The Best of 2011 - Film
Best Film:
1) Margaret
One of the year’s real surprises, finally released several years after filming wrapped in 2007. Kenneth Lonergan’s film concerns a teenager (Anna Paquin giving a career-best performance) who becomes involved in a terrible accident, the ramifications of which draw in an increasing cast of hurt, wounded individuals. One of the best post-9/11 films ever made, it also features any number of stunning individual sequences within. The original three hour running time shows in the ragged-round-the-edges filmmaking, but there’s no doubting the cumulative power of events as they unfold, fed by Paquin’s powerful, searing performance. [original review]
2) The Tree of Life
Appearing a mere seven years after its predecessor, Terrence Malick’s Palm d’Or-winning film was one of the most divisive of the year. To some, it was a visual masterpiece, to others a pretentious mess signifying nothing. I fell firmly into the former camp, and there’s no denying The Tree of Life’s singularity, at once obfuscating and intimate, switching from a stunning creation of the universe sequence to the dynamics of a 50s suburban family headed by Brad Pitt’s rough father and Jessica Chastain’s gentle mother. If Sean Penn’s heavenly coda feels like a sharp drop-off from what came before, the bulk of the film is so full of memorable imagery, and so perfect in its deceptive simplicity, that it’s easy to forgive in an otherwise unprecedented success. [original review]
3) Weekend
If The Tree of Life’s success seemed unlikely for its openness and spirituality, Weekend’s success seemed unlikely almost for opposite reasons. A small British film set in Nottingham, it’s an affecting romance, but it’s also an examination of what it gay identity in the twenty-first century. It’s a film that shows how inextricable the personal is from the political for its two protagonists, played with absolute conviction by Tom Cullen and Chris New. Weekend feels like a small milestone for gay cinema, in addition to an intuitive, knowing story of the difficulty of lonely people letting others in. [original review]
4) Blue Valentine
Teaming two of the best actors of their generation, Blue Valentine was the most downbeat romance of the year. Beginning at the end of Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling’s relationship, the story then shifts back to its tentative, difficult beginnings. Its themes of disappointment and self-loathing run deep, thanks in no small part to the nuanced performances at its centre. [original review]
5) The Skin I Live In
By and large, people seem to prefer Almodovar when he plays it (relatively) straight with his audience. All About My Mother and Volver, despite containing the usual heady mixture of murder, transvestites, bold colour palettes and strong older women, were better received than his trickier, more emotionally opaque films like Bad Education and Broken Embraces. Whilst The Skin I Live In was certainly better received than these last two, one suspects that its interest in psychosis and obsession, married to its Chinese box storytelling technique, stopped it from truly resonating. But this is Almodovar at his best, an extension of his fascination in fractured identities that made Broken Embraces so memorable. Gorgeous to look at, as ever, its willingness to play havoc with audience expectations, and its pinballing of sympathies is the work of a director at the top of his game. [original review]
6) The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn
The best Spielberg film in ages, proving true the apocryphal story that Hergé himself believed that only the director of Indiana Jones could do justice to his stories. An amalgam of The Secret of the Unicorn, Red Rackham’s Treasure and The Crab with the Golden Claws, it stays true to the spirit of the comic strips, a welcome hermetic piece of storytelling that seems lifted from the more innocent action movies of Spielberg’s heyday. The much fussed-over motion capture animation isn’t nearly as creepy as you’d suspect, and, rather, is bolstered by yet another strong performance from Andy Serkis (bettered only by his work in Rise of the Planet of the Apes this year) and a perfectly cast Jamie Bell as the titular reporter, all blind curiosity and pragmatism. It also featured one of the most memorable action sequences of the year: a stunning motorcycle chase through the streets of Morocco that’s as humorous as it is fast-paced. [original review]
7) Scream 4
If there’s one film that should have been terrible this year but wasn’t, it was Scream 4. The third instalment of the horror/comedy franchise was one of few disasters in Wes Craven’s filmography (Music of the Heart and Cursed being such genuine oddities as to count as at least solidly entertaining), so a ten year gap and a re-written Kevin Williamson script didn’t bode well. Thankfully, what arrived was a smart, terse piece of storytelling that made brief concessions to recent horror trends, but whose real concerns were exactly the same as fifteen years previously. A clever commentary on misery memoirs and survivor culture, Scream 4 saw Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott return home with a tell-all memoir, just as someone new decides to don the Ghostface outfit and terrorise both the old gang and a fresh set of TV-ready stars. After overcoming some silliness with Courtney Cox’s highly-strung reporter Gail Weathers in the early innings, it’s a typically witty, lean story, which doesn’t stint on laughs or scares, helped along by a game cast, particularly Campbell’s world-weary Final Girl and Hayden Panettiere’s feisty horror buff. [original review]
8) Archipelago
Joanna Hogg’s second film shared much the same concerns as its predecessor, Unrelated - the trials and tribulations of the upper middle-classes, explaining and examining her often unsympathetic characters with a clear eye and a disinterest in traditional narrative. Told over a weekend spent by a family in crisis on a remote English island, Archipelago scratches beneath the surfaces of its characters’ snobbery to reveal an underlying trauma in eldest son Tom Hiddleston’s sudden decision to decamp to Africa, and the absence of a father figure only ever heard at the other end of a phone. Told largely from the perspective of a young woman the family hire to cook their meals, it’s a curious look at a set of people we never entirely understand yet come to sympathise with, almost in spite of ourselves. An arresting film with a European sensibility, it was a stand-out in an already outstanding year for British film. [original review]
9) Take Shelter
Cinema was full of allegories this year, but none perhaps was quite as haunting as Jeff Nichols’ apocalyptic take on the economic downturn, which also doubled as an insightful look into paranoid schizophrenia and the ways in which both affect a family in rural America. Michael Shannon plays Curtis, a blue collar worker who receives terrifying visions of Armageddon. But is this a sign of the end of the world, or is he losing his mind? A startling call to arms, to look up to the skies and see what’s coming, what makes Take Shelter so effective is that it’s also study of a family coming apart at the seams. As Curtis builds a storm shelter in their backyard, he is forced to come to terms with the fact that he might lose his wife and daughter to his condition, be it prophetic or brought on by psychosis. Never less than stunningly beautiful,
10) A Separation
The film to beat in Oscar’s foreign film category this year, Iranian film A Separation should really be a contender in the Best Film category, and certainly for Best Original Screenplay. The film begins with a couple’s divorce proceedings: the wife wants to leave the country with her young daughter, but her husband refuses to leave his father behind, who suffers from Alzheimer’s. A Separation expands outwards from this point, as the wife moves out and the husband employs a woman to look after his father. Revealing what happens next would be to spoil the enjoyment of such a remarkably tense, intelligent film, which deals just as much in what it holds back as in what it shows us. A family drama, a film about the state of Iran, a courtroom drama, a story about the interconnectedness of people, and the boundaries of class and religion, it’s testament to the screenplay that it never loses sight of the people at its centre.
11) Animal Kingdom
Almost operatic in tone, Animal Kingdom was one of several impressive Australian films released in the UK this year. It involves the integration of seventeen year-old J into the criminal lifestyle of his extended family after his mother dies. Loosely inspired by the Walsh Street police shootings, the story occasionally stretches credulity, but always convinces in its portrayal of its exaggerated family dynamic, not least in Jacki Weaver’s deceptively cuddly matriarch, “Smurf.” Animal Kingdom’s “rules of the jungle” approach to storytelling feels simplistic, but the performances, and writer/director David Michod’s astute perceptions about the various levels of darkness that lay beneath the surface of the family unit make this memorable, first-rate viewing. [original review]
12) Beginners
A small, personal film that nevertheless feels, and is, much larger than the sum of its parts. Ewan McGregor plays the son of Christopher Plummer, who comes out in his 70s as he’s dying of lung cancer. Told in a dual timeline, we experience his father’s final days, embracing his new gay lifestyle, as well as his son tentatively beginning a new relationship of his own with Mélanie Laurent’s French actress. Although Beginners isn’t entirely free of quirk (a silent first date, a dog that speaks in subtitles), there’s an underlying sadness, and a depressing reality, to the events that unfold. McGregor shows what he can do with a good script, his disenchanted loner heartbreakingly struggling to believe in true human connection, but this is Plummer’s film. Mike Mills astute script doesn’t treat his sexuality with any more politeness or condescension than he does the relationship between the younger protagonists, and the film is much more affecting and ambitious than it initially appears to be. [original review]
13) Black Swan
Surely one of the most absurd films of the year, Darren Aronofsky’s follow-up to The Wrestler could also be deemed a character study of one person falling apart. An Oscar-winning Natalie Portman plays Nina Sayers, a ballet dancer in line for the lead in “Black Swan,” but whilst she’s perfect as the innocent, white swan, is she able to tap into her dark side to bring out the black swan of the finale? Hysterical in every way, Aronofsky’s real triumph here is in his casting. Portman has seldom convinced in aggressively sexualised roles, so we share the same disbelief as her artistic director that there’s anything beneath her frail exterior. The transformation scene at the end is stunning, and even though the film appears inherently ridiculous, its own highwire act is what holds the attention. A horror film in the manner of Rosemary’s Baby rather than an incisive peek into the world of ballet (Robert Altman’s The Company being superior in this regard), it’s nonetheless a tour de force, even if you might find yourself sniggering more than you thought you might. [original review]
14) Snowtown
The second hard-hitting Australian thriller of the year, Snowtown wasn’t as operatic as Animal Kingdom, dealing instead in a more immediate sense of moral decay. True crime biopics are a hard genre to nail, but can be dazzling when done correctly (Zodiac, Heavenly Creatures), and the experience of watching Snowtown is not unlike trying in remove dirt from underneath your fingernails. John Bunting, who famously murdered a string of people and stored their bodies in barrels, is imagined here as a dangerously cuddly bear, his warped kitchen sink sense of community all the more terrifying for how it draws the viewer into his psychopathy. [original review]
15) Kaboom
After Mysterious Skin appeared in 2004, many people assumed that Gregg Araki had grown up, his masterpiece managing to subsume his obsession with pop culture, vivid colour palettes and in-your-face sexuality with a more audience-friendly sensitivity and nuance. That this was followed by stoner comedy Smiley Face suggested otherwise, and Kaboom again shows Araki at his anarchic best. An apocalyptic sex comedy, it’s one of the best examples of perfectly-honed disposable entertainment I’ve seen in some time. Marrying Lynchian weirdness to story of horny teenagers, a secret cult, and the end of the world seems like a masterstroke whilst you’re watching, but, in the end, as Araki makes clear, nothing really matters. [original review]
16) Bridesmaids
Although the fratboy setpiece at the bridal shop threatened to derail the whole film for me, there’s no denying just how funny Bridesmaids is. Easily the best comedy of the year, what worked especially in its favour (aside from its fine ensemble) was the script’s pathos. One of the saddest sights committed to film this year was Kristen Wiig’s cupcake-baking scene, and although there’s been much debate over who’s best in show here (Maya Rudolph’s grounded best friend, Melissa McCarthy’s tour de force, puppy-stealing bridesmaid, or Rose Byrne’s icily amusing rival), it’s Wiig that we’re rooting for. As funny as Wiig can be - and if there’s one thing Bridesmaids isn’t short of, it’s quotable one-liners - it’s the crippling loneliness she feels that really lingers. [original review]
17) Drive
I had a lot of problems with Drive, not least its preference of style over any substance, and Ryan Gosling’s strangely still, but still over-egged performance as Driver. When a movie that you liked a lot, but didn’t love starts receiving rave reviews, it’s all too easy to turn against it. And whilst I preferred several films to Drive this year, there’s no denying its unique visual style, its riveting action sequences, its insta-classic soundtrack, or the way it has assimilated its way into popular culture faster than any other movie this year. [original review]
18) Heartbeats
Slim on paper, absurdly talented twenty-two year-old Xavier Dolan’s ménage-a-trois romance works because of his ability to tap into the narcissism of youthful obsession. Revolving around two best friends’ interest in a boy they meet at a dinner party, what follows is largely a homage to the love stories of Wong Kar Wai, but despite the copycat visuals, there’s talent to spare in terms of Dolan’s characterisation, not least the believably bitter relationship between the two friends at its centre. [original review]
19) Sleeping Beauty
A difficult, but rewarding piece of cinema that has won comparisons to Michael Haneke for its austere look and measured approach to shocking sexuality (as well as the ways in which society views its women. Featuring a stunning performance at its centre from Emily Browning, it involves a teenage girl who willingly succumbs to being drugged into a coma, as a variety of men can do anything they want to her body, with the important insistence that there be no penetration. Hardly a realistic look at prostitution, it’s a study of the chasm between our inner and outer selves, with Browning’s implacable heroine the source of as much speculation, fascination and intrigue to the viewer as to the men that traipse through her bedroom every night. [original review]
20) Meek’s Cutoff
Kelly Reichardt’s last film, Wendy and Lucy, marked a high watermark for cinema about the economic downturn, whilst also featuring the best performance of Michelle Williams’ career so far, which is no small feat. So my expectations were high for her third film, a gorgeous Western, that - like Wendy and Lucy - manages to grip in spite of (or perhaps because of?) its sparseness. Williams features again, as one member of a group of travellers in Oregon in the mid-1800s. A splinter group from a larger party, it becomes clear that their leader Meek has lost his way, and the capture of a Cayuse Native American, alongside dwindling supplies, foster distrust and disagreement among the characters. The gradual, necessary shift in power is expertly potrayed by both Reichardt’s economical screenplay, and her pitch-perfect cast.
Best Actor:
1) Tom Cullen and Chris New - Weekend
Impossible to separate from one another, Cullen has been winning more critical notice, but New is just as worthy for his portrayal of bristly, conflicted Glenn.
2) Michael Shannon – Take Shelter
Blue-collar nutjobs are a Michael Shannon speciality, but he’s especially good here as a man trying to manage his own mental illness with the needs of his family.
3) Ryan Gosling – Blue Valentine
I much preferred Gosling in Derek Cianfrance’s searing romance than his work in Drive. Like the actors at the heart of Weekend, it’s a performance inseparable from the person acting opposite: an at-the-peak-of-her-game Michelle Williams.
4) Joseph Gordon-Levitt – 50/50
A flawed film in many ways, 50/50 found power and emotional truth in Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s pared-down performance as a young man struggling with cancer. An actor seemingly on the brink of breaking through for some time now, this is his best work since Mysterious Skin.
5) Jamie Bell – The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn
A personal rather than a purely objective choice. I’ve grown up with Hergé’s stories of the Belgian detective, and Jamie Bell nailed Tintin’s blind optimism and resourceful curiosity without losing his sense of humour.
Honourable Mentions: Ewan McGregor in Beginners, Colin Firth in The King’s Speech, Antonio Banderas in The Skin I Live In, James Franco in 127 Hours and John Boyega in Attack The Block.
Best Actress:
1) Anna Paquin - Margaret
Stuck on True Blood for several years now, the belated release of Kenneth Lonergan’s follow-up to You Can Count On Me demonstrated what Anna Paquin is capable of. A bruising, difficult, fascinating performance of impressive vitriol.
2) Michelle Williams – Blue Valentine
Michelle Williams has had a good year. Although My Week With Marilyn has been winning awards for her left, right and centre this year, her bravely unsympathetic performance in Blue Valentine (recognised by Oscar last year, but only released in the UK in 2011) was a thing of rare beauty.
3) Yoon Jeong-hee – Poetry
Korean cinema seems to constantly be offering us wonderful female performances, but Yoon Jeong-hee is especially remarkable in this character study of one woman struggling with the onset of Alzheimer’s disease and the repercussions of an unspeakable act perpetrated by her ungrateful grandson.
4) Jessica Chastain – The Tree of Life
For many, The Tree of Life was the first glimpse we had of Jessica Chastain, who went on to star in a whopping five further films this year. As the wife of Brad Pitt’s hardline father, she was also Terrence Malick’s embodiment of the state of grace, but, somehow, never lost the humanity behind the role.
5) Kirsten Dunst - Melancholia
I wasn’t a fan of Melancholia, which I found as bloated as it was simplistic. What saves it are the performances at its centre, and whilst Charlotte Gainsbourg is predictably impressive as the anxious sister, it’s Kirsten Dunst’s performance that resonates, even long after you’ve left behind the meat and bones of the story surrounding it.
Honourable Mentions: Kristen Wiig in Bridesmaids, Mia Wasikowska in Jane Eyre, Emily Browning in Sleeping Beauty, Olivia Coleman in Tyrannosaur, and Viola Davis in The Help.
Best Supporting Actor:
1) Ryan Gosling – Crazy, Stupid, Love
A romantic comedy that was significantly less than the sum of its part, Ryan Gosling was so stupidly charismatic and fun to watch that it lifted the entire film up.
2) Christopher Plummer - Beginners
A belated Oscar win seems likely, and it’s also likely to be the one fewest people would argue with. A non-pandering performance as an elderly man, newly out and dying of cancer, it found humour through the tears in new and interesting ways.
3) Aaron Eckhart – Rabbit Hole
Much of Rabbit Hole felt too leaden to really work, but, again, the performances gave it undue weight, particularly Aaron Eckhart’s as the desperately sad husband to Nicole Kidman’s increasingly distanced wife.
4) Hunter McCracken – The Tree of Life
Child performances often seem to be the result of careful direction, but there was something so heartbreaking and detailed about Hunter McCracken’s interpretation of early adolescence, that it remained one of my high points of the year.
5) Ezra Miller – We Need To Talk About Kevin
Tilda Swinton has been winning deserved traction for her careful portrayal of Eva Katchadourian, but Ezra Miller is almost as impressive as her bad seed son. As creepily effective as the character was in Lionel Shriver’s original novel.
Honourable Mentions: Andy Serkin in The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, Bruce Greenwood in Meek’s Cutoff
Best Supporting Actress:
1) Jackie Weaver – Animal Kingdom
Awards bodies love a monster mom (and so do I), but it was still a surprise to see Australian actress Jackie Weaver show up in the Oscar nominations earlier this year. A bracing performance that, for some, remains the MVP of an already impressive crime thriller.
2) Barbara Hershey – Black Swan
Natalie Portman might have impressed in the central role, but it was only Hershey that really understood the hysteria behind Darren Aronofsky’s silly/effective horror film. An actress that’s been seen in far too little in recent years (although she also pops up in another beleaguered mother role in this year’s Insidious), her turn in Black Swan was perfect in its exaggeration.
3) Juno Temple - Kaboom
Riotously funny, Juno Temple was one of many gloriously irreverent performances in Kaboom, but her ability to really run with the silliness tipped her over the rest of the cast for me.
4) Jessica Chastain – The Help
Jessica Chastain gave several deeply impressive supporting performances this year, but it was The Help that truly showed her diversity. Seemingly cast against type as a blonde bimbo-type in 60s Mississippi, it’s a turn of unexpected joy.
5) Monia Chokri – Heartbeats
Playing the best friend can often be unrewarding, and cinema is full of well-drawn characters that nevertheless don’t feel like they could be sisters, brothers, friends, lovers, etc. Monia Chokri, real-life friend of French wunderkind Xavier Dolan is pure enchantment in Heartbeats, all yearning and crumpled glamour.
Honourable Mentions: Octavia Spencer in The Help, Hayden Panettiere in Scream 4, Keira Knightley in Never Let Me Go, Rose Byrne in Bridesmaids, and Elle Fanning in Super 8.
Best Scores:
1) Contagion - Cliff Martinez
2) Margaret - Nico Muhly
3) Take Shelter - David Wingo
4) Submarine - Alex Turner
5) The Skin I Live In - Alberto Iglesias
Honourable Mention: Hanna - The Chemical Brothers
Best Moments of the Year:
1) The accident in Margaret
2) The train crash in Super 8
3) Pretty much everything that happens in Dubai in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
4) The speech-off in Bridesmaids
5) Ryan Gosling’s seduction of Emma Stone in Crazy, Stupid, Love
6) The creation sequence in The Tree of Life
7) The station platform goodbye in Weekend
8) The suspension bridge sequence in Final Destination 5
9) The party scene in Heartbeats
10) Hugh Jackman’s cameo in X-Men: First Class
Best Performances in a Small Role:
1) Allison Janney in Margaret
2) Adrien Brody in Midnight in Paris
3) Winona Ryder in Black Swan
4) Christina Hendricks in Drive
5) Charlotte Rampling in Melancholia
Most Memorable Quotes of the Year:
1) “You don’t have to be so fucking strident!” - Anna Paquin in Margaret
2) “Fuck!” - Emma Stone in Crazy, Stupid, Love
3) “You forgot the first rule of remakes: don’t fuck with the original.” - Neve Campbell in Scream 4
4) “To a terrorist, failure is just a rehearsal for success.” - Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
5) “Fine. Fine! Then it’s GARBAGE!” - Barbara Hershey in Black Swan
6) “I couldn’t be more proud of you if you were the first man on the moon.” - Chris New in Weekend
7) “This is the 90s.” - Kristen Wiig in Bridesmaids
8) “Unless you love, your life will flash by.” - Jessica Chastain in The Tree of Life
9) “You look older.” - Jodie Whittaker in Attack the Block
10) “Life is only on Earth, and not for long.” - Kirsten Dunst in Melancholia
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