that Baudrillard himself would appreciate. This is a film worth seeing on the big screen.

4. Hustlers. J. Lo does a pole dance to Fiona Apple’s ‘Criminal’ in her first appearance on screen. She walks off the stage clutching an armful of money to her bosom and walks by Constance Wu, muttering: “Doesn’t money make you hard?” That scene sets the tone for the finest performance I wager J. Lo will ever give us. As Ramona, she mentors Constance, wrapping her up in a chinchilla coat on the roof of a Manhattan nightclub on a chilly night, and the audience is treated to one of the great films about sisterhood and female alliance that has been seen outside the great women’s pictures from Warner Bros. in the 40s. I left the theater feeling empowered myself, and pushed open the double doors of the theater in the Valley with more confidence than I have ever had to one of the ushers snapping at me telling me to “work it.” I did, and so did J. Lo.

5. Chernobyl. The categories of film and television are so blurred in this platinum era of streaming that I am now including a miniseries in my cinematic rankings for the year. There were few pieces of cinema more relevant, more masterfully crafted, and more intelligently researched than this five-hour film from Craig Mazin and Johan Renck. With a glorious ensemble cast and a deft script that expertly teases out the multiple failures that allowed for the greatest nuclear catastrophe of the twentieth century, this is an expert piece of historical recreation and a warning that small policy failures can in fact wreak disaster.

6. Apollo 11. A documentary with no voiceover narration and not one single talking head, yet the most fascinating and cinematic documentary of the year. Previously unseen 70 mm footage from NASA was incorporated into this film tracing the Apollo 11 mission to the moon led by Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong. There were some liberties taken with the order of some of the footage, but it provides a first-hand account of the events of the moonwalk with the closest approximation to what the astronauts experienced.

7. Bombshell. Charlize Theron looks and sounds like Megyn Kelly so much in this film about the downfall of Roger Ailes that I spent the entire film wondering how she did it. Were there prosthetics? Not really. Was she CGI’d? I don’t think so, since Nicole Kidman simply looks like Nicole wearing a Gretchen Carlson wig. I think Charlize is just that darn good. And John Lithgow makes for a creepy Ailes encouraging Margot Robbie to “demonstrate her loyalty.” Blech.

8. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Tarantino’s alternative histories are predicated on his moral vision that the bad guys must be punished for evil deeds. We are given an ending where Sharon Tate survives and is even unaware of the terror that befell her. However, we also have a film that glorifies Manson’s acolytes burning alive, and we have very little agency allowed for Margot Robbie’s version of Tate. Everything Tarantino does has its issues, but he is never boring. (Well, Hateful 8 could have lost 30 minutes without any issue.)

9. Two Popes. Benedict is not one of my favorite people, but Anthony Hopkins in a splendid performance makes even the former Nazi and ultra-conservative pope and interesting, if flawed, character. The imagined conversations between he and the soon-to-be-anointed Pope Frank show two different Catholic worldviews as they come together in a perilous moment for the Church. It is to Benedict’s credit that he realized that the Church would need to take a different direction if it wanted to continue its existence into the 21^st century.

10. Jojo Rabbit. A comedy where Hitler is a young boy’s imaginary friend? Oh, yes, this sounds like a great idea for 2019. For the first twenty minutes, I kept wondering how this film got financed, but by the end, I was applauding through happy tears. I was as aghast as you are. The child actors are great and director Taika Waititi is the best Hitler since The Producers. This may have been the most heartwarming film of the year.

11. Midsommar. Some of this film is preposterous. If your entire family dies in a murder-suicide pact, perhaps guilt tripping your weird, passive-aggressive, inattentive boyfriend to take you on his cultural anthropology in northern Sweden should not be on the top of your list of things that have to be done. However, the visuals of this weird cult-like group in summertime in Sweden are spectacular (and the score, although heavy handed, sure adds some drama to the ambiance). The final shot of Florence Pugh smiling as she watches the barn go up in flames (I will avoid spoiling who was in the barn) is one of the most satisfying of the entire year.

12. Us. An allegory about the persistent effects of slavery on the American psyche, Jordan Peele’s latest film demonstrates that cinematic horror need not be ephemeral. Peele ensures that his films are imbued with a deeper sense of history, identity, and myth. The film is rooted in Lupita Nyong’o’s performance of a bourgeois wife and mother and her double from the underside. This film stays with you.

13. Booksmart. There was quite a bit of consternation when this smart directorial debut from Olivia Wilde underperformed at the box office. The film may have suffered from the glut of films that came out in the summer and the inertia that is now endemic from the amount of entertainment at our fingertips on the multiple streaming platforms. This tale of two overachievers, who, on the final night of high school, decide to let loose, is a wild romp in the vein of Hangover, Bridesmaids, Superbad, etc. Led by Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever, the narrative follows their exploits and does an excellent job playing with the expectations of the genre. Wilde’s acclaimed film makes her performance in Eastwood’s anti-media, anti-FBI, misogynistic flick about Richard Jewell even more inexplicable.

14. Marriage Story. “I can’t believe I have to know you forever,” shouts ScarJo at Kylo Ren, who then punches the wall. It is a fight scene that is imbued with pathos but also inflected with the hindsight humor that comes from some of our most meaningful and simultaneously petty fights. The memes satirizing this film have been great, my particular favorite being the makeup tutorial YouTuber who is filming a vid next door as this fight happens: “maybe if you can’t be together without punching a wall, you shouldn’t be together.” Amen, sister.  

15. The Souvenir. Joanna Hogg’s bildungsroman (bildungsfilm?) about her education as an artist follows Tilda Swinton’s daughter (whose mom is played by Tilda) as she embarks on art school and a relationship with a mess of a man who may or may not be employed by the foreign service; however, he is most certainly a heroin addict. I rejected the final shot where she opens a soundstage door to go walking out in to some park—what a thrilling, original metaphor!—in favor of the preceding one, where Honor Swinton breaks the fourth wall and stares intently at the viewer, seeming to challenge us to understand she is now in control of the gaze thrown at her. It is a powerful visual.

16. Good Boys. I love me a gross-out, dumbass comedy, and this tale of three prepubescent boys as they prepare for their first party in the sixth grade where they may have to (gasp) kiss a girl delivers. The sex toys mistaken for parts of some unknown adult version of dungeons and dragons, a drone held hostage for ecstasy, and the camaraderie of three boy as they enter puberty creates a light, but not lightweight, comedy of the year.

17. Uncut Gems. Adam Sandler has not given us a dramatic performance since PT Anderson’s “Punch-Drunk Love,” which is a shame because some of the work he has done in the last decade has been pure drivel (Jack and Jill, anyone?). If a role is shaped for his strengths, he can deliver a serious performance, and this Safdie Bros. film has been crafted to highlight Sandler’s every strength as an anxious jewelry merchant trying to convince Kevin Durant to buy a rare African black opal (likely illegally obtained), having a tiff with The Weeknd for hitting on his girlfriend, and battling Idina Menzel for being a bad husband. This high-octane flick makes for some white-knuckle moments from the audience who are unsure if Sandler’s character will live through this.

18. Last Black Man in California. Joe Talbot’s gorgeous ode to the Bay Area upends every assumption and expectation you may have about this film. It begins as a serious take on gentrification and the pushing out of African Americans from urban centers, but turns into a sober investigation into the myths we invent for our families and how the unmasking of these legends as nothing more than convenient lies leads to a the shocking realization that one’s identity is precariously grounded.

19. Judy. Renee Zellweger had a rough patch this past decade. She was not getting a lot of work and she went viral for the worst reason ever, when all of Twitter wondered aloud: “What happened to your face?” In many ways, this gave her the best preparation for playing Judy Garland in her final year. She sings, she cries, she falls apart. It is quite touching. 

20. Rocketman. A strange biopic of Elton John told as a jukebox musical. It uses the John discography to narrate a story, rather than the more typical approach we saw in Bohemian Rhapsody. This allows for some inventive fantasia with the musical numbers, and Taron Egerton is just fantastic, doing his own singing (unlike Rami).

21. The Farewell. This film suffers from a bit of over-hype. It is not much of a comedy, and the roles of the parents are predicated on stereotypes and emoting, but Awkwafina shines as a granddaughter figuring her way in the world. However, does this film turn on her expectation that she was going to win a Guggenheim? Ummm…

22. Knives Out. The best ensemble cast of the year. It's worth seeing just for Daniel Craig's weird southern drawl, and Jamie Lee Curtis' annoyed smoking.