FOF Best of 2017
Updated: Nov 2, 2022
“Oh no, he’s not at it again, is he??? We didn’t even like the last four lists. Do we have to sit through another one?” Oh yes, my friends. My kids get older, life gets heavier and busier, political polemics become nearly crushingly overbearing, 8th grade students lose their minds, less films get watched, and YET the Furmdaddy’s (nickname credit: no one) year end lists keep on churning. I don’t know about you guys, but I needed some escape this year. At their best, films are many high-minded things – art, philosophy, passion on a certain canvas, a medium of communication, reels and make-up and costumes and sound boards – but they are perhaps most of all ESCAPISM. And seeing as I’ve never seen two political parties more entrenched, dwelling on the poles and entirely unwilling to come to the center of the aisle using basic cornerstones like honesty and integrity on anything (rant concluded), I felt I needed a good dose of it this year. Thank you also Winter Olympics. It’s in the spirit of those things that I write these largely useless, probably slightly uninformed, and yet big-hearted words on my favorite pics of this past year. And yes, I did strive for genre-diversity again (comedy, horror, animated feature, thriller, indie, etc.) Enjoy!
(Or don’t. I highly value your freedom in social media consumption)
#12 Girls Trip
Whaaaat??? How on Earth could this flick end up on a “best of” list, you say? Perhaps it’s a stretch. But hear me out for a moment. I’d like to analyze Girls Trip’s numerous merits in light of another similar, yet vastly inferior film, Rough Night. That film stars one big name actress, but is really just four white friends from the past reuniting for one last bachelorette bash. The screenplay and characters are vanilla, the humor tepid, and the product overall mediocre. Then, along comes Girls Trip, a story of four long-time black ladies also reuniting for a weekend away, this time at a couple’s advice conference headlined by one of the girls. Similar-type premise, but Girls is by contrast, raucous, hilarious, and ultimately heart-warming.
The characters here are fully 3-dimensional – from the social media product marketer about to go belly up (Latifah) to the acclaimed married lady (Regina Hall) shelling out sagacious couple’s wisdom all while dealing with a nefarious husband behind the scenes. There is the single married mom who works day and night with nary a moment of free time to spare for partying or a love life (Pinkett Smith), and then there is Tiffany Haddish. Oh. My. My. What a tornado of life, attitude, and hilarity she turns out to be. My reaction to Haddish here was much like that of my reaction to Zach Galifianakis after first seeing The Hangover: We need more of this comedian now! This film will have you rolling with its side-splitting gags and gut-wrenching honesty on topics as diverse as love, work, sex, and…yeah, other “stuff.” It’s the funniest predominantly female cast comedy since Bridesmaids, and the funniest comedy of the year.
Yet, it doesn’t end there. For all these ladies have their own issues and hang ups, past mistakes and fall outs (Rough Night does as well, only in sepia hues), and these bubble to the surface as the film progresses. Ultimately, we reach a fantastic conclusion, where each lady finds the honesty to admit their shortcomings and the gall to stand comfortable in their own skin. Be warned, some of the gags are downright raunchy, but in the end, the journey was the most uniquely surprising one that I found all year.
#11 Coco
This should be no surprise to any of you who have read my previous lists. I do this every single year. I have no strong defense against criticism of it. Before I had children, I was just the creepy older guy who loved animated films. Now, I can use…I mean, TAKE my kids to these great big cinematic experiences of color and sound. Coco was the first film I decided to take both of my children to, and despite the fact that my son had to use the bathroom FOUR times in 90 minutes, it absolutely did not disappoint. Oh, we had a great system working. Emma, my warrior princess daughter, offered to take him after number 2 (no, it was number 1…just the SECOND time), and so I stood in the back with my foot holding the theatre door ajar, one eye on the screen and the other on the bathroom down the hall. This did not piss (pun intended) off any other theatre patrons at all. Yet, even in the face of all this adversity, I STILL thought it was phenomenal.
Look, there were a plethora of animated films out this year, but to me this was head and shoulders above the rest. While other movies depicting a product placement run wild phone-world or a baby in charge voiced by Alec Baldwin grabbed many folks’ attention, Coco got it done with good old-fashioned storytelling. The writers were able to drill into a fascinating aspect of Latin culture surrounding ancestors, the dead, photographs, and the remembrance of loved ones. Oh, and music. Yes, the power of music cannot be denied.
A wide-eyed and eternally hopeful musician stares into the face of a decades long ancestral ban on music (dun dun da!) and descends (or is it enters in Mexican mythology?) the famed Land of the Dead. There, he encounters a washed up trickster turned tour guide, and goes out in search of a national hero ancestor who will at last free him from the shackles barring his artistry…this is the stuff that legends are made of, folks. The kid just wants to play his flipping guitar! Let the boy’s pure light shine.
Along the way we get a case of mistaken identity, a dark family secret, flying crazy spirit animal things, Latin-themed ear worms by the bucketful, and a strong sense of the real power of family and love. You know, all the best animated films teach ubiquitous lessons for big people and little people alike packaged down into bite-sized stories that our children can grab onto, turn over, and inspect. Over time, those kernels of knowledge become, if we’re fortunate enough, a treasure of wisdom. Coco has plenty to offer in that particular currency.
#10 Baby Driver
This flick is just the essence of stylish cool. Consider it my entry for the fast-paced action thrill ride, non-comic book or superhero genre. Or, is that a sub-genre? Baby Driver doesn’t really wrestle with any big themes (Why are criminals bad?) or have huge payoffs. It just cranks up a rocking soundtrack, screams bravado from its…mmm outer paint coat (i.e. the screenplay. Yeah, it’s a stretch. Deal.), and squeals its tires as it rolls from one car chase to another. It rarely ceases to do anything but keep you on the edge of your seat.
Baby Driver IS all the things that make for sleek heist flicks, but it is ALSO much more. It is also, as one reviewer notes, a “quirky musical rom-com.” Music informs nearly every scene, as it is the lifeblood which which makes Baby such an incredible driver. Still, at its heart, Baby Driver finds a little love story. Once Baby meets the waitress Deborah, played by the effervescent Lily James, his priorities shift and he begins to dream of seeking a new life for himself and his budding love. But, his old life will not let him go, as the villainous Kevin Spacey (in what is now a deeply ironic performance) demands that the boy do one last job for him as recompense for losing his money.
The film is also a cut above other pictures like this because of the characters that round out the team. Jamie Foxx manages to coolly portray both the comic relief of the film and a trenchantly suspicious psychopath wary of Baby’s preternatural calm. Then, of course, there is the masterful Jon Hamm, who is just letting his hair down and going for broke in this role. He seems to be cool to the max, but there’s a Travis Bickle sickness dwelling beneath the skin which comes to a head in the film’s thrilling closing moments. Did it change the world this year? Heck no. But, we all need some flicks to just rock us in our seats, don’t we?
#9 A Ghost Story
Much like Lanthimos’ The Lobster last year (man, I really wish his Killing of a Sacred Deer would have been so much better in ’17), I cannot even begin to recommend this film to a wide audience. It’s not about pretension. It’s about whether you would even be able to stomach a film that’s shot like a polaroid and mostly uses still long-takes to depict a ghost covered by a sheet. Could you hang with that if you knew you’d come away with “a hauntingly beautiful, visually stunning meditation on love, loss, life and legacy?”
The movie is a bit difficult to parse on the surface-level. So, you’ve got a young couple who love each other. They buy a place together. He’s an aspiring musician. She feels strange harbingers of heaviness coming and wants to leave. He wants to stay. It turns out she’s right because he has an accident and dies. Fortunately for us, his story doesn’t end there. Affleck returns (oh, did I mention the musician was Casey Affleck) as a bedsheet-clad lost soul who opts to forego the afterlife in favor of watching over his grieving wife. Well, I guess that wasn’t too tough after all.
But, the story really doesn’t end there either. Though the ghost spends many long-takes portraying passing time watching his wife in mourning (one particularly affecting scene features Rooney Mara eating nearly all of a pie through tears until she’s forced to run to vomit), time begins to move on. Soon, a new family takes up residence in the home, then a group of squatters, and finally Affleck’s ghost goes on a metaphysical journey through the past, present, and future.
I’d be remiss before leaving if I did not mention the absolutely fantastic scene featuring the aforementioned squatters. At about the 1 hour mark, a bearded bald man in overalls sipping a craft brew can (a character the director dubbed The Prognosticator) launches into one of the more incredible dialogues in recent memory on the theme of legacy. His speech serves as the thesis of the whole tale, pondering everything from Beethoven’s 9th to space travel and the ever-present question: What do we really leave behind when we go? Is there really anything of lasting significance in the world? It’s A Ghost Story’s exploration of big, ultimate concerns like these which make it such a remarkable watch.
#8 Wind River
Hey, what can I say? Apparently I am a BIG Taylor Sheridan fan. I LOVED Hell or High Water with its whole Southern potboiling, heist flick turned intricate character study vibe, and Wind River has many of the same things going for it. Again here, on the surface, things are simple: let’s call it what it is – a murder mystery. It’s also a fish out of water tale of a green FBI out of her comfort zone and, quite literally, element (read: climate). Moreover, it’s a story about an animal tracker stalking desolate, frigid landscapes in search of redemption for an enormous past loss. It’s about the cold, the local Native American culture, and a particular way of life in one small swath of North America.
Not to repeat myself, but here is another Sheridan film which is terrifically well-paced. He seems to be a master of the slow-build, fanning mere embers in the first two acts into fires run wild in the denouement. Constant low-grade tension envelops every sequence as we the viewers are drawn into this landscape’s unique orbit. Clues pop up in unexpected places and the mystery twists and turns as the character’s backdrops open up to us. Indeed, it is these few things which ultimately give Wind River a leg up on his previous work. For starters, we have a genuine mystery here which only adds to the tension of the whole affair. To this, Sheridan adds flashbacks perfectly edited for a maximal reveal.
The formula is carried through to the very end. Once again, a massive gun shootout erupts as the puzzle pieces finally fall into place. After all the quiet strain of the first 2/3 of the film, the gunfire and body count jolt us into the present and offer an odd catharsis. Justice finally is served, and the final sequences juxtaposing the bravery of the girl who lost her life with the cowardice of her killer is deeply gratifying.
#7 Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, MO
Let me just start this review by saying that Three Billboards is NOT a perfect film. In fact, I don’t even think it’s a legitimate Best Picture candidate. It can actually be argued pretty convincingly that it’s riddled with inconsistencies. Many of the people taking these stances view the film as overtly political. They recognize the value of a rage-filled woman on an almost righteous quest for justice (in this post-Weinstein era), while simultaneously lambasting a cantankerous and racist cop who appears to be “redeemed.” As such, they find the film tone deaf, untrue to life at best, and offensive at worst.
There is some truth to these claims. For starters, the director Martin McDonagh is an Irish playwright. In the past, he’s made films with the same acerbic wit in the context of Irish culture (In Bruges). In this case, he appears to have chosen a place which resembles small town, middle America, yet he’s unable to completely shake free of his home domain. So, Three Billboards becomes this weird amalgam of Irish class struggles and broad stereotypes about red-state America, all stuck in a place which doesn’t actually exist. (The film was actually shot in Asheville, NC).
But, the haters are missing some things too. For starters, McDonagh, as I’ve said, is a playwright. Three Bills is much more stage play or morality tale than mockumentary. It should be viewed as such. His characters, this place, their way of life have more in common with Flannery O’Connor than with Ferguson, MO (again a misstep on his part, for Flannery was more southern than midwestern). In attempting to bring his characters to life, he stepped on the hotbed tripwire of racial minorities and the police and was probably unprepared to hash through it completely.
So, it may sound like Three Bills is undeserving of claim. But this is not at all the case. Then, what does carry the film through? Well, how about this: as a stage play it has tremendous value. Moreover, it’s also very enjoyable. It features incredible writing that blazes off the page in places. Some lines are poignant, but many are delivered with ferocity akin to chucking Molotov cocktails into a police station. It’s equal parts tragedy and hilarity. But above all, the performances are uniformly fantastic. McDormand will likely win for her portrayal of a woman in search of what so many of us seek. Making things right. Solutions to brokenness. On the other hand, while Rockwell is despicable, he finds a beating heart to pursue justice in his own way. In his actions, we’re really treated to a three-dimesional view of a human being. That is to say, even the broken can find within them the ability to reach out and help another person.
In the end, Three Billboards is far less about “redemption” than resignation. It exists within a world noting how incomplete and ineffective our efforts to do good will always be. How unsatisfying what we discover will be, and how we work out vengeance in a land hastening to damnation. In a world busted beyond repair, solutions are far less than perfect. So is this picture. Maybe that’s something we can all get behind.
#6 Logan
Let me start this write-up with a bold, unsubstantiated claim: THIS film is as groundbreaking in the genre as Nolan’s Dark Knight was years ago. Yes, folks, it is THAT freaking epic. It is that brilliantly schemed and executed. How about another claim? It’s absolute BS that Logan was not nominated for Best Picture. No excuse. Piss poor. Just…wrong. The Academy should be shot through with adamantium for such a vast oversight. Wait…wouldn’t that just make them more powerful? Dang it. But then it’d poison them. Mu ha ha! Let’s just skip to the poisoning.
Anyway, on with it. In the world of superheroes and mutants, there are dozens of “What If” scenarios which make for gleeful comic fanboy talk in shops and nerd forums the world over. Who would really win in a fight between Thor and the Hulk? How does one superhero really kill another? What if the Hulk had Thor’s hammer? What about Superman and Batman? What is Batman’s actual superpower, besides sick gadgets? How have film studios and owner rights managed to jack up the original iteration of the Avengers and somehow downplay the magnitude of the Civil war? (You can tell I’m not very good at this.)
Director James Mangold absorbed the fantasy world which birthed these and much better questions, shelved them, and somehow found the most profound one of all: What happens when superheroes begin to die? Or, put differently, what becomes of superbeings when they are subject to the decay of all living things on Earth? What a brilliantly high-browed concept! Then, he grabs the two best mutants of all (yeah, it’s debatable) – Wolverine and Professor X – and shoves them into the trappings of a contemporary Western along the Mexican border. This is mind-blowing stuff, people.
For all his one-liners and smartass-ery, we loved Wolverine the most not just because of his sick blades, but because of his beating heart. It is, in fact, why we love all the best cowboys. Beneath the hard exterior, long stares, and terse words lie real men. Cowboys’ loner status are always betrayed by their hidden care, and so they get sucked into the plights of the women and children (the Duke’s Big Jake, The Cowboys, or True Grit) or less fortunate communities (Eastwood’s Josey Wales, High Plains Drifter, or, yeah, Gran Torino) in which they find themselves. This manifests itself ultimately in the greatest Western trope of them all – the hero’s last stand. And that is EXACTLY what we find in the exceptional final 20 minute sequence of the film. Yes, you heard it here. Logan. It’s that good. Is it ultra-violent? Absolutely. Is it executed to near perfection with panache? You betcha.
#5 The Florida Project
When you sit down to watch Florida Project for the first time, be prepared for three things. 1) Get ready to FEEL deeply. If you’re not ready to emote, grab something mindless on Netflix or Hulu instead. 2) Get ready to be sad. But, 3) Get ready to be moved to your core. To quote a friend who said it better than I could, “If you feel like watching a film that will have you emotionally invested in characters you never thought you could be invested in, then you should watch this film.” That’s the undeniable truth of this picture.
Florida Project is a deeply episodic work. It’s all snippets and snapshots of the lives of a few children attempting to find summer fun in a poor area of Orlando. What can make for a kind of uneven viewing experience also grants us something amazing – a kids-eye perspective on the day-to-day life of growing up broke in a hotel. This one serves as a way station for folks who cannot find some place more permanent to stay. Here is a key feature of the film, namely the juxtaposition of these lives on the margin with the utter opulence of those spending money without care at one of the most popular vacation destinations in the world. Indeed, Halley (the mother) and Moonee (the young daughter) even rub shoulders with the “other side” in places, panhandling hawked goods and sneaking into hotels for a fine dining experience. This comes especially to bear in the final 5 minutes of the film, which packs such a poignant and powerful wallop that you’ll leave emotionally devastated.
See, the thing is that you will begin this film not liking the characters. It’s inevitable, and it’s understandable. In fact, I think it’s the point. The mother is a hot mess of a human being – attitudinal, rude, classless, and increasingly destructive. Moonee and her band of child drifters are disrespectful, smug, prematurely savvy to the world in all the worst ways. The only semblance of a guiding light is the usually rough and tumble Willem Dafoe, giving what may be a career-best performance, as the hotel manager turned father figure to struggling adults and kids alike. It’s a quietly powerful showing, with Dafoe choosing to communicate nonverbally as much as anything else. He’s someone who cares in a world of people left behind, and Dafoe plays it with astonishing compassion and authenticity.
As the episodes pile up and the film nears its conclusion, the earth beneath us begins to shift. We see it first as we realize that, while onscreen we were watching Moonee’s nightly bath to Orlando’s tunes, offscreen far more dastardly events were occurring. We further note it in the gut-wrenching fallout turned physical between Halley and her closest friend. But, we grab hold of it most of all when the DCF (Dept. of Children & Families) come knocking on Halley’s hotel door. Then, our kids-eye glance at this life comes full circle, as for the first time in 2 hours we realize what Moonee really is – a CHILD. She’s been forced to become tough and gritty and battle everyone she’s come across. But, as the guard finally comes down, and the tears finally flow, THEY. ARE. EARNED. She didn’t choose this life. She is just a fish swimming in it, and in us is born the most deeply felt empathy for her circumstances. And what follow…my oh my, the last sequence. Just. Crushed.
So, I know this is getting wordy, but I have to say two more things. One, how the hell the Academy could miss Brooklynn Prince’s performance in this movie as Moonee is, just, I have no words. If Dafoe is deserving of accolades (and he is), she is doubly so. Her acting is pure grit through and through. And finally, hey, look this is my life, guys. Well, it’s my work. But truthfully, my work IS my life. Houseparents will tell you there is no separating the two in our world. I mean, my middle school boys are not six year old girls (though I tell them they sometimes act like it), but this one hit especially close to home for me. Laura and I currently HAVE a student who is from Orlando and a place whose circumstances may have been very similar to those depicted here. His mom may have dealt with some of the very same things that Halley did. Every child dreams that there life will be like a Disney film. Imagine the dismay of those who could practically reach out and touch it.
#4 Phantom Thread
First of all, let me say that I am by no means a PTA apologist. I do not sit adoringly at the feet of the wondrous Paul Thomas Anderson starry-eyed, pad and pencil eagerly in hand. A rabid acolyte straining for one ounce of wisdom to glean. I say this so cheekily because the members of that tribe are a rather emphatic and maniacal bunch (I should know, my best bud is a burgeoning superfan). As for me, I find his ouevre fabulous at times, underwhelming and pedestrian at others. BUT, with that firmly in place, let me also say – THIS is one of his best.
The “why” of this film’s (dare I say it) greatness are really twofold: 1) Acting chops and 2) Blistering writing. Despite the enormity of the actors (DDL, most notably) and the performances involved, it is really the latter that carries the day in Phantom. This film is absolutely chock full of tremendous lines which are alternately hilarious and just searing. They stick with you long after the credits roll. “I’m admiring my own gallantry for eating it the way you prepared it.” “Don’t pick a fight with me, you certainly won’t come out alive. I’ll go right through you and it’ll be you who ends up on the floor. Understood?” “The tea is leaving, but the interruption is staying right here with me.” And who can forget, “Kiss me, my girl, before I’m sick!”
Daniel Day Lewis is again in top form (when is he not?). This time as the fastidious dressmaker in a posh 1950’s London. His life is one of carefully structured moments, as meticulously neat and crafted as the dresses he peddles to the high society elite. Women come and go in his life. He dismisses them as easily as his morning toast when he’s had enough of them. In short, he is both a genius and an egocentric monster. His life, he’s not ashamed to admit, is about one thing – CONTROL. Remember that word. Control. Control. Control. That theme is bludgeoned almost rhythmically into your brain for two straight hours like a blacksmith hammering hot iron on an anvil.
Mr. Woodcock (nice subtlety on the name, Paul) is a control freak, and he sits atop his own universe night and day. That is, until he meets the luminescent Alma, a waitress at a seaside restaurant. At first, ole’ Reynolds probably thinks he’s just found his latest catch of the week. But, he soon learns that he may have bitten off a little more than he can chew. Enter Cyril (well, she had been around before this, but ya know, roll with my dramatic entrance), Reynolds tough-as-nails sister who runs his day-to-day operations and “takes out the trash,” so to speak, cleaning up the messes of his failed relationships.
And with these characters firmly in place, the power struggles and unspoken/spoken battles for control begin. The women prod and test each other – Does Alma have what it takes to stay with Reynolds? Will she back down? Will Alma supplant Cyril as Reynolds’ leading lady? Alma and Reynolds enter their own games of tug-and-war. No one is particularly lovable to the max, but we watch them jaw and dance, asking ourselves, will these two make it in love? Perhaps the film could be deemed too “arty” for some, the characters a bit more like archetypes than flesh and blood for others, but to be a fly on the wall of this dance for dominion has its own peculiar delights. In 2017, PTA 1, Haters 0.
#3 The Big Sick
The Big Sick may not have been the BEST movie of the year, but it was one of my favorites (the other being Lady Bird). It is genuinely incredible on many levels. It works as a romantic yarn, a drama about illness, an indie comedy, a cross-cultural tale of love across religious and national borders, and a story of “making it” in a chosen line of work. It’s a true-story based on the courtship between Kumail Nanjiani (the film’s leading man) and Emily V. Gordon. This very fact gives it so much of its charm. Here, we have “real people” who find love, wonder where it went missing, and discover it once again.
Kumail, the son of Pakistani immigrants, aspires to be a successful comedian in the states. His parents, however, will have none of his career choice, seeking instead to find him both a respectable career and a decent Muslim wife. They attempt the latter by parading before him an endless array of Islamic women of all shapes and sizes. This is really the crux of the film, namely Kumail’s internal struggle between following his heart in love and work and honoring the family who has given him everything. Again, such a unique take on the age-old romantic comedy.
At one of his small club shows, where he performs nights with a hodgepodge of other groundlings, a girl speaks up from the crowd. Drawn to her exuberance and boldness immediately, he seeks her out after the show. What begins as a one-night stand (and then two nights, and then three…) for two people leery of commitment soon blossoms into genuine love. But, the film turns on a dime as tragedy strikes in the form of a rare illness for Emily. Enter Emily’s parents, the world-weary, deadpan Ray Romano and the tenacious Holly Hunter. As Kumail attempts to stand by Emily, he has to negotiate numerous land mines in the form of her parents lack of embrace towards him and his parents lack of embrace towards her.
I could go on about how tidily the film wraps up. It is a romantic comedy and a love story at heart, after all. Or, mention the power and consequence of Kumail’s decision to pursue his own happiness in contradistinction to his family’s fierce mandates for his life. I will note how rarified the air of this film is, which is equal parts hilarious funny and grippingly poignant. But, what I really want to conclude with is the performances of Emily’s parents. It’s been a long time since Romano was this lovable, and Hunter is an absolute tour-de-force. How she could have been sidestepped by the awards circuit is totally beyond me. She is nearly the heart of the film, and in a film with pathos by the truckful, that is really saying something indeed.
#2 Get Out
Of all the films released in 2017, none balanced unchartered creativity with tremendous nuts and bolts execution as well as Get Out – a social commentary rich, psychological horror that somehow married standard horror elements to pitch black comedy with stunning results. Get Out is probably the film where I most strongly want to throw up my hands and say, “Forget about what I have to say. Just go see it.” This will likely end up atop many year end lists for best film, and it is so easy to see why. I’m sure you’ve heard the ’67 film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner come up in conversation with this movie a time or two. This is fair enough, for the parallels do exist – African-American man visiting white girlfriend’s liberal family, who exhibit faux signs of racial acceptance – but it simply takes that basic premise and blows it to smithereens.
In Jordan Peele’s hands, that dreaded first visit to your girlfriend’s parents becomes a truly horrific experience. Peele’s real gift is to sprinkle these light moments of humor amidst an atmosphere that constantly makes us feel uncomfortable and apprehensive. We’re not sure what exactly is wrong here, though we begin to have our suspicions as the family and upstate locale begin to come into focus. Everyone seems so nice and accepting, but all the caretakers of the estate and helpers are black, and aren’t their actions just a bit too robotic?
What begins like a re-hash of Sydney Poitier in the home of Hepburn and Tracy becomes almost Lynchian in its mind paranoia, once the mother’s hynoptism becomes involved (Oops!…minor spoiler alert. Sorry!) Or maybe it’s Hitchcockian tension. Or maybe the bio-horror elements of the third act are more Cronenberg? Or maybe…see that’s the point! We’re talking about a film which is one part comedy about “meeting the parents” and comparing it with some of the greatest horror auteurs of all time! All this AND he is able to seamlessly insert a repeated social critique – Hey, white liberals can be racist too. This is the rare air of Peele’s genius in Get Out. He has made a cultural artifact deeply of the moment in his first directorial outing. That just doesn’t happen.
Daniel Kaluuya is masterful in the lead role, the other actors are terrific (Catherine Keener is especially unnerving in her role as the shrink). Peele builds his masterpiece to nearly unbearable discomfort and then grants us one of the more satisfying resolves in a long time. I dare you not to leave the finale shaken.
#1 Lady Bird
This is the movie you’ve seen 1000 times. This is the movie you’ve never, ever seen before. Formal logic be damned…in this case, both conditional statements are TRUE! (Side note: I barely remember formal logic beyond modus tollens and ponens, so I don’t really know if A and not A being true violates anything. But it seems true, so roll with it.) How could a breath of fresh air be gasped from a genre so replete with copycats, homages, parodies, and cheap imitations that it seems to be suffocatingly full? That’s a question for Greta Gerwig, the mastermind behind this love letter to Sacramento masked as just another coming-of-age tale. Her entirely self-serious and rather pretentious interviews aside, it seems she knows a thing or two about crafting a masterful screenplay.
Where Lady Bird really flies (no pun intended) is in all the nuances and subtleties of Lady Bird’s relationship with her mother. No disrespect to Janney for her hair-raising turn as Tonya Harding’s mother, but Laurie Metcalf SHOULD win the Oscar for her role. She’s flat out unbelievable. She is by turns caring, grounded, pushing her daughter towards her very best, and harsh, boorish, and completely insensitive to the plights of adolescent development. But, she’s just shouldering SO much that Lady Bird cannot see, working tirelessly to make ends meet when her husband loses his job. Both ladies miss each other’s intentions with regularity, and both are so like the other (opinionated, strong-willed) that they drive each other nuts.
This may seem rather prosaic, but that is precisely the point. With Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig has succeeded in creating a story which feels so true to life and yet has these amazingly affecting moments. It is simultaneously indie in its characterization and high art in its moments of sweeping grandeur. That is a marvelous achievement.
I could select a number of scenes as proof of this idea. We could highlight her on again, off again, back on again friendship with her bestie, or her detour into the “cool kids zone” with your everyday stuck up snob. Pointing to her first real relationship (with Timothee Chalamet from Call Me By Your Name, of all people) and the pressure of “it,” would also accomplish our goal. I think you’re getting the picture that it’s a million little scenes that we’ve seen before expertly crafted into these powerful moments of revelation. BUT, I will select the best scene of all, the final few sequences of the film. Spoilers aside, this is where Lady Bird learns perhaps the most powerful truth of all – sometimes you have to leave home to find it.
Honorable Montions:
Mudbound
mother!
Molly’s Game
Wonder Woman
Call Me By Your Name
Thor: Ragnarok
War for the Planet of the Apes
It Comes At Night
Films I Wanted to Love But Just Could Not:
mother!
Killing of a Sacred deer
Most Disappointing Films of the Year:
Suburbicon
Downsizing
(Yeah, I’m aware they both star Matt Damon. That’s probably just coincidence. They also feature one of my favorite directors and a certain Jewish sibling writing team which has made a decent film or two.)
-Finally, in the interest of full disclosure concerning my LACK of expertise and busy life doing other things, here are most of the films I did NOT see this year but probably should have:
*Okja, Novitiate, Stronger, Breathe, Battle of the Sexes, The Greatest Showman, Raw, All the Money in the World, Brawl in Cell Block 99, Colossal, Lost City of Z, Wonder, My Cousin Rachel, Columbus and many more
–Fin
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