In which I go to the cinema a bunch in 2019
Like, a whole bunch. My very well maintained list tells me I saw 40 films, two of them twice (Avengers Endgame, which suggests I liked it more than I did; and Knives Out, which I liked so much I’ll see it more). I thought I’d try and list a top ten of the year. It turned out to be not that hard, until I got to number ten, whereupon I promptly instituted a four-way tie... and a bonus prize.
So, in no particular order...
Eighth Grade. It feels like so long ago that this came out that I was suprised to discover it was this year. Eighth Grade made me grateful to have been a teen in the early 90s not the 2010s and even more grateful not to have to parent a teenager today. And yet it wasn’t totally depressing: smart, wise, sad, hopeful - and true.
Booksmart. Definitely the comedy highlight of the year, and the best use of Barbie dolls yet seen in cinema (Here’s hoping Greta Gerwig’s Barbie film can match it), it was a glorious, heartfelt look at friendship.
If Beale Street Could Talk. Moving to a different part of the cinematic spectrum, Beale Street was beautiful and heartbreaking. It felt intimate and specific as well as managing to hold the universal in scope.
Bait. I went to see this because Mark Kermode wouldn’t shut up about it and I am so glad that I did. A clear-eyed gaze at the realities of life in cute Cornish fishing villages, that utterly broke my heart in the end. Some people may say that the film has some empathy for the second-home owners: I confess, I didn’t have much.
The Farewell. If you’d told me at the start of the year that I’d have totally loved a movie where Awkwafina goes to China and has to deal with a family wedding covering up her grandmother’s terminal illness, I would have blinked at you quite a lot - and yet, it turns out that it was just that lovely and warm and sad and charming. And Awkwafina is great in it.
Shaun the Sheep: Farmageddon. The original Shaun the Sheep movie is an all time animated classic (don’t mock, it’s a great almost silent movie with incredible sight gags and an actual baabaashop quartet), so I was worried Farmagedddon wouldn’t live up to it. I shouldn’t have been. In this movie, Shaun learns to care about someone other than himself and his farmer, and rescues a bloopy little alien, who is so adorable it hurts, and we learn why teachers shouldn’t ever laugh at their tiny pupils.
Knives Out. So good I saw it twice. And will see it again. And buy it. And rejoice in it’s warm detectiveness and its sharp political snark for ever more. What a delightful thing for Rian Johnson to make after the mahoosiveness of Star Wars. It’s so nice to see Chris Evans and Daniel Craig having fun not being Captain America and Bond, Ana de Armas being not a robot girlfriend (I’ve only previously seen her in Blade Runner 2049) and Jamie Lee Curtis being GREAT.
Marriage Story. I’m not automatically averse to films being made by Netflix and primarily screened on Netflix – however. It sucks that films this kind of scale and this kind of good aren’t being made by studios and released into more cinemas for longer because there is something wonderful about going to sit in a dark room with a large screen and falling into a film. This is is a grown up film about grown up things but not overly serious and pretentious. Reading the commentary about it is a fascinating exercise in seeing what people bring to a film and how that affects that they take from a film (me: generally likes Adam Driver, generally doesn’t like Scarlett Johansson, result, ends up feeling a bit sorry for Charlie at times while also recognising that he is often a thoughtless dick) . Also, it knows how to make use of Sondheim.
Little Women. I managed to go to a preview screening of this, and spent a good hour trying to sniff quietly and sobbing into my scarf. I loved it. That said, I am going to be really interested to see how it goes down, both for those who have always lived with Little Women and those who never have, because I could see it not working for either in the way that the structure shapes the telling of the story, flashing back to girlhood. For me, it really worked, especially to bring out the Jo - Amy - Laurie relationships and pairings, really effectively. Timothée Chalamet is a delightful Laurie, Florence Pugh (now well established as a big fave of mine) a spectacular Amy - somehow convincingly a tween and a young lady - and Saoirse Ronan (long a fave of mine) is Jo March to the perfect degree, and everyone else around them is delightful. I understand why people think there is a Professor Bhaer Problem in Good Wives though I don’t feel it myself (no, I don’t know how much of that is due to the book and how much is due to Gabriel Byrne), and this resolves that well. Mostly, though, I was all about the Jo March related feelings, coming to this version at an age older (and a later stage of life) than Jo at the point that the film enters the story - and for all Gerwig makes the Laurie and Amy relationship work, never have I felt Jo’s pain over it and wanted to slap Laurie more.
Four-way tie for tenth place
- Fighting with My Family. Who knew I would like a comedy britflick about wrestling? The people who put Florence Pugh in the lead, that’s who. Way better than I would ever have expected.
- Jojo Rabbit. I know that Taika Waititi’s anti-hate satire about the Nazis won’t work for everyone, but it did work for me - though I think I would have preferred a bit more spike to it.
- Destroyer This was a while ago now, but it’s another grown-up film about grown-up things, with a brilliant twist in the tail. It’s taut and grimy, and Nicole Kidman is great in it - and so is Sebastian Stan, which is really nice to see.
- High Life. This was my first Claire Denis, and it was strange and mesmeric, and I will go back and watch parts of her back catalogue.
Bonus Prize:
Charlie’s Angels. Just because I did not expect to even want to go and see it, and then the trailer made me want to do that, and so did Mark Kermode’s review, and you know what. It was a lot of fun. And Kristen Stewart should do more comedy and action roles.