If you like depressing Irish movies about spousal abuse and a mother with two kids, no money, no home and no prospects, this is your cup o’ tea. Fortunately, through a series of improbable good breaks, our heroine ends up about where she started, but quit of the abusive husband. Clare Dunn, who co-wrote and stars, is wonderful as the hard-luck mother, her kids are good, and Harriet Walter is rock solid, although her character is suspiciously perfect.
It was not much of a year for movie-going, and I fear that 2021 will be the same: how any movie can get made in these conditions beats me. I can’t remember the last movie we saw in a theater, and watching them on TV brings them into competition with made-for-television series, which can be longer and more engrossing and are often therefore more memorable. It seems a bit left-handed to anoint the best movies of the year without acknowledging the TV series that left more of a mark; and because we had watched little TV before the pandemic struck, we folded 2019 (and older) releases* into what we considered current viewing. Before listing movies, therefore, I would acknowledge the TV series that in quality and impact matched anything on the list of movies that follows.
Honorable Mention: Roadkill, Queen’s Gambit, Normal People, The Undoing, Money Heist*, Lenox Hill
Mentioning 16 TV series gives me license, or an excuse, to include a similar number of films, which I will further disguise by presenting them in natural pairings, which will make a 1-10 order especially arbitrary (am I ranking them by highest score or combined score?). Here goes…
1. The Mangrove / The Trial of the Chicago 7
It is fitting in this year of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter protests that my two favorite films showcase police brutality and protest. That both involve real events from 50 years ago only added to their poignancy and relevance. The story of the London police and judiciary bullying West Indian immigrants trying to make their own place in British society packed more emotional power, while the pen of Aaron Sorkin brought his usual razor-sharp wit and intelligence to the motley band of Yippees and idealists who opposed the Vietnam War.
2. Les Miserables* / The Traitor*
These were almost the last two films I saw in a theater, a great start to a truncated year. Both were down-and-dirty looks at the underworld, one the gangs of the banlieues of Paris, the other the Cosa Nostra of Sicily. Both were brutal, physically violent and reminders of how good European cinema can be. “Powerful, engaging and historically informative,” I called The Traitor, which was a true story, and the same goes for Les Miserables, which could have been. The Irishman is the American equivalent of this genre, but that seemed sleeker and faker, perhaps due to the presence of Al Pacino and, especially, Robert De Niro.
3. The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend A Broken Heart / Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind*
Featuring the music and performances of the respective title characters, both documentaries started on second base. The arc of their stories, largely positive, moved them to third, and the story-telling presence and perspective of Barry Gibb and Gordon Lightfoot themselves brought the movies home. These probably provided my happiest moments in front of a TV screen this year.
4. Nomadland / Never Rarely Sometimes Always
I’m not normally a fan of movies about down-and-out characters in tough situations, but the lead performances of Frances McDormand and Sidney Flanigan were riveting as, respectively, a houseless wanderer and an abortion-seeking teen. Set in the expansive American West, Nomadland had a visual beauty wholly absent from the bus rides, arcades and medical offices of Never Rarely, but in both movies it was the character’s inner determination to resist bad odds that shone brightest.
5. Athlete A / Boys State
I might feel awkward about putting our daughter’s documentary about women’s gymnastics on this list except that other critics listed Collective (#2 for TIME), which tells a similar story but is not nearly as good a film (not even close). Providing gender balance to Athlete A, Boys State is embedded in its moment, not an after-the-fact report, but in its small way, the insight it provides into American politics today is just as troubling.
6. Just Mercy* / Lost Girls
Two true-life stories of underdogs battling a system that’s stacked against them. The former is predictable but nonetheless heartwarming and on point in the BLM summer. The latter, by contrast, is unresolved, but the saga of the desperate mother, played sensationally by Amy Ryan, is enough. Both movies are beautifully acted by a trio of my favorite actors.
7. Da 5 Bloods / Uncut Gems*
Two high-energy, unexpectedly gripping adventure yarns, with Delroy Lindo and Adam Sandler, respectively, punching at phantoms, getting more and more desperate. One was set in Vietnam, the other on 47th Street; one featured Chadwick Boseman, the other Kevin Garnett. Spike Lee’s film raised issues of friendship, greed, race and Vietnam while the Safdie brothers’ card was a high-intensity style that exhausted and exhilarated.
8. Yes, God, Yes
No Oscar nominations here, but this low-budget quirky comedy tickled my funny bone, attacked a deserving target and was pitch-perfect throughout. It reminded me of a “Spin & Marty” episode updated to the 1970s with computers.
9.-10.
Even though I’ve listed 15 films (and 16 TV series) already, I should note that the Motion Picture Academy has postponed the deadline for 2020 Oscar releases to February 28; and of the 11 movies cited in the Times today for best actor buzz, 6 have yet to be streamed. Just as I have included five 2019 releases on my 2020 list above (indicated by *), I will consider these upcoming films in the year I get to see them – i.e., 2021.
If theater requires the suspension of disbelief, cartoon features must require the suspension of rational thought. After about 20 minutes of watching this, I asked my wife, “Wouldn’t you rather watch the Bee Gees?” and was greeted with a sigh of welcome relief.
The abstinence-only strictures of the Catholic Church take on the rising hormones of a 16-year-old naif in this indie charmer of a movie, and guess who wins? Natalia Dyer is perfect and perfectly believable as a teen. The hypocrisy and absurdity of Catholic sex “education” may be a tad over the top, but it’s a favorite target of mine, hence the mockery was quite enjoyable. The movie looked like it cost about $100,000 to make, but was missing nothing.
A nostalgic, surprisingly grainy look back at the presidency of one of the most decent humans to hold the position, at a time when we’re watching someone at the opposite end of that spectrum. Other than telling us that Jimmy Carter liked rock’n’roll, as well as country, jazz and classical music, there wasn’t much point to this picture. Modern-day interviews with Bob Dylan, Jimmy Buffett, Gregg Allman, Garth Brooks and others were uniformly unremarkable. And Jimmy, himself, was no Barry Gibb.
An earnest effort at a feel-good romance, which felt like it was made during the era it depicted, 1957-62, not necessarily a good thing, but with the pleasing difference that almost all the characters were Black and discrimination was at most a minor issue. The acting was a bit obvious and the story was predictable, with some major implausibilities. These were nice people to hang with and the music was good, but there was little emotional connection and nothing stuck. (PS: it may have been unfair to watch this alongside Small Axe, a stronger period study of Black life, where the people and their situations feel more real.)
The second installment of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe, Lovers Rock was a disappointment. Unlike The Mangrove, it had almost no story and just as little context. The acting was convincing and I’m sure there were dance parties that looked and felt just like that in West London in 1980 (I read). Maybe it was convincing as a celebration of Black bodies and Black joy, but just as maybe you had to be there.
A short story of a movie (unlike, say, Kelly Reichardt’s earlier period Western, Meek’s Cutoff), which tries to absorb us into the gentle friendship between a sweet but slow trail cook and a more ambitious Chinese frontier entrepreneur. Their business of selling dolly-cakes could also be read as a metaphor for American capitalism: the drive for profit fuels ingenuity and responds to consumer demand, but the flip side is greed, which leads to bending the rules and corner-cutting (see, e.g., Boeing and the 737, or Volkswagen and the diesel engine). The film was beautifully photographed and no doubt would be far more stunning on a big screen. On TV, the setting was as small as the story.
Finally, a serious movie. And I mean, serious. Beautifully photographed empty landscapes of the American West set a metaphorical scene for the bleak nomadic life of the widowed, childless Fern, living in a van, subsisting on minimum-wage temporary jobs when she can find them, meeting other nomads but resisting any close connections. I can’t say I understood Frances McDormand’s character or related to her lifestyle or life choices, but the questions her story raised, such as the meaning of life, came through profoundly.
Not fun. Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman play characters that are so unremittingly unpleasant you almost don’t want them onscreen, and the usually reliable Jeremy Shamos is just as bad–that is, sickly fawning–in the other direction. The movie comes across as a play: e.g., stop the action while a character tells his life story. The final five minutes shock the movie to life, but by then it is too late and the dramatic points feel unearned.
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