Son of Saul – 7

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Points for style and technique, as the whole film is shot in claustrophobic, hand-held close-focus, always looking at or through the eyes of the mesmeric, or mesmerized, Saul. When a truck is on the road and we see green trees pass by, the color takes us aback. What was missing, for me, was any empathy with the main character. I never understood why he adopted the boy who survived gassing as his “son,” nor why he was obsessed with providing him a proper burial, at the expense of his colleagues’ deaths or the larger massacre going on around him, let alone the risk to his own life. I could only understand him as a lunatic, which made sense of the final scene when he sees a boy he thinks is his son, even though the corpse he has been impossibly carrying on his shoulder has washed down the river. Thinking him a lunatic, however, robbed the movie of significance. I cared more for the rational prisoners who were plotting escape in horrifying circumstances against all odds, but they weren’t the filmmaker’s concern.

Mustang – 6

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As I watched, I couldn’t figure out where the film was going, and at the end I was convinced that the director didn’t know either. Maybe it was just a diary of what life is like for women in repressive, backwards Turkey – horrible to imagine in a NATO nation in this day and age. In that case, the random little vignettes made some kind of sense. If, on the other hand, this was supposed to be a coming-of-age tale of the adorable Lale, I hate to think we left her on her own in Istanbul, with retribution or disillusionment her likely future. The sisters were sort of interesting, but not much more.

Steve Jobs – 8.5

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Instead of a biopic, director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin tell the story of Apple’s founder in three parallel days of product launches. Instead of recreating reality, those days are representative, telescoped, dramatically heightened. Each involves a Jobs confrontation with 1) his daughter Lisa and her mother; 2) his cofounder Steve Wozniak; 3) his corporate parental figure John Sculley; 4) his creative team; and, throughout, 5) his marketing executive Joanna Hoffman. Through these confrontations we experience the strange but consistent personality of Steve Jobs, and through these confrontations we see all five relationships change. Whether any or all of this is accurate – despite being based on Walter Isaacson’s book – didn’t matter to me. The story is presented as a drama, and as a drama it is superb. The dialogue – no surprise – is fast-paced, impossibly clever and devoid of fat. The acting, especially by Michael Fassbender and Kate Winslet (whom I didn’t even recognize), is A+, Oscar-worthy. The context – the creation of the world’s most important and familiar company – adds enormous relevance. And I’m not ashamed to admit that in the final scene between Jobs and Lisa, I couldn’t stop my tears.

Black Mass – 7.5

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For all the reasons I usually dislike movies “based on true events,” I ate up the story of Boston crime boss “Whitey” Bulger. I knew the name and vague outlines of his story, but this film filled in the details. I have a particular, if distant, affection for the streets of Boston from The Departed and stories of Dennis Lehane, and the Bulger brothers played by the unlikely duo of Johnny Depp and Benedict Cumberbatch fit right in. Joel Edgerton’s agent John Connolly is the fulcrum of the plot, but it is the intense, controlling persona portrayed by Depp that makes the film, whether true or not, memorable.

Anomalisa – 7.5

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One weird movie that either speaks to the universal human condition (in stop-action animation) or is a Rorschach blot to engage in how you will. Then there are those mask-faces with detachable parts. Or the voices that are all the same, except for Michael and Lisa. A movie doesn’t have to make sense to move you, or to qualify as art. Like Waiting for Godot. Charlie Kaufman’s mind just happens to be different.

Alex and Eve – 5

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Harmless piffle for the schmaltz-inclined. Originality: zero. Subtlety: zero. Believable characters: zero. Surprises: zero. But as I said, it won’t hurt you, unless you’re overly sensitive to caricatures and stereotypes, in this case Greeks and Lebanese. Others loved it; I found it silly.

45 Years – 7

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Here’s an answer to the question, Why don’t they make movies about real people? Because not much happens in their lives and it’s hard to understand them talking. This entire movie hinged on the wife (Charlotte Rampling)’s discovery that her husband (Tom Courtenay) had never gotten over his prior lover. But since we didn’t see their marriage before this discovery, and it wasn’t clear whether the husband had dementia, it was hard to understand what the wife was going through – or why. The movie was remarkable for showcasing an older actress, but it’s unfortunate that she wasn’t more relatable. It also, in the attempt to be real, was very slow.

The Revenant – 4

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An absurd story with terrible acting (Domnhall Gleeson especially, but I could name others), with lots of violence and gore and amazing cinematography. You wonder first, how they could have shot this, and then second, why bother? Leonardo DiCaprio’s escapes from death were so unbelievable that they had no emotional impact. As for the dialogue and plot, it was if the director were writing in a foreign language. The conversations in Pawnee were no more convincing. Every scene I look back on, I want to complain about.

Joy – 5

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This movie was a test of your appetite for Jennifer Lawrence and her hairstyles: I loved her going in but had seen quite enough by the end. My Robert DeNiro fuse was quite a bit shorter and was exhausted almost from the start: his comic persona didn’t fit a character that wasn’t actually funny. Once more I felt struck by the curse of the “true story”: certain things made no dramatic sense, but since they (or something like them) actually occurred, the screenwriter apparently felt no need to justify them – Joy’s showdown with the Texas patent thief being most prominent. In retrospect, it’s hard to think of a single scene that rang true. It’s sad that the team that made Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle came up so empty this time.

Top Ten 2015

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My Top Ten this year is a bit of a cop-out, although not without precedent among major film critics: with no clear standout movie I will list my favorites in alphabetical order. Spotlight was the closest to a flawless movie, but it didn’t have the emotional power of Brooklyn, which was almost indistinguishable from Carol as the sensitive portrait of a young woman discovering herself. Phoenix was the best foreign film, edging out Number One Fan, but not as good as Barbara, the director’s previous effort. Straight Outta Compton captured a music scene new to me in documentary fashion, but so did Amy, which was an actual documentary. Timbuktu and Theeb were equally powerful and enlightening depictions of Muslim and Arab cultures. While I’m comparing apples and oranges, I can add Tangerine, also satisfying my diversity goals. I may be overrating Trumbo and The End of the Tour compared to other critics, but both caught me at a good time and, if the list is sufficiently flexible, are worth honoring. So, again, here’s the list:

Amy. I went in knowing nothing about Amy Winehouse or her music and departed with a sad appreciation of both. This documentary was so intrusive it made the viewer feel complicit.

 Brooklyn, the season’s softest, sweetest film with an award-worthy performance by Saoirse Ronan, a beautiful script by Nick Hornby out of Colm Toibin and impeccable supporting actors. The feel-good film of the year.

Carol was another novel-based film with built-in depth that constantly churned under the glossy surface of Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara’s silky performances. It was also the best (American) period piece of the year.

The End of the Tour taught me everything I sort of wanted to know about David Foster Wallace in the form of an ego struggle between a writer and a reporter, skillfully portrayed by Jason Segel and Jesse Eisenberg.

Number One Fan (Elle L’Adore) restored my faith in French cinema, as everyday-but-slightly-loopy people with everyday problems get caught in a murder investigation, a cleverly delightful detective thriller.

Phoenix was the movie we all talked about and, perhaps, wanted to see again. It required a leap of faith that left some behind, but as a psychological mystery it was the year’s most intense cinema.

Spotlight was not quite All the President’s Men but it was the next best thing, a rare “true story” that played out as drama. I loved its depictions of journalism, Boston and the Catholic Church’s pedophilia scandal, with telling end credits the coup de grace.

Straight Outta Compton. For joyous musical fun, this was the year’s best treat, although Love And Mercy was not far behind. The story was full of cliché, but Gangsta Rap was enough original to carry the day.

Tangerine was raw, gritty and thoroughly engaging, a view of LA I never want to see, populated by characters I’d just as soon avoid, as well; but the whole thing was oozing with enough energy and humanity to fascinate.

Theeb was a plain story, told with the sparseness of the desert it inhabited, a pared-down spaghetti Western or Lawrence of Arabia. It had a perfect young male lead, it captured the Arab character and it brought back memories.

Timbuktu had more story, more characters and more beautiful scenery than Theeb, but they both put you in a world we so little understand, from Mali here to Jordan there. For haunting images, this film led the way.

Trumbo was Hollywood history – always a lark – and knowing the outcome didn’t diminish my pleasure in getting there. Trumbo pinballed against a dozen similarly vibrant characters; he didn’t change, but each interaction had its fascination.

 

Individual Awards, with Oscar nominees in bold, my other choices in regular:

Best Actor: Bryan Cranston, Paul Dano (Love and Mercy)

Best Actress: Saoirse Ronan, Cate Blanchett, Nina Hoss (Phoenix), Amy Schumer (Trainwreck)

Best Supporting Actor: Sylvester Stallone, Mark Rylance

Best Supporting Actress: Rachel McAdams, Rooney Mara, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Mickey O’Hagan (Tangerine)

Notes: Obviously, the women stood out for me more than the men. I chose Stallone over Rylance only because Stallone was such a surprise and Rylance could have performed his role in his sleep. I don’t know why Blanchett is considered the lead while Mara, who has more screen time, is supporting (the film’s title, maybe?), but both are equally deserving, as are Segel and Eisenberg in End of the Tour, which hurt my selection of either. There really isn’t a strong male lead in any of my Top Ten – hence the choice of Cranston, who hogs the screen without being off-putting.