Somewhere

Mad Men, Season 6, Episode 5: The Flood

Mon, 06 May 2013 00:19:23 +0100

Comfortably the best episode of the season so far, ‘The Flood’ takes place during a real historical event and, just like JFK’s assassination back in Season 3, finds its characters unmoored. The episode begins in fairly standard fashion: Peggy’s upward mobility continues as she contemplates buying a two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan, and when she tells Megan later that they’ll be neighbours, you know that her salary must be pretty significant to be playing in this ballpark. It’s later, at an advertising awards ceremony, that things start to unravel, as somebody interrupts Paul Newman’s opening speech to say that Martin Luther King has been killed. The ways in which the news affects (or doesn’t) the characters is what makes this particular episode so fascinating.

Peggy comes unstuck by her own fear of movement, which is unusual for a character usually depicted as one of the show’s most progressive, and who will benefit most from the social changes the late 60s brought about. Here she is concerned about Abe’s safety as he accepts a job that will take him into Harlem, but she doesn’t tell him not to go, and her prevarication over whether to use the situation to get her apartment at a cheaper price causes her to lose the place altogether. Later, when Abe suggests that he might want children with her, Peggy’s obvious pleasure clearly telegraphs that in spite of her ambition, having a family is still of fundamental importance to her.

The episode is full of people unsure how to react to a news event that is both momentous and so utterly removed from their lives. Summed up perfectly in Joan’s hilariously awkward embrace of Dawn, it’s notable that the reactions of the African American characters remain largely inscrutable. Peggy might try to push away the riots in Harlem as ‘not that bad,’ but she’s every bit as clueless as Joan, or Megan, whose tears are as oddly unrelated to her own life as that redundant advertising award she dumps on the sofa. At least they’re not as insensitive as Harry, however, who only sees the bottom line, as the constant news coverage means that his TV spots are being dumped. In an all-too-rare moment of both sympathy and clarity, it’s Pete that calls him out on this. In a season that’s been committed to forcing things out into the open, even Bert’s usual calming effect is brushed aside as irrelevant; of our regular cast, it’s only liberal-minded Pete (and don’t forget he was behind marketing for the African American market back in 1960) who sees this as a ‘shameful, shameful day.’ For a show that’s usually intent on showing the disparity between workplace ethics of the 60s and today, Pete actually coming out and calling Harry a racist felt shocking both in its accuracy and in the fact that Mad Men is used to sweeping these sort of ugly feelings under the carpet.

Don is similarly insensitive this week, continuing a downward trend that goes beyond cheating on his wife, spending most of his time thinking about Sylvia in Washington. Betty’s phone call reminding him that he was supposed to have the children over the weekend serves both as a funny reinstatement of their fractious relationship (Betty still referring to Megan as Don’s ‘girlfriend’) and that Don doesn’t really have much of a relationship with his kids any more. Of course, his disgruntlement at Betty’s insistence he take the kids into the city in spite of the rioting folds nicely into a trip to the cinemas with Bobby. Mad Men has always chosen its film references carefully, and in showing us Planet of Apes’ infamous final scene it ties in directly to Bobby’s childlike view of a world gone awry, carried through from that opening scene of the wallpaper not quite lining up. His unpredictable burst of understanding for the usher, of course, allows Don a window into loving his son that, as he movingly explains to Megan, he’s always struggled to feel. In an episode where an event of huge historical import is funnelled through the various characters’ own petty lives, these brief displays of sympathy – and of honest, sharp pain – are all the more striking, even if Don uses his son’s later cry for reassurance into an opportunity to take a dig at Henry.

As Don reassures his son by way of maligning Henry, so Betty provides a rare supportive shoulder to her husband with an undercurrent that she’s unaware of until episode’s end. This past season (and, to a certain extent, last season as well) has seen Betty mellow towards her role as wife and homemaker, if not quite mother, but little does she realise that by sliding into this role will she be required to move back into her old one, that of the glamorous wife to an ambitious man. That last scene of her holding an old dress in front of the mirror is quietly heartbreaking, the most uncomplicated sympathy the show has shown that character in some time.

I know a lot of viewers aren’t fans of those episodes so heavily based around a historical event, but I thought this worked well in bringing some old tensions to the surface and giving us some new shades on Don, who has largely been constricted to his affair with Sylvia this season, which feels like old ground. And Joan hugging Dawn is a GIF for the ages, surely.

Mad Men, Season 6, Episode 4: To Have and To Hold

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 15:03:56 +0100

After many viewers noted Joan’s absence, she gets an episode almost entirely to herself this week, as she questions what her partnership has really brought her in terms of power and influence. It’s a question forced into the open when she fires Harry’s secretary for asking Dawn to punch out for her whilst she takes an afternoon off. Harry is outraged that despite the revenue he brings into the agency, he’s still not been made a partner, whilst Joan was made one for sleeping with a client. Of course, we know that Joan is invaluable to the agency (and that Harry practically fell into his current position, a position that Joan was infinitely better at anyway), but the knock to her confidence is exacerbated by a night on the town with an old friend. Joan, like Don, is a product of her time, and by steadfastly remaining in the fifties, she’s beginning to look out of place, not only in the restaurant peopled by high school students, but in the fashionable club, where she sticks out like a sore thumb. The following morning in bed, she asks her friend (played by a sympathetic Marley Shelton) if her partnership has really brought her anything. But all her friend can see is her glamorous city friend, a partner at a Manhattan advertising agency. ‘It’s right there in front of you for the taking,’ she tells Joan. Interestingly, Joan takes the advice to heart, returning to the office in a black suit dress that telegraphs that this is a different woman we’re seeing in front of us. For a character stuck in the fifties, her arsenal of weapons has typically involved her sex appeal, forthright intelligence and severity, but her attitude towards Dawn marks an change in her typical approach in the workplace. Joan has never been the most progressive of characters (remember how she treated Kinsey’s poor girlfriend back in Season 1?), but Dawn correctly reads her new-found responsibility as a promotion and a mark of confidence. For someone who’s typically ruled through fear with the secretaries, this allegiance feels key.

Speaking of Dawn, her dinner with a friend marks the first time that an African American character has had a scene not directly related to one of the principal cast. The writing doesn’t go out of its way to highlight this, but it does give us an interesting perspective on SCDP from an outsider’s perspective. Dawn’s friend is about to get married, but for Dawn, she knows that she has to work as hard as she can and never put a foot wrong, just in order to keep her job. Whilst it’s implied that the other secretaries take advantage of her because she’s in such a position as to be unable to say ‘no,’ this correlates to both Joan’s firing of Harry’s secretary on the office floor and the tears in the bathroom Peggy saw back when she was starting out. Now that our principal characters have all moved up the corporate ladder, it’s nice to see someone at the bottom for once.

Just as Dawn and Joan are forced to be pliant in situations where they’re biting their tongue, Megan is likewise forced into a role she doesn’t want by Don, who calls her a prostitute when she’s asked to do a love scene for her soap opera. The show hasn’t dealt with the Drapers’ marriage much this season, just Don’s absence from it, but here again we see their peculiar dynamic of emotional bully and victim. Previously, Megan has seemed to enjoy this power dynamic, as when Don chased her around their apartment last season, but here Don has never seemed harder, and that fear last week at telling him about the miscarriage, coupled with both her childish enthusiasm at the career opportunity she’s offered and how soon she breaks down under Don’s tirade are uncomfortable. It’s no coincidence that we first see her in a maid’s outfit this week. Don, of course, goes off to see Sylvia, handing her a penny that I’m amazed doesn’t break her wrist it’s so freighted with symbolism. Mirroring Megan’s own (fake) love scene earlier, Don’s seduction of Sylvia is interrupted when she challenges his assumptions about both her faith and his projection of self. Sylvia can see just how lost Don is, and she prays for him, two things you can’t imagine Don relishes being told.

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Mon, 29 Apr 2013 14:33:05 +0100

Mad Men, Season 6, Episode 3: The Collaborators

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 13:59:47 +0100

If last week’s episode was all about death, then this week’s was all about artifice, as the Campbell marriage collapsed, Sylvia was faced with the harsh reality of her affair with Don, and Peggy chooses advancement over friendship. Mad Men has always been good at delayed satisfaction, and whilst Trudy calling Pete out on his bullshit wasn’t quite up there with Joan kicking Greg out of the house, it was a great moment of vindication for a long-suffering character, albeit one that’s always seemed ineffably in control of her own destiny. As Trudy says, ‘I refuse to be a failure.’ If Pete’s affair with Beth last season spoke to a loneliness in the character that helped humanise him, he’s never been adverse to these sort of exertions of power, be it with the German au pair, a pliant prostitute, or the redhead he met in the elevator several seasons back. If a few years ago this sort of thing would have been hushed up, as was the case with the au pair, Pete’s ugliness towards his neighbour after sleeping with her manifests itself in a shocking scene of domestic violence. But whereas Beth represented something meaningful to him, Pete still ended up being frustrated not only by the electroshock therapy that rendered her a different person, but by her very unknowability and refusal to bend to Pete’s own feelings of loneliness and isolation. Retreating to the very same approximation of worldly fatigue he saw in Don back in the show’s first season, it’s no wonder that this particular artifice no longer sticks.

Another character unable to see past the end of their nose this week is Sylvia, who finds herself a reluctant confidante to Megan, who tells her that she’s had a miscarriage, but had previously considered terminating the pregnancy. Sylvia’s flustered, Puritan reaction to Megan’s news shows just how little she’s considered Don’s relationship to his wife, taking his statement that they’ve been ‘drifting apart’ at face value. Suddenly faced with her own hypocrisy, Don uses this same guilt to seduce her when the pair are left at a restaurant alone later in the episode. To outsiders, they could be just another married couple, and it’s at this point that Sylvia turns on Don, unhappy with this particular artifice after being made aware that Don still has feelings for his wife. As Don says in one of the episode’s most eloquent lines, ‘You want to feel guilty right up until the point where I take off your dress.’

Speaking of the dissonance between reality and artifice, isn’t it so like Peggy to hire an African American secretary after she ballsed it up so completely with Dawn? She’s all about advancing other women, but there’s a definitely a sense of Peggy trying to prove something here. She’s treading a similarly thin line between emulating Don at work and being her own woman. But whereas learning from the best might work in different circumstances, her gender means that there’s always going to be a perception of her as a humourless bitch. It’s an area that the show has gone to before back when the guys in creative were harassing Joan, and although it gives Peggy pause, she seems to brush it off when she asks why the guys in the office can’t be funny when she asks them to be. Of course, the one area in which Peggy diverts from Don most drastically is in helping Teddy pursue the ketchup account. We’ve already seen Don tell Ken that even if ketchup is the ‘Coca Cola of condiments,’ that they need to stick with baked beans, which mirrors his loyalty over Mohawk Airlines back in Season 1. And whereas Peggy isn’t doing anything wrong in pursuing ketchup (especially since SCDP aren’t even pursuing the account), you know that Don will consider it a breach of loyalty, so I wonder how that will play down the line.

In an episode full of people pretending to be something other than what they are, Joan’s brief appearance made all the more impact. Now that she’s a partner, she’s free to demonstrate her disdain for Herb when he casually wanders into her office. Her zinger – ‘I know there’s a part of you that you’ve not seen in years’ – was perfectly delivered, as was her retreat to Don’s office (and Don’s subsequent self-immolation at the Jaguar meeting was an example of a different kind of loyalty). We’ve not seen much of Christina Hendricks so far this season, but, boy, did she make those two scenes work.

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Tue, 16 Apr 2013 15:16:17 +0100

Mad Men, Season 6, Episode 1: The Doorway

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 21:18:50 +0100

There are few shows that qualify as event TV. Game of Thrones definitely, Breaking Bad has taken some time for UK audiences to catch up to, but it’s final tranche of episodes is likely to induce huge levels of excitements among fans, but few shows have quite the same cultural visibility and inspire the same level of reviews, articles and think pieces as Mad Men. Its return is sure to inspire just as much fatigue as it is interest in what the new season has to offer. But since I’m the sort of fan that devours all material devoted to their favourite show without approaching any sort of limit, I’m only adding to the critical pile-on.

‘The Doorway’ opens over Christmas, 1967. Don and Megan are holidaying in Hawaii, although it’s less a romantic getaway than a paid vacation on behalf of Sheraton Hotels. Megan seems to be enjoying herself, but Don is typically immersed in his own thoughts. And if you thought that empty elevator shaft last season was too obvious a metaphor, be prepared for Don’s preoccupation with death and artifice to become all-consuming in this double-header. From the ‘authentic’ Hawaiian food that’s told tastes like paste, to reading Dante’s Inferno, and, most feelingly, giving away a young bride to a drunken soldier about to head back out to Vietnam. His holiday even began with the doorman being resuscitated as they’re waiting for a cab to the airport, and Don returns to find the office has been altered without his being aware. His desk has been moved for a photographer taking publicity shots for SCDP (nice to see they kept the name even after Lane’s death), and his ad campaign for Sheraton, mistaking disembodiment for bliss, bombs even whilst Don argues that true pleasure can only come at the expense of leaving one’s self behind.

Roger’s storyline is the most purely satisfying of those on offer in the episode. He receives the news that his mother has died with impassivity (she was ninety-one, after all), but finds himself confounded later by two mementoes, one, the water from the River Jordan that he was baptised with and which Margaret forgets once Roger has accepted her husband’s business proposal, and the kit his shoe-shiner leaves behind after he dies. As Roger opens the box and picks out the brush, succumbing to tears, it’s an incredibly moving moment, one focused on the importance we attach to objects and the empty spaces they represent, a theme mirrored in the soldier’s lighter that Don seems unable to get rid of. I’m sure there will be plenty of viewers that will balk at how clearly this particular theme is laid out in Roger’s therapy session, as he ruminates on the doorways he’s been persuaded to enter throughout his life, always finding himself in the same room and always leading towards the ‘ultimate’ doorway.

Peggy is, at least, having a happier time of it. Firmly established in her new job, she’s forced to think up a new ad campaign for a pair of headphones when a comic on The Tonight Show makes an unfortunate connection between her punchline and Vietnam (which was reaching its zenith in 1967; the Tet Offensive was launched in January 1968). There were some great touches to this storyline, and it’s of course great to see Peggy succeeding outside of SCDP, and the comparisons made to how Don works were pointed, sure, but were pretty spot-on in what we know of how Peggy would operate.

Betty, the show’s most divisive character, had her biggest storyline in ages, as she goes in search of Sally’s friend, Sandy, after she runs away to New York. Betty has always been the show’s most transgressive character, even when she’s not been the most forward-thinking, so her shocking joke about rape makes sense in much the same way that her afternoon making goulash with a bunch of city hobos does. Finding Sandy’s violin in a flophouse, she briefly plays at being mother to the mostly affable squatters she finds there, but again there’s a peculiar tension between how Betty reads the situation and the potential danger she could land herself in. It’s oddly reminiscent of the scene in Season 1 when Betty’s car breaks down and she doesn’t have enough money to pay the repairman – she’s too removed from the situation to see what’s really going on. It’s an ambiguous, strange sequence, but one that reaffirms Betty’s ability to stray from not only the world the other characters live in, but also from any preconceived notions of liberation or empowerment, choosing her own path. Out of everyone this week, it’s Betty that really marches to the beat of her own drum. She is also, since the episode seems content to throw numerous images of doorways at us, the only character who has a door closed on her, and it’s by her daughter.

It was a slow episode, but one that slowly sets its themes in place, in stone almost. Such heavy symbolism has always been a characteristic of the show, and I’d argue it only adds to its singular mood and melancholy, as if the characters can’t escape from the images of death and dying all around them. This was only reinforced by the various call-backs to previous episodes, be it Pete’s handy repetition of Don’s usual office ritual (‘And then you’ll have a nap!’), the reappearance of The Carousel, another Don prototype in over-eager Bob (James Wolk), or another affair with Linda Cardellini’s perpetually black-clad neighbour. It’s hard to think of another show that can make repetition, and the inanity of repeating our mistakes, of disappearing into clichés we’d hoped to avoid, seem like such a rich seam for drama, but Mad Men managed it. A great opener to a season I’m excited to see unfold.

Take Shelter (2011): You’ve got a good life, Curtis. I think...

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 20:56:28 +0000

Take Shelter (2011):

You’ve got a good life, Curtis. I think that’s the best compliment you can give a man; take a look at his life and say, ‘That’s good’.

Girls, Season 2, Episode 10: Together

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 17:06:50 +0000

Before it even aired, Girls was already a controversial show, but most of the criticisms levelled at the show existed outside of it. Charges of whitewashing, nepotism and self-absorption, and spirited defences of these claims proliferated online and made it appear as if the show existed in a bubble, watched only by critics of the zeitgeist. Its second season arrived when most of these arguments had died down, and the majority of this season’s strongest criticism has come from those people that were already fans. A discordant season even by Girls’ singular standards, the characters often seemed stuck in stories that seemed to bear no relevance on what was happening elsewhere. This was, of course, part of Dunham’s point, as she isolated her characters from one another so as to emphasise both their loneliness and narcissism. It’s a difficult trick to pull off for any serialised drama – especially one with only a ten episode order – but that worked wonders with, say, Ray and Adam’s trip to Staten Island or Jessa’s house of cards marriage. Even those self-contained stories that didn’t work so well – Hannah’s lazy day with Patrick Wilson or Jessa’s on-the-nose family get-together – were still searching character pieces with good moments that, ultimately, didn’t quite hold together.

The season finale played on its characters’ isolation to effects that were as thrilling as they were disconcerting. Marnie, after a season-long tailspin, insinuates her way back into Charlie’s life, unsure as to how he can have stumbled across success where her best laid plans have gone so awry. Both are unable to see what’s best for them, one trapped by her own increasingly insupportable ideals, the other by plain old lovesickness. Shoshanna also finds herself unstuck by her ideals when she, increasingly frustrated by Ray’s lack of motivation, realises that she needs more experiences of her own before settling down with somebody. The break-up scene exhibits a self-awareness unusual for characters on the show, not only in Shoshanna’s pained understanding of her own youth, but also that she wants something from Ray that he is unable to give her. Since I like the two as a couple, I’m unsure as to whether this decision isn’t one Shoshanna will end up regretting, but it demonstrated an assertiveness as to her own sense of right and wrong that we haven’t seen since Jessa’s wedding (and that is, it’s worth remembering, the very thing that attracted Ray to her in the first place).

Far more problematic is the place in which Hannah has ended up. Under pressure to finish her book on time, her obsessive compulsive disorder manifests itself in increasingly harmful ways. Again, this being Hannah, she’s as self-involved as she’s ever been, eliciting a strong put-down from Laird and her father, both of whom she wheedles for comfort in a way guaranteed to raise their hackles. It’s Hannah’s storyline that really benefits from the season-long isolation of its individual characters. If her angry voicemail to Jessa last week didn’t make it abundantly clear, Hannah has nobody she feels she can turn to, at least not on any level deeper than her need for money and blanket reassurance, which she panders to Laird and her father for. Even when Marnie comes to check on her, Hannah hides under the bed, denying us the longed-for resolution of their rift. But Dunham’s denial of her characters’ best interests is most clearly realised in that finale scene. Hannah facetimes Adam, and once he realises that she’s exhibiting signs of her OCD, runs over, bare-chested, forces open her door, carries her from her bedroom and they kiss. That this is all tied in with a montage that shows us Charlie and Marnie’s wonky happiness and Shoshanna kissing some blonde guy in a club, only serves to drive home the ambiguity of this happy ending. The way the sequence is soundtrack and edited together suggests a groundswell of emotion, but the saccharine nature of Hannah’s rescue (and that of the other characters) falls apart as soon as you start thinking about it. Yes, Hannah has called Adam because there’s no-one else to call, but is this is a reaction to seeing him relatively well-off in the previous episode? And speaking of the previous episode, Adam’s need to dominate sexually led to a degrading, unpleasant experience with his new girlfriend…is he the hero Hannah seems to want? The sequence works because it scratches beneath the surface of Hannah’s most basic need, not only to be loved for all her flaws, but to be understood without the usual verbosity to attaches to that most favourite subject of hers, herself. It’s a pretty great subversion of romantic comedy conventions, and one that digs for real feeling as well, albeit feelings as ugly and messy as its characters.

Glee, Season 4, Episode 11: Sadie Hawkins

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 22:57:22 +0000

After a pretty successful run, Glee came crashing down to earth last week with a resounding crash, in an episode that extracted stories from spare parts and scrap metal. Anybody invested in Kurt and Blaine’s relationship might have been led to believe that they were back together following their touching reunion over Christmas? Not so, apparently, because Kurt has moved onto British choir singer Adam and Blaine is nurturing a crush on Sam. To be fair, there’s potential in both of these stories for something more interesting, and which I was desperate for the show to start unpacking, but which it curiously refused to do. I liked the idea of Kurt gravitating towards one of the unpopular kids, and the cliques within NYADA that Rachel sees herself as at the top of, but the subplot is hampered by the rather sudden break-off with Blaine. Similarly, Blaine’s own romantic storyline is a do-over of Kurt’s crush on Finn back in Season 1, albeit told with a bit more sensitivity and self-awareness of the ‘predatory gay’ stereotype.

What was even more bizarre was Tina’s interest in Blaine, which not only came from nowhere but reached fever pitch within forty-two minutes. Have these two had anything to do with one another previously? At least his friendship with Sam was grounded in earlier episodes, but this just felt like the writers tossing off one of the most clichéd storylines in the high school genre just to give Jenna Ushkowitz something to do. The fluidity of characters’ sexuality on high school shows is so rarely anything more than a passing phase, with writers unsure what to do with characters once they’ve come out, that Glee’s previous visit to that particular well, in which Blaine’s attraction to Rachel was couched in terms of his own desire to experiment outside the box, at least treated his sexuality with a degree of sensitivity. But by allowing him that small moment of doubt, by rewriting Tina’s character to fit this particular narrative dead end and writing off a relationship the audience has been investing in for three years, felt cheap even by this show’s standards.

Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 22:17:00 +0000

It’s difficult to approach a film as stepped in controversy as Zero Dark Thirty, Kathryn Bigelow’s follow-up to Oscar-winner The Hurt Locker, and again dealing with the War on Terror. Depending on who you speak to, it’s a gung-ho salute to the CIA that endorses torture, an unremarkable procedural whose acclaim is based on the gender of its director, or a less subtle retread of Homeland’s first season. What emerges is a film that transcends all that chatter, albeit in a way that allows audiences to import their own ideologies onto what’s in front of them.

Jessica Chastain plays Maya, a CIA analyst, who we see first flinching at a colleague interrogating a suspected terrorist and, within moments, passing him a tank full of water in the first of several difficult torture techniques used on this man; dog collars and imprisonment in a coffin-like wooden box follow. One suspects that Maya’s rapid implication may, by extension, implicate the audience. At the very least, it’s insurance against anyone leaving their conscience at the gate, as Bigelow continues to push buttons, eliciting squirmy reactions to the US treatment of terror suspects in the time directly following 9/11. If Maya’s initial reaction is to flinch, Bigelow’s is anything but, and the inclusion of such brutal techniques feels essential, the fact that they lead to valuable Intel less a statement of support for the CIA than a deliberate moral dubiousness essential to proceedings later in the film.

After introduction of Maya, the film’s longest second act is concerned with the ten year hunt for Osama bin Laden, playing out as a rigorous procedural that calls to mind David Fincher’s masterpiece, Zodiac. Sadly rare for a female protagonist, Maya has no love interest, no back story. When a superior asks her what she’s done, she replies: ‘This. Only this.’ Rather than romanticising or celebrating the monomaniacal hero, Mark Boal’s expert script and Chastain’s similarly controlled performance point to the cracks in her singularity, be it in her desperate clinging to the notion that she was ‘spared’ in order to see this mission through to its end, or a jokey scene early on whereby a friend needles Maya about her lack of interest in men. This doesn’t mean, however, that the film is devoid of emotional footholds, with a supporting cast of characters providing much-needed colour, in particular Jennifer Ehle’s generous portrayal as a fellow analyst.

The film’s final act, the raid on the compound where bin Laden is staying is a bravura example of Bigelow’s ability to draw tension from a scenario we all know the end of. Casting likeable, familiar faces (most notable Chris Pratt and Joel Edgerton), as the Navy SEALs at the centre of the operation lends the finale a blunt shock value, as a woman, flinging herself on her dead husband, is gunned down in similar fashion. The muted, numb final frames are exactly as they should be, the cheer of Navy SEALs fading into the background as Bigelow focuses on Maya’s strung-out, exhausted face, a blank canvas for the audience to read what it wants onto it. The subtle ambiguity of the film is, ultimately, is greatest achievement. Is this a story told from a US perspective? Absolutely, but that doesn’t, I think, preclude it from allowing uncertainty seep into its talky script, or that depiction equates endorsement. Bigelow and Boal show us, but they never tell us, allowing us to make up our own mind about what went on, and how close their film cleaves to fact. Intelligent, literate and full of hard angles, it’s Kathryn Bigelow’s most accomplished film to date, and one that’s likely to inspire debate and devotion in equal measure.

Books of 2012

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 17:00:02 +0000

To round out my ‘Best Of’ lists: books. Since I don’t tend to read that many books as soon as they’re published, but on the recommendations of friends, or simply because something has been lying on my shelf for years, this is less a traditional ‘Best Of’ list in that I’ve focused less on books published this year (although some of them were), and more on what I’ve been reading this year. Y’know, for fun.

1) The Yips by Nicola Barker

Nicola Barker is undoubtedly one of the best British writers working today, albeit one that has never achieved the sort of commercial success usually afforded to a writer whose made it onto the Booker long list four times and, once, been a threat for the win (in 2007 with her magnum opus, Darkmans). To be fair, her left of centre style – which involves text littered with parentheses, subplots spiraling out of control, and a mind joyously stuck in the gutter – hardly seems to lend itself to public appeal, but in spite of this, Barker never feels inaccessible. Her latest novel, The Yips, about a golfer suffering from performance anxiety and the residents of the shithole town he happens to inhabit, is typically absurdist Barker’s way with characters, particularly a foul-mouthed waitress looking to insinuate herself into a more exciting lifestyle, are drawn with more compassion and humour than most other authors I know and, aside from anything else, her writing just feels so refreshingly different. After the minor disappointment of suburban comedy of manners, Burley Post Box Theft, this was a stonking return to form.

2) Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

So many works of dystopian fiction begin with their world already imagined, but Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake concerns itself with how its world came to pass. Its protagonist, Snowman, tells of his friendship as a boy with Jimmy (later known as Crake), who would later go onto become the world’s top scientist and is somehow linked to the mysterious life forms known as ‘Crakers,’ and to the annihilation of the human race. There are plenty of big ideas in Atwood’s book, but what sticks is how effortlessly she portrays the difficult friendship between these two boys within a society already fraying at the seams. A cautionary tale told from an invariably human perspective, Atwood’s world was further extended in the post-apocalyptic sequel, The Year of the Flood, which is similarly evocative and thought-provoking.

3) Dinner At The Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler

This was the year I discovered Anne Tyler, and what a find. My favourite of the books of hers I read this year was Dinner At The Homesick Restaurant, a family saga of sorts that begins with the near-death of its indomitable matriarch and then backtracks to her difficult post-war life after her husband leaves her alone with three children. The book’s title might lead you to believe that this is one of those unbearably twee books in the manner of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, but this is a story with much harder edges, its title actually alluding to the strung-out hope of the youngest son whose efforts to reunite the family for one meal at his struggling restaurant are met with constant frustration. There’s something heartbreakingly real about the minor tragedies and disappointments that pepper these people’s lives, and although Tyler can be warmer, her precision and humour are reminiscent of a modern-day Austen.

4) The Emperor Of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Subtitled ‘a biography of cancer,’ Siddhartha Mukherjee’s tome is a daunting prospect, but surprisingly readable with its deft mixture of personal stories, Mukherjee’s patient laying of groundwork and the genuinely fascinating story it has to tell. Giving cancer a character of its own should be pretentious, but as you read on, a narrative emerges in which the disease’s persistence, those patients that we see fall victim to it, and the scientists battling it in its various forms. It’s testament to the quality of the writing that, whilst intensely personal, Mukherjee never needs to resort to sentimental hand-wringing to get a reaction; the science might require some concentration, but this is rewarding, awe-inspiring reading.

5) Battleborn by Claire Vaye Watkins

Short story collections are notoriously difficult to publish in the UK since, as a rule, they don’t tend to sell all that well. Claire Vaye Watkins’ debut collection, Battleborn, was published here by Granta and even if its sales have been modest, the critical response has been anything but. It’s rare to find a debut writer with a voice this fully formed, but this diverse collection of stories brings to mind the very best of American writers, not least the spare, taut style of Cormac McCarthy. The standout story, about a pair of brothers caught in the gold rush who happen across a pair of Chinese immigrants, shows such rare depth and dexterity of feeling that you’re astonished that this author is all of twenty-eight years old.

6) In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

I’ve always been morbidly fascinated by true crime stories that it seems odd that, aside from Dave Cullen’s marvellous Columbine, I’d never ventured any further into the genre. When a friend recommended In Cold Blood to me, it felt like a huge gap in my reading habits, but I wasn’t prepared for just how involving Capote’s story would be. Effectively inventing the terms ‘narrative non-fiction,’ the opening pages, detailing the quiet lives of a family we know are about to be murdered are horribly effective, as is Capote’s patient unpicking of the community that bears witness to this unthinkable crime. Never hiding his own fascination with the two killers and the broadly outlined homoeroticism between the two, the genius of In Cold Blood lies in its subjectivity.

7) The Song Of Achilles by Madeleine Miller

Surely included on every gay reading group list this past year, Madeleine Miller’s debut novel, which went onto win the Orange Prize, defied expectations with its straightforward, lyrical approach to the love affair between Patroclus and Achilles. Told from Patroclus’ point of view, Miller suffers some minor anachronisms in describing their adolescent fumbling, but her depiction of the Trojan War is masterful and moving. Her ability to craft character from myth is impressive; in her hands, Achilles is arrogant and elusive, but Patroclus asserts himself even more clearly as the demi-god’s lover, cast into the shade by Homer but brought to fervent life here.

8) Night Watch by Sarah Waters

Sarah Waters’ tough, truthful exploration of love in wartime was one of the most purely pleasurable reads I had this year. Split between four characters, and their interlocking lives, the narrative begins in late 40s London, only to move back in time through the war and examine the reasons why this lonely, dissolute set of people came to be the way they are. Crucially, each character is as compelling as the other, their rich inner lives informing each other as they tumble in and out of bed, traversing difficult emotional terrain, all against the backdrop of a vividly sketched wartime London. There’s yearning here, and sadness, but Water never overwhelms her reader, instead preferring to untangle her characters’ thorny feelings so that when they’re left, finally, in the cold hard light of day, it’s all the more effective.

9) State Of Wonder by Ann Patchett

Another novel shortlisted for the Orange Prize, State of Wonder belies its fairly dreadful cover design as a Conrad-inspired journey of the soul. Set almost entirely in the depths of the Amazon, Patchett’s protagonist, scientist Marina, finds herself stranded after going to find the body of her former partner, who died of a fever in the jungle. Once there, she finds herself inextricably tied to Dr. Swenson, a force of nature and the true heart of the book, an older lady intent on discovering the secret behind the Lakashi people’s extended fertility. Sidestepping questions of cultural tourism, Patchett’s generous portrayal of tribal life and what it means to her small band of outsiders is as gripping as it is evocative. Notable for one hair-raising set piece involving an anaconda, it’s a novel at once both searching and robust. A surprise, given how Patchett seems so aggressively marketed towards the Paulo Coehlo crowd here in the UK, and a real winner.

10) ‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King

Stephen King is one of those authors that many of us read in our adolescence, but have never thought to return to. Salem’s Lot, King’s second novel, was one I missed first time around, but which proved a great big gulp of a read as an adult. Vampires have saturated popular culture, but King’s typically masterful build-up makes you truly care for the small community of Jerusalem’s Lot before letting loose with a terrifying creature that’s equal parts Bram Stoker and King’s own imagination. The blunt emotional force of the novel hits you when it counts, especially in a protracted climax that, by today’s standards, feels genuinely genre-busting. Few authors take the sorts of risks that King does in his fiction, and Salem’s Lot finds him in full control of his powers.

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Thu, 17 Jan 2013 09:33:59 +0000

Best of 2012 - Film

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 22:09:00 +0000

Best Film:

1) Young Adult

A rare treat of a film in that it actually delivers on its promise, Young Adult follows former prom queen Mavis Gray who, upon discovering that her ex-boyfriend has just had a child, decides that she needs to win him back since she’s clearly the superior option to his drab suburban wife. Scripted by Diablo Cody, Young Adult was heaps better than Juno for having the courage of its convictions, aided enormously by Charlize Theron’s glorious depiction of icy psychosis. By refusing the expected epiphany, it felt radical without sacrificing its sense of humour or insight. I had initially placed the film a few spots lower, but a recent revisit confirmed in my mind that, like Election or Heathers, this is a movie that I will return to time and again and will always get something new from.

2) Once Upon A Time In Anatolia

This stunning Turkish drama from Nuri Bilge Ceylan depicts a seemingly endless night for a small group of police officers, a doctor and a murderer as they wander through an arid landscape in search of a body. The murderer, being drunk at the time, can’t remember where he buried it, and so begins an elegiac journey into the soul. It’s a film filled with quiet epiphanies of both kindness and cruelty for its characters, its standout scenes a mixture of wonder and ambiguity. The script, direction and performances conspire to create a sense of loss, hope and of the lives that came before. In a film that appears, on the surface of things, to be about nothing at all, it’s a singular achievement. Spiritual and searching without pandering or hectoring, Once Upon A Time In Anatolia is a film in complete control of its audience.

3) The Cabin In The Woods

No film this year felt as anarchic as Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon’s horror pastiche. Subtly wheeling from Sam Raimi-inspired territory into something more unexpected, it’s a film that retains the whip-smart dialogue typical of Whedon even at its darkest. Winningly performed by a group of Whedonverse regulars, it’s the smartest, funniest, jumpiest horror film in ages, neither too self-satisfied in its nods to the films it’s taking off, nor too bogged down in its (admittedly pretty thin) satire of the entertainment industry. A true rollercoaster ride of a movie, and one that will doubtless stand up well to midnight screenings in years to come.

4) The Master

Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film following the Oscar-winning There Will Be Blood might have not quite landed with audiences, but that doesn’t stop it being one of the year’s best. The much ballyhooed link to Scientology proves something of a mislead in Anderson’s exploration of servitude, faith and yet another complex father/son dynamic. Joaquin Phoenix’s troubled Freddie Quell falls under the spell of cult leader Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman) in 50s America, but Anderson’s emotionally compelling film is less concerned with the wider picture than in studying the need these two men have for one another. In many ways it’s his most intimate film since Punch Drunk Love, and one that finds him at the top of his game in terms of craft. Filmed in 70mm, it’s one of the most beautiful and intricately put-together films of the year.

5) Amour

A film about a husband caring for his elderly wife as she slowly dies before his eyes doesn’t immediately sound like the warmest of films, especially coming from Michael Haneke, but this is his most straightforwardly compassionate film yet. It lacks the complexity of Haneke’s previous masterpieces, but it’s no less relentless in its testing of the limits of human experience. Restricted almost entirely to the couple’s apartment, Amour forces you to witness somebody’s sad decline in all its physicality and with all its emotional trauma without ever feeling like it’s punishing you.

6) Shame

2012 was the year that Hollywood started taking male sexuality seriously. Between this and Magic Mike, the male form in all its glory was on full display this year and - more gratifyingly - treated with more than just a nod and a wink. Shame might have opened with a shot of Michael Fassbender’s cock, but Steve McQueen’s examination of sex addiction is anything but titillating. An ambiguous film of painful yearning, its chronicle of a brother and sister struggling to either make a connection or to even understand themselves was one of the year’s most rewarding experiences, establishing Fassbender as one of the most talented actors of his generation, and proving that Carey Mulligan was capable of much more than the wide-eyed ingénue that catapulted her to fame in An Education.

7) Martha, Marcy, May, Marlene

Sean Durkin’s assured debut feature might have made waves for its outstanding central performance from Elisabeth Olson, but the film that performance is built around is just as worthy of acclaim. Olson plays Martha, a young woman looking for direction who finds solace in John Hawkes’ innocuous-seeming commune. The film’s structure, which neatly compares Martha’s life outside society to that of her older sister’s affluent home by the lake with her city-dwelling husband, allows the viewer to understand the appeal of Martha’s initial escape. It’s a meditative film, with a strong supporting cast, and one that allows its sense of unease to build gradually to its bravely abrupt ending.

8) Sister

This Swiss film form Ursula Meier caused barely a stir when it opened in the UK back in November, but it’s an exceptional piece comparable with the works of the Dardennes brothers. Kacey Mottet-Klein plays Simon, a twelve year-old boy who steals from wealthy tourists on the ski slopes to feed his older, wayward sister. Whilst doing so, he forms tentative relationships with Gillian Anderson’s brilliantly-sketched yummy mummy and Martin Compston’s blunt Scottish cook. Hinging on a reveal halfway through the film, Sister is a heartbreaking study of a family living on the margins, and the extent people are prepared to go to for those they love.

9) Rust and Bone

Jacques Audiard’s follow-up to A Prophet is an offbeat treatment of potentially syrupy material, with Marion Cotillard’s amputee entering into a relationship with a bare-knuckle boxer and single father. His performers lend depth and credibility to the material, which examines the importance and value of pain, suffering and hardship in its characters’ lives. Aside from a stand-out segment that is surely to rehabilitate Katy Perry’s pop anthem ‘Firework’ for many an audience member, it’s a deeply felt film of bruised emotion that only really stumbles during a final act twist that strains to hard to bring its divergent threads together.

10) Silver Linings Playbook

One of the finest romantic comedies we’ve had in years, with Jennifer Lawrence cementing her movie star status as Tiffany, the young widow who turns things around for bi-polar Eagles fan Pat (Bradley Cooper) following his release from an instituation. Told with David O. Russell’s raggedy energy, it dares to be humorous about mental illness whilst offering up a hugely satisfying romance at its centre. There were those that griped about what they perceived to be the screenplay’s glib approach to characterisation, but this was remarkably sure-footed film-making told and played with verve, energy and a winning lightness of touch.

11) Holy Motors

Nothing else released in 2012 was quite like the anarchic spectacular that was Holy Motors, a fantastical comedy with a melancholy undertow. Denis Lavant’s Mr. Oscar is ferried around Paris, adopting a series of disguises before participating in a series of bizarre sequences that appear that have no connection to one another. I must admit that the film’s myriad references to older classics went over my head, but that doesn’t mean Holy Motor’s peculiar sensibility and anarchic sense of joy were wasted. What other film this year had both Kylie Minogue singing in a delapidated department store and Eva Mendes being kidnapped by a manic troll-like creature and carried into the sewers of Paris?

12) Magic Mike

The other film this year concerned with male sexuality also cemented Channing Tatum’s status as a leading man. He plays the titular Mike, a stripper with aspirations of setting up his own furniture business in Steven Soderburgh’s surprisingly moving drama of dreams unfulfilled. Bolstered by some strong supporting work from Matthew McConaughey and Alex Pettyfer, the striptease segments are great fun and, although the story (based on Tatum’s own early career) doesn’t offer anything particularly original, it’s deeply felt. In truth, it’s Soderburgh’s best film in years, one that isn’t embarrassed by its subject matter, but likewise isn’t afraid to reach for something that little bit deeper.

13) In The Fog

Set in 1942 Nazi-occupied Russia, Ukranian director Sergei Loznitsa’s stark, moving story of collaboration was one of the most pleasing and robust of the year. The story concerns Sushenya, a railway worker who is arrested by the Nazis along with his co-workers, but whilst they are all hanged, he is allowed to survive. Why? Did he cut a deal with the Nazis? Even his own wife seems to doubt him, so it comes a no surprise when he is marched out of his home by two partisans in the forest. As the group trudge through the forest, the truth of the situation becomes clear, as Loznitsa’s sure-footed screenplay delves into the past of its principal characters. Necessarily, it’s something of a bleak film, but one which shows surprising glimmers of humanity amidst the bloodshed and horror.

14) Keep The Lights On

A meandering film about a relationship in decay, Keep The Lights On is a far from perfect film but one which, nevertheless, my mind kept wandering back to. The film’s autobiographical nature works in both its favour and to its detriment, as Ira Sachs’ counterpart, played with humour and pathos by Thure Lindhardt, struggles to understand his partner’s addiction to crack cocaine. There’s plenty here that would feel self-indulgent were it not for the ring of truth that Sachs’ late night phone calls, dime store hook-ups and dimly-lit interiors give off. Some will doubtless be frustrated by the film’s narrow point of view, and further still by Zachary Booth’s rather blank portrayal of a young man going into a tailspin, but there’s real pain here, and, more importantly, of real cruelty and compassion. This might not be the year’s most tightly controlled piece of film-making, but there’s a method to it that’s very much in keeping with the dark subject matter.

15) Damsels In Distress

Whit Stillman’s singular campus comedy is the sort of film that plenty of people will hate, so involved is it in its own eccentric world. Greta Gerwig leads a group of college girls on a mission to save adolescents from depression with the invention of an unlikely dance craze, the sambola. When she herself falls into a ‘tailspin’ (she refuses to call herself depressive) over a boy, her group of friends are forced to reconsider their former leader’s commonly-held wisdom. This is one of those rare examples of a film where every actor is on the same page, from Analeigh Tipton’s sceptical freshman to Adam Brody’s love interest. Precious, maybe, but undeniably quotable and funny to those that are willing to give it a try.

16) The Kid with a Bike

The Dardennes brothers’ touching, open-hearted parable was one of the most beguiling films of the year. There’s not much in the way of story, as angry young twelve-year-old Cyril learns to accept the love of no-nonsense hairdresser and mother figure Samantha after his dad abandons him in a care home, but the film’s simplicity is its virtue. Thomas Doret’s guarded Cyril was just one of several great child performances in 2012, and his gradual opening up to the possibility of love and acceptance, alongside the gradual realisation of his father’s apathy is beautifully translated in the Dardennes’ accumulation of small, subtle moments. Whilst The Kid with a Bike is open to charges of being ‘gentle’ or otherwise ‘inoffensive’ cinema, I found it unforced, persuasive and, quietly, very moving indeed.

17) Moonrise Kingdom

Wes Anderson’s best film since The Royal Tenenbaums doesn’t exactly further his usual formula, but it certainly perfects it. Precocious, adolescent romance, of course, fits perfectly into Anderson’s worldview, as Sam and Suzy (great child actors Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward) escape their homes in order to face the world together. It’s a film full of detail and care, which we’ve come to expect from Wes Anderson, but there’s an openness and lack of fussiness here that has hampered some of his previous projects.

18) Beasts of the Southern Wild

Set in a Louisiana bayou, the parallels to Hurricane Katrina might be obvious, but they’re hardly the whole story to Benh Zeitlin’s one-of-a-kind film. Focusing on a girl, Hushpuppy, and her ailing father as a storm approaches their tight-knit community, Beasts of the Southern Wild blends magical realism, sly social commentary and hard-fought emotional beats to bring its story to wondrous life. There wasn’t a film like it this year, and part of its charm lay in how confidently it’s divergent elements married up on screen, be it Quevenhane Wallis’ unshakable lead performance, the gorgeous score, or the striking images.

19) The Loneliest Planet

Julia Loktev’s miniature aired at this year’s London Film Festival but a UK distributor has yet to come onboard. A pity, as it’s one of the year’s most intriguing, masterfully-wrought films, and even comes coupled with the re-emergence of art-house superstar Gael Garcia Bernal. Bernal plays Alex, a thirty-year-old backpacker roughing it in Georgia with his fiancée Nica (Hani Furstenberg). A split-second decision not only shatters the couple’s playful mood, but puts their whole relationship into perspective, as both parties are forced to look at themselves long and hard and realise their painful limitations. It’s slow, a meditation on masculinity, young love and desire more than a thriller, but Loktev displays considerable control in the film’s first third leading up to the incident, and her actors are more than capable of showing the hidden doubts and regrets laying dormant within their characters.

20) Barbara

Christian Petzold’s tightly-controlled thriller is set in East Germany in 1980, where talented physician Barbara (Nina Hoss, phenomenal) has been relegated to a small country practice after filing a request to leave the GDR. Working as a spy and hatching a plan of escape with her West German lover, Barbara finds herself conflicted by both a new friendship and a young woman under her care. There’s not a hair out of place in this study of desperation under the Stasi regime is quietly impressive, never over-playing its hand but nevertheless resonating strongly. It might not have the impact of that other great film about the period, The Lives Of Others, but this smaller film captures its characters’ barely-suppressed longing and fears just as expertly.

Best Actor:

Michael Fassbender – Shame

An almost-ran at this year’s Oscars, Fassbender’s achingly sad, desperate performance in Shame cemented him as one of Hollywood’s go-to lookers for smart, incisive turns in left-of-centre movies. It’s a haunting portrayal of a man at sea, suggesting something more complex and troubled beneath a charm offense dialled up to eleven. Fassbender also impressed with a more meticulous performance in Prometheus this year, but Shame will be his calling card, a step-up even from his last collaboration with McQueen.

Matthias Schoenarts – Rust and Bone

Having previously achieved notice for his turn as a boxer in Belgium Oscar entry, Bullhead, Schoenarts proved himself more than capable of anchoring melodrama with resorting to melodramatics. His performance as a single father, making his living through bare-knuckle fights and forming an unlikely connection to a beautiful amputee would have been easy to overplay; he never does. It’s a performance of quiet power and authority, rooting some of the film’s implausibility in its final act with emotional realism.

Denis Lavant – Holy Motors

Surely the great comic performance of the year, and certainly one of the most diverse. As a man play-acting various roles through one long day, Lavant gets to embody an elderly beggar woman, a CGI-constructed serpent, a sexually potent leprechaun, a hit-man, and more. There’s pathos here, most obviously in a scene with his ‘daughter’ midway through the film, but what stands out is the riotous energy and fun Lavant brings to the role, be it in abducting an amusingly aloof Eva Mendes from a fashion shoot, or during an accordion-led intermission.

Joaquin Phoenix - The Master

The ups and downs of Joaquin Phoenix’s career have been well-documented. Even when promoting his mockumentary I’m Still Here with threats of retirement and a career in rap music, Two Lovers arrived and proved just how talented a performer he was. It’s no surprise, then, that he’s impressive in The Master, but the depths to which he burrows into the psychology of the alcoholic Freddy Quell are surprising, and, did you not know how diverse an actor he’s capable of being, almost troubling.

Channing Tatum – Magic Mike

If there’s any one actor who has cemented themselves as an honest-to-goodness movie star, it’s Channing Tatum. His year started well with romantic drama The Vow doing unexpected numbers at the box office, but it was the one-two punch of Magic Mike and 21 Jump Street that did him wonders. As the titular character in Soderburgh’s deceptively fluffy confection, he brought heart to one of the year’s best ensembles, achieving real pathos even if half the time we’re watching him grind on stage in a cop’s uniform. Displaying effortless charisma, Tatum’s emergence was one of cinema’s stories of the year.

Honourable Mentions: Thure Lindhart in Keep The Lights On, James Floyd in My Brother The Devil, Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook, Jean-Louis Tritignant in Amour and Deon Lotz in Beauty.

Best Actress:

Charlize Theron – Young Adult

Despite riding her Oscar pedigree to a nomination for the drab North County, Charlize Theron has struggled to find a role quite as substantial as Aileen Wuornos. Thank heavens, then, for Diablo Cody, who gave Theron the role of a lifetime as Mavis Gray, the sociopathic author returning to her hometown with the hope of luring her high school sweetheart away from what she wilfully perceived to be his dull suburban life. It takes real skill to create a train wreck quite so pleasurable as Mavis, and even more so to stick the film’s landing, a refreshing refusal to learn from past mistakes, to grow up, or to get better. An instant classic of character creation.

Marion Cotillard – Rust and Bone

Since hitting gold with La Vie En Rose, Marion Cotillard’s career has seen her flit seamlessly between both European cinema and supporting roles in well-received Hollywood productions such as Midnight in Paris and Contagion. Her meatiest role in quite some time, as a disabled woman finding her way into the world again, she’s unafraid of her character’s ugliest impulses. There doesn’t seem to be any barrier between character and audience in Rust and Bone, which is why you feel the pain of her waking up in bed to realise she has lost her legs just as acutely as you do her joy when she swims in the ocean for the first time since her accident.

Emmanuelle Riva – Amour

There were plenty of heartbreaking performances in 2012, but none shattered quite as much as Emmanuelle Riva’s masterful performance in Amour. Watching her gradual fade from being, bearing the indignities that illness and old age inflict on her, was one of the most traumatic cinematic experiences of the year. But in showing real conflict in her suffering, with brief flashes of her old self, Riva avoided sentimentality whilst never allowing Haneke’s film to appear needlessly cruel or miserabilist.

Quvenzhane Wallis - Beasts of the Southern Wild

There are those that say strong child performances are more the work of the director than the performer, and I’m not adverse to that theory. Anna Paquin might have given last year’s best performance in Margaret, but for every child star that’s proven their mettle, there are plenty of others (Keisha Castle-Hughes, Haley Joel Osmont) who were unable to do so, for a number of reasons. But whoever gets the credit for Hushpuppy - and it would seem hugely unfair not to credit a large part of it to Wallis - deserves high praise indeed. As a young girl struggling to be strong in the face on her father’s illness, she was heartbreaking, never sliding into cuteness or sentimentality. It was a character you had to believe in, and who had to be capable of carrying Benh Zeitlin’s singular film on her shoulders.

Elizabeth Olsen – Martha Marcy May Marlene

Along with Channing Tatum in Magic Mike, this was the other breakout performance of the year for me. There might have been some sceptical curiosity over the youngest Olsen sister branching out into acting, but Martha Marcy May Marlene more than proved her mettle. As a runaway from John Hawkes’ cult, Olsen’s physical, loosey-goosey performance exhibited fear, confusion and comfort in her own body. It’s a performance so fascinating, that Sarah Paulson’s concerned sister and Hugh Dancy’s uptight brother-in-law often seem to simply be reacting to Olsen’s presence (which is appropriate given the context). Olsen didn’t have quite the year that Channing Tatum did, but that didn’t make this breakthrough any less exciting.

Honourable Mentions: Carey Mulligan in Shame, Nina Hoss in Barbara, Ann Dowd in Compliance, Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Lining’s Playbook and Elle Fanning in Ginger & Rosa.

Best Supporting Actor:

Matthew McConaughey – Magic Mike

Matthew McConaughey had one hell of a year. Having become known for half-baked romantic comedies, he followed up last year’s well-received The Lincoln Lawyer withdiverse turns in Bernie, Killer Joe and Magic Mike. Consensus seems to have circled around McConaughey’s performance in the latter as the best of the bunch, and with good reason. As Dallas, owner of Magic Mike’s strip club, it’s his character that best encapsulates the script’s continual reshaping of masculinity. Self-aware of his body and how to use it, it’s not just that McConaughey is charismatic (though he is), it’s that he knows how to be centre of the room, and why that is. It’s a role that could have slid into showboating , but there’s a pleasing self-awareness and business nous that McConaughey brings to the role that perfectly elucidates the film’s themes.

John Hawkes – Martha Marcy May Marlene

If John Hawkes narrowly missed out on an Oscar nomination for The Sessions, it’s a shame that his insidious turn as a cult leader in Sean Durkin’s debut didn’t even make it that far. He’s creepy, yes, but he’s also persuasive and sensual enough to make you understand what would make his style of living so enticing to outsiders like Martha. Be it his beguiling performance of ‘Marcy’s Song,’ or his later reappearance at the film’s end, his character seems to infect the whole film, even when he’s not there. It was one of the most subtly terrifying performances of the year, and one that builds nicely on his similarly ambiguous work in Winter’s Bone a few years back.

Michael Fassbender – Prometheus

For all Prometheus’ problems (and they were legion), Michael Fassbender wasn’t one of them. His delightful Peter O’Toole impersonation was one of the film’s key pleasures, especially amidst a picture so murky and overburdened with narrative dead ends. Fassbender’s curious android, David, seems to fare especially well when compared to one of the strangest casts of the year, from Charlize Theron’s Ripley-channeling ship’s captain to Noomi Rapace’s wooden protagonist, but he also excels during those early scenes by himself. Nearly always a compelling presence, Prometheusalsomade a nice change of pace from his more psychologically haunted performance in Shame. If the latter film cemented him as one of the finest actors of his generation, then Ridley Scott’s unnecessary prequel showed that he was just as effective in genre pieces.

Seth Rogen - Take This Waltz

There’s been plenty of talk this past year of how Silver Linings Playbook will help change people’s perception of Bradley Cooper as a serious actor, but much fewer people discussed Seth Rogen’s remarkable transformation in Sarah Polley’s Take This Waltz. As Michelle Williams’ homely, predictable husband, he initially seems to be working in a familiar key as they joke around and horseplay together, but gradually real pathos and vulnerability come up from beneath the surface. This is undoubtedly Williams’ film, but it’s Rogen who is tasked with showing much of the fallout from her thoughtful, melancholic wandering outside of her marriage. And if I wasn’t wholly convinced by the film itself, there’s no doubting Rogen’s commitment to the role, and his subtle re-tinkering of a part that could easily have faded into the background.

Ezra Miller - The Perks of Being A Wallflower

The Perks of Being a Wallflower was one of 2012’s biggest surprises for me. Tender, deeply-felt and significantly darker than I thought it would be, it also featured one of the year’s best ensembles. Ezra Miller, fresh from playing the homicidal son-from-hell in We Need To Talk About Kevin, takes on a very different role in the brittle, gay Patrick, best friend of Logan Lerman’s downbeat hero. He’s a blast of humour, rage and companionship in Steven Chbosky’s story of young regret and aspiration. It’s telling, also, that underneath the bravado, Miller is able to convey a deeper pain without lapsing into after-school special material. Along with Kevin and his debut film, Afterschool, he proved that he was a go-to actor for the darker side of adolescence.

Honourable Mentions: Alex Pettyfer in Magic Mike, Patton Oswalt in Young Adult, Dwight Henry in Beasts of the Southern Wild, Philip Seymour Hoffman in The Master and Viggo Mortensen in A Dangerous Method.

Best Supporting Actress:

Lea Seydoux – Sister

When Lea Seydoux appeared as the inscrutable French assassin in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol at the tail end of 2011, who’d have thought that she would make the transformation quite so quickly and quite so seamlessly into ‘serious actress.’ Of course, that’s more a result on how foreign actors are often under-served in Hollywood (who remember Women On Top?), but Seydoux’s performance in Ursula Meier’s exceptional Sister still felt like a bolt from the blue. Child-like, but well aware of how to use the limited power she does have, Seydoux’s performance had to bear the brunt of the film’s slow game-changing reveal, whilst also suggesting hidden warmth as yet untapped.

Emily Blunt - Looper

Without a great deal of fanfare, Emily Blunt built up a strong case for being one of her generation’s most elastic of actresses. Whilst she wasn’t required to do much more than exhibit easy charm in Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, her role in Lynn Shelton’s indie drama My Sister’s Sister and, especially, her supporting role in Rian Johnson’s surprise hit were proof of what she could do given the right material. As a single mother guarding a secret in Looper, she effectively changed the course of the film’s narrative from well-mounted but obvious dystopian thriller into much more exciting, emotionally-engaging waters. Feisty without the quotation marks that usually hang around that word, her display of teetering strength gave Looper stakes it previously lacked and makes way for that sucker-punch of an ending.

Rosemarie DeWitt - My Sister’s Sister

Rosemarie DeWitt is so wonderful at building believable relationships with her co-stars that it’s no wonder her most notable roles have been as sisters in both Rachel Getting Married and, on TV, as Toni Collette’s troubled sibling in The United States of Tara. Here she plays another sister, albeit one seemingly without the same amount of baggage that her previous characters have carried around with them. Indeed, it’s her very normalcy and easiness that works such wonders in the film’s first two thirds. And yet even when a third act twist creates needless tension in an otherwise finely realised drama, DeWitt’s ability to reach for the uglier facets of her character’s personality make the strongest impression. There are few actors that can make warmth seem complicated, but she’s one of them.

Rebel Wilson – Pitch Perfect

This is the sort of scene-stealing performance that lands you a full slate for the upcoming year. Rebel Wilson had previously impressed with a small amount of screentime in Bridesmaids, but it was in 2012’s female-leaning comedy Pitch Perfect that she really made her mark. As self-proclaimed Fat Amy, she was a burst of comedy in a film that otherwise felt weirdly restrained both in its musical numbers and Anna Kendricks’ turned-up nose of a performance. Not only is she gifted with the film’s best one-liners, but she’s also capable of making funny even those lines that you suspect might not be so coming from another actor. It’s the comic performance of the year, for me.

Anne Hathaway - The Dark Knight Rises

If the final chapter in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy largely faded quickly, Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman was the one asset that refused to be forgotten. Expectations were already weighted against her, since she was up against Michelle Pfeiffer’s iconic creation from Batman Returns. Fortunately, Selina Kyle emerges as one of Nolan’s most fully-formed female characters since Memento’s Natalie, injecting some much-needed humour into the increasingly murky series. A last minute swerve from flirtatious to romantic might ring hollow, but that doesn’t take away from what Hathaway does with the role before then.

Honourable Mentions: Scarlett Johansson in Avengers Assemble, Julia Roberts in Mirror Mirror, Nicole Beharie in Shame, Corinne Masiero in Rust & Bone and Brie Larson in Rampart.

Best Original Screenplay:

Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard – The Cabin In The Woods

Diablo Cody – Young Adult

Ursula Meier and Antoine Jaccaud – Sister

Sean Durkin – Martha Marcy May Marlene

Whit Stillman – Damsels In Distress

Best Adapted Screenplay:

Julia Loktev – The Loneliest Planet

Benh Zeitlin and Lucy Alibar - Beasts of the Southern Wild

Jacques Audiard and Thomas Bidegain – Rust and Bone

Sergei Loznitsa – In The Fog

Steven Chbosky - The Perks of Being A Wallflower

Best Cinematography:

Robbie Ryan – Ginger & Rosa

Mihai Malăimare, Jr. - The Master

Gökhan Tiryaki – Once Upon A Time In Anatolia

Oleg Mutu – In The Fog

David Raedeker – My Brother The Devil

Best Costume Design:

Mirror Mirror

Young Adult

Moonrise Kingdom

Holy Motors

Laurence Anyways

Best Production Design:

Prometheus

Moonrise Kingdom

Life of Pi

The Hunger Games

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Best Score:

Dan Romer and Benh Zeitlin - Beasts of the Southern Wild

Patrick Doyle – Brave

Michael Giacchino – John Carter

Alexandre Desplat – Moonrise Kingdom

Alexandre Desplat – Argo

Best Visual Effects:

Life of Pi

John Carter

Prometheus

The Amazing Spider-Man

Skyfall

Best of 2012 - TV

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 11:22:08 +0000

Best Drama:

1) Mad Men

Following a two year break, Mad Men’s sixth season was a reinforcement of everything this show does so well. Playing utterly on its own terms, Season 6 risked backlash by placing so much of its story onto Don’s new wife, Megan. But that’s what Mad Men has always been good at, shifting its characters around as necessary to tell the best stories possible. And so whilst they scaled back on Peggy and, even more dramatically, on Betty, they gave two of their most undervalued players – Christina Hendricks and Vincent Kartheiser – some of the most interesting and, in the case of the former, controversial storylines of the TV season. Season 6 gave us plenty of indelible moments, from Megan’s performance of Zou Bisou Bisou to Roger Sterling’s LSD trip, Fat Betty, Peggy’s goodbye, Joan’s compromise and Lane’s haunting suicide, and a season that, as a whole, felt more daring – and the more compelling for taking those risks - than anything else on TV.

2) Breaking Bad

Any show would have troubling topping Season 4 of Breaking Bad, a train ride so breathless and so perfectly executed, that the inevitable slackening of pace in the first instalment of the series’ fifth season was always going to feel somewhat disappointing. And so whilst Season 5 might not have quite lived up to the preceding season, it still delivered the sort of tense, morally ambiguous drama that has been the show’s hallmark since it first started airing. If anything, the show only got darker this year, with even Walt’s tenuous connection to Jesse unravelling in the wake of Mike’s death. Hampered somewhat, it has to be said, by the network’s peculiar decision to split the show’s final season in half across two years, Breaking Bad just has so many wonderful elements, that even if the odd episode here and there were merely incredibly good rather than truly excellent, it’s testament to the show’s quality that even those were better than pretty much anything else on the air.

3) Spartacus: Vengeance

For a show that’s been unfairly maligned ever since it first hit television screens three years ago, Spartacus has proven time and again that it’s more than just tits and ass. Following its surprisingly fruitful prequel series, Gods of the Arena, the sad death of lead actor Andy Whitfield saw the recasting of the show’s protagonist. And whilst Liam McIntyre might not have the same easy mix of gravitas, steel and warmth, the show barely missed a step, providing what was probably the most well-structured season of 2012. Taking a similar approach to storytelling as Breaking Bad and Homeland, the narrative peaks when it needs to, characters die when they have to, and not a single stitch is dropped in the process. It’s a technique that created crescendo after crescendo, whilst also providing room for character development, particularly amongst its female cast. It was a season that found surprising intimacies in its broader strokes, whilst never forgetting the heroics and swordplay that make the show such a tangible pleasure to experience. A forgotten gem of the TV season.

4) Homeland

So much time was spent during Homeland’s first season worrying about how the writers were inevitably going to fuck things up, but it didn’t make the fuck-ups any less disappointing when they finally rolled round in Season 2. For large stretches of its second season, plausibility went out the window, be it the raid on the tailor’s shop, Brody texting Abu Nazir from inside a secret government compound or Carrie’s unquestioned ‘escape’ from Nazir. But whatever Homeland’s problems with plot, as a study of broken people, and the collateral damage of not just war, but of smaller betrayals, of your own body and mind, it excelled. The smaller, more character-based moments were still wonderful and, more importantly moving. Who didn’t feel Carrie’s small ‘I was right’ back in the third episode of the season? Or Brody’s broken confession in ‘Q&A?’ Thankfully, the show stuck its landing after an increasingly erratic back half, and even if the finale did manage to recalibrate Estes into some sort of supervillain, it also provided us with Brody’s family reacting to his suicide video, Carrie’s fragile hope for the possibility of a normal life, and Saul’s smile when he realised she was still alive. It might not have been a perfect season, but it was a provocative, compelling and searching one all the same.

5) Fringe

Since its inception as a more earth-bound spin on The X-Files, Fringe has gone from strength to strength as it broadened its universe(s), relied more heavily on its performers and borrowed liberally (and well) from a variety of classic science-fiction tropes. Season 4’s dramatic reset of events was controversial, but ultimately played into the show’s keen exploration of identity, personality and connection, resulting in the incredibly moving reintegration of Olivia with her forgotten self. This season, the show’s final one, has managed to expertly combine grand emotions with traditional sci-fi and action, all on a shoestring budget. It might be an under-watched show, but for genre fans, it’s the best thing on TV since Battlestar Galactica.

Best Comedy:

1) Girls

No show generated more conversation this year than Girls. It tapped into the zeitgeist, it was the best new comedy in years, it was non-representative, its cast was full of privileged white kids with famous parents. The praise, the backlash and the anti-backlash ran in such quick succession that it was hard to say which way the critical and the public barometer was swinging at any one time. But watch the show and it’s clear that in Lena Dunham, HBO has found one of the year’s most distinctive comic voices. Characterisations that seemed like mistakes (namely Jessa and Adam) were revealed to be core strengths as the season progressed and outgrew the awkward humour of its first few episodes. Crucially, the show managed to remain funny and perceptive whilst mining a seam of melancholy in its young adults’ directionless lives. It also produced several stand-out moments from the TV season, including Shoshanna accidentally smoking a crack pipe, ‘thin leg, thin leg,’ and the image of a lost girl sitting alone on the beach at Coney Island eating leftover wedding cake.

2) Community

Community had a tough year in 2012. Dan Harmon, the show’s creator, was fired and, despite receiving an unlikely renewal from NBC, its fourth season was delayed until 2013. Season 3 also experienced a slight drop-off in quality from its peerless second season. The split between Troy and Abed explored interesting territory, but the Ken Burns-inspired blanket/pillow fort two-parter didn’t quite click, and the decision to scale back the experimentation that made Season 2 such an unmitigated joy made for a season of television that felt slightly disappointing in comparison. But even a slightly-less-than-excellent episode of Community is still more inspired than pretty much any other comedy on TV. Season 3 saw one of the most sensitive, unexpected explorations on autism yet seen on television, as Abed’s fear that the group would outgrow his meta-humour and inability to emotionally invest threw out great episodes such as ‘Virtual Systems Analysis’. Other comedies might have been more consistent in 2012, but none were so daring, or so utterly their own creature as Community.

3) Parks and Recreation

It took me a long time to get into Parks and Recreation. Its first season didn’t help, which fused The Office-lite awkward comedy with a clueless lead character and little understanding of its ensemble’s considerable strengths. Mid-way through the second season, I was sold. Lesley was smart and driven rather than feckless, the genius of Ron Swanson was firmly established, and the show resembled nothing less than a live action version of The Simpsons in its treatment of local politics. And Parks and Rec has only got better with age, the sort of show that gets funnier the longer you stick around, and which is able to wring genuine warmth from the interplay between its characters. Lesley’s run for office this year against Paul Rudd’s genially gormless Bobby Newport gave us one of TV’s most satisfying dewy-eyed moments of 2012 in ‘The Debate.’ In an age where earnest, emotionally open comedy seems in pretty short supply, Parks and Rec stands out from the crowd.

4) Louie

Louie walks a very fine line between misanthropy, melancholy and warmth. It’s like no other comedy on television; indeed, it’s often not even all that funny. But there’s something to its catalogue of small embarrassments, tragedies both major and minor, interspersed with dick jokes, that makes it feel almost radical. There were any number of highlights in Season 3, although it’s most likely to be remembered for its trilogy of episodes dedicated to Louie being groomed as a potential replacement for Letterman on The Late Show, mentored by a marvellously obtuse David Lynch.

5) 30 Rock

When 30 Rock first aired, it felt like such a breath of fresh air. Those first three seasons are as close to perfect as television comedy gets, and they rightfully made a star of Tina Fey. But by the time it rolled round to Season 5, things had got old. The show felt stale and barely relevant, despite the roster of A-listers willing to appear. Season 6 was a great bounce-back season of a show that might not feel as cutting edge as it did in 2006, but in terms of laughs is still up there with the best of them. One of my major gripes with 30 Rock is that it never allowed for its characters to move on, which is a problem most comedies have. Its characters either revert to lazy stereotypes of themselves, or they become stuck in the same loop, repeating problems their character experienced five years previously. By slightly reassessing the snark/empathy balance in the show’s final two seasons, and allowing for said growth, 30 Rock has all the appearance of going out with a bang. It’s likely that Tina Fey will migrate over to film, but it will be a sad day when her voice is no longer on television as of 2013.

Best Actor in a Drama:

1) Damien Lewis – Homeland

It’s difficult to hold your own opposite someone giving what many people consider to be the best performance on television, but Damian Lewis did just that on Homeland this year. His performance might have necessarily lacked the ambiguity of Season 1, but he found other avenues to explore, namely that of a man so broken that he barely knows himself anymore. In Season 2’s finest episode, ‘Q&A,’ he matched Danes punch for punch, revealing piece by excruciating piece the man behind the carefully constructed edifice. The show’s success has always hinged on us understanding the man behind the actions, and as such Lewis was peerless.

2) Jon Hamm – Mad Men

Don kissing Peggy’s hand as she said goodbye to SCDP was one of the TV season’s most indelible moments, and despite Jon Hamm’s recent forays into comedy it’s testament to what a fantastic dramatic actor he is that even after five seasons, he’s still able to surprise you. Be it his fever dream in ‘Mystery Date, his panic over losing Megan in ‘Far Away Places,’ or that final, confident strut towards the camera to the tune of ‘Nobody Does It Better,’ Hamm established that, even with a year’s hiatus from the character, Don Draper was still one of the most enigmatic, fascinating characters on TV.

3) Bryan Cranston – Breaking Bad

There’s a reason why Bryan Cranston has won every award going for his terrifying performance as Walter White, former chemistry teacher and cancer patient turned crystal meth manufacturer. Season 5 of Breaking Bad saw Walt not only turn against and manipulate everyone around him, but gain a foothold as Albuquerque’s number one drug lord following the death of Gus Fring. Any sympathy the audience might have had for Walt may long since have been used up, but it was the small moments of doubt that really sold the character this year, setting us up, one assumes, for one hell of a tailspin come the fifth season’s back half in 2013.

4) Jason Isaacs – Awake

Kyle Killen has an infamously poor track record when it comes to getting new show of the ground - his previous drama, the excellent, low-key Lone Star was pulled after a mere two episodes - but at least Awake got to finish out its entire first season. Jason Isaacs played a difficult role as the detective living in two parallel universes, one in which is wife had died, the other in which his son had. Whilst the procedural elements of Awake never quite gelled, Isaacs played a big part in making sure that the emotions of a show that dipped its toes into several genres landed every time. The show’s central mystery - was he dreaming, or was he really living in two universes - would never have worked without a central performance as grounded and believable as Isaacs, and as such he made a strong impression even if, ultimately, the series itself never quite worked as a whole.

5) Michael C. Hall – Dexter

Of all the shows to have a bounce-back season, Dexter was the most unlikely. It possessed a myriad of problems, not least a completely uninteresting supporting cast and a structure that had grown increasingly tiresome give or take a great performance like John Lithgow’s back in Season 4. Even Michael C. Hall struggled to portray Dexter’s strange experimentation with religion. Thankfully, Season 7 saw a major up-tick, and Hall was once again on form as the serial killer with a new and interesting set of problems to contend with, namely his stepsister’s declaration of love. With Season 8 purportedly bringing things to a close, it was good to see both the writers and performers step up the plate in an endgame that makes trudging through Seasons 3-6 feel less like a fool’s errand and more like stepping stones to somewhere more interesting. That Hall is so committed this far down the road speaks to how well he’s able to play a character that’s too often tied to the same old narrative circles.

Best Actress in a Drama:

1) Claire Danes – Homeland

Although it’s rare for one performance to receive the attention, awards and praise that Claire Danes has for Homeland, it’s rarer still that there’s a general consensus that that person is currently giving the best performance on television. 2012 has been a sort of victory lap for Danes, and it would be difficult to find anyone that resented that. As Carrie Matheson, the beleaguered, bi-polar, brilliant CIA agent committed to both her job and the uncertain, damaged man that she loves, it has the potential to be all show all the time. But it’s in the quieter moments of dissonance that Danes really impresses, such as her aborted suicide attempt early in Season 2, or that tentative smile in the season opener. Portrayals of mental illness tend to lean the other way, but there’s an intelligence to Carrie Matheson that makes you trust and respect her as much as you feel the pain at what this job has cost her. Whatever the show’s flaws in its second season, it’s a performance (and a character) that is endlessly fascinating, able to paper over any leaps in plot logic. Perfect.

2) Anna Torv – Fringe

It’s hard to remember there was a time when fans of Fringe complained of Anna Torv’s ‘wooden’ acting style. Five seasons on and Torv is easily one of the show’s MVPs. As Olivia softened, so did she. Possessing a compelling combination of strength and vulnerability, her performance can shift on a dime at any given moment, and it’s this kind of subtlety that’s made these last few seasons of Fringe so compelling. If John Noble’s relationship with his son is the show’s beating heart, it’s Olivia that provides its moral and emotional complexity.

3) Elisabeth Moss – Mad Men

Matthew Weiner’s decision to scale back Elisabeth Moss’ screentime this year was a brave one, considering how beloved she is by fans, but even in small doses, Peggy is just one of those characters that you root for endlessly, and which was so difficult to pull off, that Elisabeth Moss deserves a place here for her wonderful, moving goodbye to Don alone. Not only that, but Peggy’s bolshy confidence provided some of Season 5’s funniest moments, in particular that excruciating bit of play acting with her mentor over the Cool Whip presentation. There’s a reason she’s so well loved amongst viewers, and it’s not just the writing,

4) Katie LeClerc – Switched At Birth

There’s no doubt that Switched At Birth suffered by ABC Family dragging out its first season into three sections. Starting as a surprisingly level-headed, engaging drama with a realistic family dynamic at its centre, its final third mired its characters in dead-end storylines. None was more a non-starter than deaf teenager Daphne’s affair with her much older boss. Thankfully, Katie LeClerc’s performance has never faltered. Daphne entered as a fresh-faced girl who could do no wrong, but increasingly, and particularly during the show’s second instalment of episodes earlier this year, her character has matured into something more difficult to pin down. There’s no other show on the air that’s as invested in the deaf community, and Katie LeClerc’s rounded performance is a big part as to why this part of the show succeeds. Special mention should go to her co-star, Vanessa Marano, who’s similarly tasked with finding nuance in what could easily be a stock teenage character, but LeClerc just had that little bit more edge this year.

5) Jennifer Carpenter – Dexter

Even during Dexter’s weakest seasons, Jennifer Carpenter has always been on great form, making sense of even the most bizarre of character arcs the show flung at her. Last season, by having her fall in love with her stepbrother, it felt like a real jump-the-shark moment, but it’s one that Dexter has largely turned around in its seventh season. This year, Debs finally discovered the truth and, even more promisingly, had the intelligence to dig deeper beyond Dexter’s initial lie that he’d killed Travis in self-defence. It was a watermark moment for a show that has, since Season 3, limped along with the same tired set-up. Even Debs’ confession of love midway through the season was leant depth and a sort of fucked-up psychology by Carpenter’s performance. Often one of the best parts of an ailing show with no direction, she became its strongest asset in a season suddenly and unexpectedly back on form.

Best Actor in a Comedy;

1) Louie C. K. – Louie

Louie only has one cast member, and that’s Louie C. K. And whilst it’s easy to admire him for his skills as a writer/director, his skills as an actor are too rarely acknowledged. But he’s every bit as diverse a performer as anyone on this list. Even if he is playing a version of himself, it’s such a relentlessly unsympathetic version that it feels as if you’re really digging into the character’s psychology. And such sharp, precise writing couldn’t be served nearly as well by any other performer than him.

2) Adam Scott – Parks and Recreation

Playing the straight man is a tough gig, albeit one that Julie Bowen has rode to Emmy success two years in a row on the juggernaut that is Modern Family. Parks and Recreation, a perennially under-served show both by critics groups and audiences alike, has the medium’s best straight man in Adam Scott. This year he proved that he’s more than capable of branching outside that role, be it in his hilarious spiral into stop-motion animation when he lost his job, or his amusing love/hate relationship with April in Washington, without ever becoming a cartoon.

3) Alec Baldwin – 30 Rock

Through thick and thin, Alec Baldwin has been a constant source of delight on 30 Rock. A list of 2012 highlights would probably begin with the fantastic live episode in Season 6, but could just as easily be his Batman skit, or his attempts to force a win for a Republicans through Jenna’s amusingly unlikely sway over Florida voters. Whatever the quality of the show around him, he’s always brought his A-game, which makes the fact that 30 Rock will be going out on a high an even better year for him.

4) Joel McHale – Community

Community has such a wonderful ensemble cast, that it’s easy to forget that Joel McHale is playing the nominal lead, and whilst he might not get the same number of laughs as, say, Troy or Abed, his performance is just off-kilter enough to fit in with the show’s aesthetics, as well as being low key enough to sell the show’s emotional depth. Be it playing Ryan Seacrest as The Hulk, bonding with Shirley over foosball or concocting an Ocean’s Eleven-inspired plan to save the kidnapped Dean, Joel McHale had more beats to play than you’d think.

5) Jake Johnson – New Girl

When New Girl started airing last year, Nick Miller was one of its weakest aspects. Grouchy and mean-spirited, he acted less as a counter to Jess and more as a fun sponge on whatever crazy activity the rest of the group was participating in during any given week. By the back half of Season 1 and into Season 2, the character had turned a corner. Sure, Jake Johnson does crotchety like nobody else, but he managed to inject both melancholy and humour into a character that previously had threatened to become one-note. The hook-up with Jess might seem inevitable, but it’s no longer something I dread.

Best Actress in a Comedy:

1) Amy Poehler – Parks and Recreation

I can think of few people on TV that make me as happy as Amy Poehler does playing Lesley Knope. A source of endless enthusiasm, optimism and community spirit, this is a character that, by all rights, should be hugely grating. It’s thanks to Poehler that she’s not, and this year’s election story arc provided some huge laughs and, even, one of the season’s most moving moments as Lesley stood in a voting booth looking at the ballot with her name written on it. And if I’ve-got-something-in-my-eye drama doesn’t work for you, I don’t think there was a single funnier image this year than Lesley and her campaign team stumbling over the ice rink to the tune of Gloria Estefan.

2) Lena Dunham – Girls

However you felt about the show itself, there was no denying Lena Dunham’s steadfastly unsympathetic performance as Hannah, an aspiring writer who might be ‘a voice of her generation.’ A lot of the highlights from Girls’ first season seem like the success of Dunham as a writer, but watching her performance it’s clear that she’s watched a lot of her self-professed idol Louie C. K. The argument that wouldn’t end with best friend Marnie, especially, was a wonderful example of Hannah’s mixture of cruelty, self-absorption and vulnerability that made the character so compelling.

3) Krysten Ritter – Don’t Trust The B—- In Apartment 23

A lot of Don’t Trust The B—- doesn’t quite hold together, but if there’s one thing guaranteed to jump-start proceedings every time she’s on screen, it’s Krysten Ritter as the titular bitch. A hard-drinking id monster of gigantic proportions, she’s a character we need to be humorously appalled by, but who can never quite float off entirely. It’s a hard line to walk, but it helps that Ritter is clearly having a blast, following her brief, but sterling, work on Breaking Bad. The show might be sure-fire cancellation material, but Ritter’s performance was one of the big surprises of the comedy season.

4) Tina Fey – 30 Rock

It feels important to reiterate the sorrow I will feel once Tina Fey is no longer on my TV screen. 2012 has been a banner year for the terminally unfortunate Liz Lemon. After a couple of seasons of Liz being stuck with a string of ‘unlucky in love’ storylines, Tina Fey finally found a way for Liz to be happy. Yes, she has a man in her life, but this is also something that she has to reconcile with her own self-image, career and desire for a family. It’s a trickier road to take than it might seem at first, but one which Fey has pulled off magnificently. Her Liz is a bundle of contradictions, but every aspect of her character makes sense, culminating in her marvellously loopy wedding ceremony in which Liz dresses as Princess Leia.

5) Ashley Rickards – Awkward

Awkward was something of an unexpected hit for MTV, and a surprising hit for viewers when it debuted last year. Indebted to mouthy teen comedies such as Mean Girls and Easy A, its premise has teenager, Jenna, remaking her image in the wake of a mistaken suicide attempt. Season 1 was a real find, especially since its nearest competition - shows like Gossip Girl and Pretty Little Liars - are fairly long in the tooth at this point, but Season 2 has disappointed with its focus on the love triangle between Jenna, the sensitive jock Matty and the gentler, smarter Jake. Thankfully, Ashley Rickards’ lead performance has never wavered, becoming steelier and less sympathetic as the character became entrenched in mundane social drama. She was also given an opportunity to play some different beats with the separation of her parents playing a large part of the show’s second season, and she stepped up to the bar remarkably well.

Best Supporting Actor in a Drama:

1) Aaron Paul – Breaking Bad

Outside of Clare Danes, this, for me, is the best performance on TV right now. Aaron Paul might have had a scaled-back role in Season 5, but he killed every scene he was in regardless. His joyful ‘Yeah, bitch! Magnets!’ might be one of the quotes of the year, but it was the way in which Paul evinced his character’s extreme guilt over his actions, and the gradual opening of his eyes to Walt’s true nature, that provided the backbone of the season. No other show has made the conflict between its lead characters feel quite so much like it’s a battle over somebody’s soul. Jesse might have begun the series as comic relief, but Paul’s character study of someone who never really stood a chance is mesmerising.

2) Vincent Kartheiser – Mad Men

Like January Jones, Vincent Kartheiser plays a supposedly unlikeable character, but the fact that he remains the only principal cast member to remain unnoticed by awards bodies feels especially egregious. Pete Campbell’s struggle to find meaning in family, career and romance, only to reveal an aching emptiness in himself gave Mad Men its finest episode since ‘The Suitcase’ in ‘Signal 30.’ His subsequent pursuit of a troubled young woman undergoing shock therapy provided further, troubling insight into the state of a mind that’s found itself increasingly unmoored from everything he feels that he should hold dear. Kartheiser’s effortlessly loathsome performance could easily be one-note and, certainly, the writers play that up during that wonderfully awkward dinner party the Campbells throw in ‘Signal 30,’ but there’s a world of trauma underneath that, one that Kartheiser is able to portray just as effortlessly, even in the character’s more comic moments.

3) Jared Harris – Mad Men

Lane’s suicide is one of the few ‘shocking’ moments that the Mad Men writers have allowed themselves over the course of five seasons, but Harris’ performance leading up to that delayed reveal was exquisite. After stealing money from the company, Lane is fired by Don, but his despair had been brewing all season. I don’t think there was a scene this year more heartbreaking than Lane’s first suicide attempt in ‘Commissions And Fees.’ About to gas himself in his new car, the very account guaranteed to save the company from insolvency, he snaps his glasses in half, an act of horrible finality, before realising that the car won’t start. Often a character on the margins, Jared Harris’ performance leant depth to his mundane money troubles and banal, unhappy marriage.

4) John Noble – Fringe

Walter’s relationship with Peter is Fringe’s beating heart. It needs to be. After all, it was Walter’s love for his son that destroyed not one, but two universes. It has been the same love that, this season, caused Walter to consider having part of his brain removed so as not to lose the sense of self that only Peter can bring out in him. John Noble has always been impressive at making you feel the weight of his character’s sins, but, like most actors on Fringe, he’s also able to play multiple versions of the same character. If there are any number of great scenes between John Noble and Joshua Jackson this year, it’s Walter’s goodbye with his Earth-2 self that resonated most strongly, a meeting of minds, of what might have been and what will be.

5) Peter Dinklage – Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones’ second season struggled to tell multiple stories with the same level of interest as its first season. Thankfully, some of its best characters were stranded in King’s Landing, giving the show at least the semblance of having a centre this year. Peter Dinklage is no doubt giving the showiest performance on Game of Thrones, and it is, so far, the only performance on the series that has garnered any sort of widespread acclaim. And there’s good reason for that. Witness his grandstanding speech in ‘Blackwater,’ easily the second season’s best episode, and realise that it’s he who is grounding the proceedings with his necessary display of confidence, crippling self-doubt and genuine love for his people. An MVP in Season 1, Tyrion’s beefed-up role this year paid dividends during a season that was disappointing elsewhere.

Best Supporting Actress in a Drama:

1) Christina Hendricks – Mad Men

Christina Hendricks’ look in Mad Men has always been one of the show’s most powerful icons. Even people that didn’t watch the show recognised her. Appearing in endless photo shoots, and front and centre of every ad campaign, even back when Joan was only a small part of the show’s cast, it’s easy to forget just how good Hendricks has always been. Matthew Weiner has been gradually giving her more to do every year, and her ability to portray hidden depths and complexities to what should, on the surface, be nothing more than the office sexpot, has reaped great rewards in the past. But never had Hendricks been given as crucial a role as she was this year. After kicking out her abusive husband, Joan was submitted to the indignity of the partners using her as leverage to win an account with Jaguar. The ambiguity of the episode, and of Joan’s decision in the larger picture, were almost entirely down to a masterful performance that ran the full gamut from forceful to frightened and sadly resigned. There was always more to Joan than her curves, and this episode proves that more than any other.

2) January Jones – Mad Men

January Jones has often had a hard time of it with viewers, who didn’t warm to her fiercely unsympathetic turn as Betty, the emotionally stunted housewife who took out her self-loathing and crippling ennui on her undeserving children. Rather than retreat from a character that has, at times, seemed almost relentlessly cruel, Matthew Weiner doubled down in Season 6, ably served by Jones’ bravest performance to date. The fat suit might not have been convincing, but Betty’s existential despair as she clung to cancer as a potential out from her empty life as a politician’s wife was felt every bit as deeply as Don’s, even if her role was scaled back even further than before. There are plenty that complain Jones is ‘wooden,’ but you only have to witness her reaction to a meagre Thanksgiving meal, or her realisation that she is not, in fact, dying, to see how much is going on there, and that the decision not to portray Betty as a straightforward victim, but as a complex woman with her own set of concerns, is one of the most compelling Mad Men has ever made.

3) Anna Gunn – Breaking Bad

When Breaking Bad started out, it struggled with Skylar. As the wife who was constantly in the dark about her husband’s growing crystal meth business, it often felt like she was there simply to hamper the plot. It wasn’t until she finally discovered the truth that Skylar began to have some agency of her own, as she became increasingly enmeshed in Walt’s criminal activities. This year, Skylar not only saw her husband for who he really was, but also how deep she’d fallen herself. Anna Gunn’s performance of barely suppressed lunacy, depression and venom was a master class in how to drag a previously neglected supporting character kicking and screaming into the light of day. Be it her gloriously watchable ‘Shut up, shut up, shut up’ tirade, or that zinger of a line in the season’s best episode, ‘Fifty-One,’ Anna Gunn was finally given an opportunity to show how much mettle she had as a performer, and grabbed it with both hands.

4) Lena Heady – Game of Thrones

Playing a bitch is easy. Playing a character so relentlessly nasty but so eminently watchable and complex is another thing entirely. Those unconvinced by Lena Heady as Sarah Connor found themselves eating their words; Cersei is made of more steel than Connor, and having to survive in a world every bit as hard as that of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. An uneven second season marooned several characters in impossible storylines (the less said about Jon Snow and Daenerys the better), but pretty much everything in King’s Landing was great, in particular those loaded sequences between Cersei and Tyrion. Like Peter Dinklage, the season highlight ‘Blackwater’ gave her an excellent showcase, not just in the elaborate cruelty she exhibited towards Sansa, but in the primal love she showed towards her youngest son. It’s a credit to Heady that we never see the latter as a fault, even as she gets ready to poison him for fear that they fall into enemy hands.

5) Madeleine Stowe – Revenge

Casting lost nineties actress Madeleine Stowe in a smartly constructed piece of trashy night-time soap opera fun was a stroke of genius. But what’s proved more of a pleasure is how much she’s committed to the role beyond the odd raised eyebrow. Revenge might be perfectly structured, but it’s still twist as all get out, with numerous twists, turns and flashbacks providing previously unknown character motivations that could be catastrophic were it not for some finely-tuned performances. And whilst Emily VanCamp impresses in a difficult role, it’s Stowe that viewers come back for time and again. As arch Queen Bee of the Hamptons, she understands not only the need to have some fun with the character, but also the need to humanise her. This year’s flashback episode, ‘Lineage,’ gave her more to work with than usual, as we delved into Victoria’s back story and the complicated relationship she shares with her mother. There’s more nuance there than she’s given credit for.

Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy:

1) Donald Glover – Community

I could go on and on about Donald Glover. Not content with being the funniest actor on TV right now, he also put out a smart, effervescent pop album with his band, Childish Gambino. In a cast full of talented comedians, Donald Glover can make just about any line reading funny, without ever losing the character underneath all the wackiness. Season 3 showed the writers’ willingness to experiment with plot arcing in sitcoms, and although the growing apart of Troy with his best friend Abed relied too heavily on aping Ken Burns tropes in ‘Pillows And Blankets,’ it gave Glover the opportunity to prove that he was just as adept a dramatic actor as he was a comedic one. If there’s any justice in the world, Donald Glover will become a huge star post-Community.

2) Danny Pudi – Community

And just behind Donald Glover is Danny Pudi, who also had some difficult storylines to tackle this year, albeit in a string of episodes that were, by and large, more successful than ‘Digital Exploration of Interior Design’ and ‘Pillows and Blankets.’ Abed’s disconnect from the group has already been explored in Season 2’s ‘Critical Film Studies,’ but the decision to delve deeper into his autism and concern that his friends would outgrow him led to the stellar ‘Virtual Systems Analysis,’ in which Annie entered Abed’s Dreamatirum after accidentally placing him in a catatonic state. One of Community’s many assets is its ability to use off-the-wall concepts to reach very human drama, and Danny Pudi’s about-face performance as a man broken by expectations was especially affecting.

3) Adam Driver – Girls

There’s a moment at the end of ‘Welcome to Bushwick, aka The Crackcident’ that makes you re-evaluate Adam Driver’s performance as Hannah’s selfish, gleefully deviant boyfriend. It’s a moment that suddenly makes everything slip into place, as we realise that from Adam’s perspective, it’s been Hannah that’s been using him. The show’s subsequent exploration of the character, and Driver’s deceptively id-driven performance gave the first season some of its most fertile ground. Expanding the parts of supporting players risks disconnect between what we knew of the character beforehand and what we’re asked to believe now, but that simply wasn’t the case here. Even those that hated the show tended to warm to Adam Driver, whose lanky good looks and blunt delivery provided a perfect counterpoint to Hannah’s more defensive nature.

4) Chris Pratt – Parks and Recreation

Andy’s character might have devolved into unbelievable silliness at this point, but Chris Pratt’s puppyish turn as the worst government employee of all time is such a pleasure to watch, and in a show with superlative pleasures elsewhere, that he was always going to make my ‘Best Of’ list. The loss of his alter-ego, FBI agent Burt Macklin, was a loss for all of us.

5) Adam Pally – Happy Endings

After a slow start, Happy Endings picked things up considerably for its second season, and has only consolidated its strengths so far in its third season. And whilst I have a lot of love for the whole cast (except, of course, Zachary Knighton’s Dave), but Adam Pally is relentlessly funny in a role that mines narcissism and pop culture savvy with equal aplomb. Not only that but, like Donald Glover, he’s also a very gifted physical comedian who has chemistry to spare with just about every character on the show, with special mention to Casey Wilson’s brilliant Penny.

Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy:

1) Gillian Jacobs – Community

When Britta was introduced, she was the bland, right-on love interest. Once the writers ditched that idea, it became clear how much more comfortable Gillian Jacobs was with playing goofy rather than pristine. Season 3 gave her plenty of stand-out moments - her dead-on impersonation of Michael Jackson, playing a sexy magician’s assistant in the finale, and, most movingly, realising that her feelings towards Troy might be more than platonic. That this dovetailed so neatly with Troy and Abed’s splintered friendship, and Britta’s more manic character traits, was testament both to the writers and for Jacobs in creating a character who doesn’t feel quite like anything else on TV right now.

2) Zosia Mamet – Girls

Zosia Mamet has previously impressed in small roles on Mad Men and in The Kids Are All Right, but Girls was surely her breakout role. As the sexually naive, earnest Shoshanna, Mamet may be more one-note than the other characters on the show, but she plays that note with such perfection that she’s one of the prime takeaways from the first season. Accidentally smoking crack and running through the streets of Brooklyn might have provided one of the season’s broadest laughs, but it was her tentative relationship with Ray that provided a much-needed sweeter side to a show primarily concerned with keeping its edges rough.

3) Jane Krakowski – 30 Rock

Another one of the unexpected pleasures of 30 Rock’s last two seasons has been that the writers have finally found a way to keep Jenna funny without resorting to shrill diva histrionics. Jenna’s committed relationship to Paul doesn’t sacrifice her all-consuming narcissism, but still manages to find genuine sentiment in their absurdity. Krakowski has never been less than game, even during the show’s weaker moments, but she seized the opportunity to do a bit more with her character this year.

4) Megan Hilty – Smash

Being the best part of a bad show is a hard thing, especially when you’re lumbered with the number of bizarre story turns and bad writing decisions that Hilty has. Cast opposite Katherine McPhee as a potential Marilyn Monroe for the show’s musical version of her life, she trounced her rival so squarely that when we were forced to sit through Jack Davenport’s impassioned defence of her rival, it seemed laughable. Hilty managed surface sass with a deeper undertow, in spite of her character having to wrestle with drug addiction, unlikely affairs and increasingly hostile behaviour. All that, and her performance pieces (of the show’s generally inspired original show tunes) were a blast. If there’s a talented performer more in need of a better show that understands her value, it’s Megan Hilty.

5) Naya Rivera – Glee

But, then again, the same argument could be made for Naya Rivera, a rare case of a character written consistently on Glee. She might have had more to do last year, but even in the moments she did get this year, Rivera proved herself just as capable in small, quiet scenes, as she was when she was involved in bigger story arcs back in 2011. Her break-up from Brittany provided one of the show’s finest moments, suffused with an emotional honesty that Glee often seems to struggle to achieve, or come across by chance. Being able to portray one of TV’s most prominent lesbian characters without resorting to the kind of button-pushing that the show is so fond of, Rivera was a godsend to a series that found itself in something of a tailspin in early 2012, before righting itself again (somewhat) with a much improved fourth season.

Best Episode of a Drama:

1) Signal 30 – Mad Men

Although ‘The Other Woman’ was the episode that set tongues wagging, ‘Signal 30’ was this season’s true standout. A bleak, elegiac look at one man’s depression, and the tragedy of him not being able to comprehend even that, was perfect from start to finish. Co-written by the late Frank Pierson (Cool Hand Luke), it’s a tale of suburban ennui and despair played out in a major key, and the fact that the episode takes its most detestable character as its bitter focal point only makes its truths sing louder. Although Pete’s emasculation at the hands of Lane in an office brawl might have proved a comic highlight, it’s that yawning gap between what we thought we would be, and what we realise we are that is the episode and, indeed, the season’s most resonant observation.

2) Wrath of the Gods – Spartacus: Vegeance

If there was one show that felt criminally ignored this year, it was Spartacus. Stephen S. DeKnight’s show was always more than the lurid trailers might have you believe, but this season’s carefully structured season circumvented traditional narrative structures in order to create dramatic peaks when viewers were least expecting it. The season finale threw everything to the wind, killing off several of its main cast in a series of epic bloodbaths, forcing potent moral dilemmas on its principal characters. In spite of an approach to narrative that made Spartacus feel fresher than anything on TV right now, ‘Wrath of the Gods’ was the only finale this year that felt quite so big in scale. It reminded me of such great season finales as Angel’s ‘Not Fade Away’ or Buffy’s ‘Becoming Part 2.’ There was the feeling that anything could happen, and everything did.

3) Fifty-One – Breaking Bad

The one true classic episode of a season that was slightly less excellent than its predecessor. Scaling back to look at the insides of Walt’s rotten marriage to his compromised, increasingly distant wife, Skylar, was a masterpiece of writing, acting and direction. Rian Johnson returns for the first time since Seaosn 3’s high watermark, ‘Fly,’ and I don’t think there was a more haunting image on television this year than Skylar floating in the swimming pool, her dress billowing around her as she realises that she can never escape from either her corrupt husband or the evil she has committed by proxy. The episode also provided viewers with the best barney of 2012, as Walt asked his wife what she was waiting for and she hissed: ‘For the cancer to come back.’

4) The Other Woman – Mad Men

No other episode of TV created quite so much chatter as ‘The Other Woman’ this year. There were those who balked at the lengths the writers had to go to place Joan in the untenable position of having to sell herself in order to win an account with Jaguar, thus saving the company from financial ruin. It’s this that keeps the episode from being quite as perfect as ‘Signal 30,’ but as a depiction of the ways in which women are bartered, traded for, or otherwise used in sixties America, it makes for compelling, disturbing viewing. It also provided Christina Hendricks with her first real showcase, whilst also giving us Peggy’s hugely moving resignation from the company (and from Don). Whatever minor quibbles I had with the set-up, so much of the execution was first-rate, that it remains one of the season’s most memorable episodes.

5) Blackwater – Game of Thrones

Forced to check in on a variety of storylines where nothing much was happening, the cohesion of Game of Thrones’ penultimate episode was not only a breath of fresh air, but perhaps the show’s finest hour to date. Set entirely in King’s Landing, as it is beset by Stannis Baratheon’s army, HBO’s not insubstantial budget allowed for some great battle scenes, but it was George R. R. Martin’s careful characterisation that sold it. Be it Tyrion and Sansa’s gradual awakening to the people they might become, or Cersei’s terrifying devotion to her son, Martin didn’t forget the smaller moments, even as director Neil Marshall (The Descent) pulled off the action so sublimely.

Best Comedy Episode of a Comedy:

1) The Return – Girls

This was the episode where things really clicked for Lena Dunham’s series. The earlier episodes of Girls were hugely impressive, but there were moments - her interplay with a sexually aggressive boss, her embarrassed sexcapades with Adam - that felt like unrelated vignettes rather than part of a larger whole. ‘The Return,’ co-scripted by Judd Apatow, was a spot-on portrayal of what it’s like to go back to your home town, be it raiding the fridge, looking down on the people you left behind or being oblivious to your parents’ feelings. Hannah’s late act of compassion towards her mother in telling her that she’s all right might seem small, but it was a huge leap forward for the character. Finally, Hannah felt part of the world Lena Dunham was writing.

2) Digital Estate Planning – Community

Community has become known for its high-concept episodes, and ‘Digital Estate Planning,’ which turned its characters into 8-bit video game characters, was this year’s most satisfying example of that. The story itself, involving Pierce laying claim to his inheritance and discovering that he has a half-brother, was incidental to the level of care the creators put into recreating the feel of an old NES game. As such, it’s an episode that rewards repeat viewings, with all sorts of nifty visual details hidden within the usual hi-jinx. A total joy.

3) The Debate – Parks and Recreation

Nothing else this year gave me quite the same level of fist-in-the-air satisfaction at seeing Lesley Knope get on that podium and talk about why she loved Pawnee. It was a moment we’d been waiting for ever since the beginning of Season 4, so some of the pleasure of ‘The Debate’ is coasting on that of previous episodes, but this was such a finely-tuned episode in terms of big laughs and its bigger heart that it somehow encapsulated everything about Parks and Recreation that I loved.

4) Daddy’s Girlfriend Part 2 – Louie

There are any number of episodes I could have picked from Louie’s third season to go here, but, finally, Daddy’s Girlfriend Part 2 was the one that stuck hardest. After picking up Parker Posey’s seemingly typical Manic Pixie Dream Girl in a bookshop, Louie takes her out on a date that by all appearances appears successful. But, as ever with Louie, there’s no such thing as happiness without an undercurrent of deep sadness, and so it proved here. The fact that Louie C. K. is the only regular cast member on his show sometimes detracts from just how good he is at writing for his occasional supporting players, and this proves the case here. Rather than serve as merely an adjunct to Louie’s ego, in just half an hour, Parker Posey’s character is given a life all of her own, leading to that wonderfully ambiguous final moment as she moves from being unspeakably joyful to teetering on the edge of a building, before deciding it’s not worth it and turning, reluctantly, back to her own life.

5) The Break-Up - Glee

I hesitated to add this episode to my list (my number sixth choice was Community’s ‘Virtual Systems Analysis’), since ‘The Break-Up’ had barely any laughs, and Glee has largely given up the ghost on its comic roots by this point. But the show’s fourth season has breathed unlikely life back into the formerly moribund show, and ‘The Break-Up’ was one of the best episodes yet. One giant surge of overwrought emotion as evinced by the likes of Katy Perry and No Doubt, it broke up three of the show’s most established couples to sad and, for the most part, realistic and interesting effect. This, more than anything else, evidenced the writers desire to move on from some of the heinous mistakes made in Season 3 and focus on feelings that last longer than the length of a pop song.

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Thu, 13 Dec 2012 09:51:54 +0000

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Tue, 04 Dec 2012 12:27:43 +0000

Glee, Season 4, Episode 7: Dynamic Duets

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 00:13:33 +0000

Whilst there was a WTF factor to this week’s premise – Glee does a superhero episode – it gradually coalesced into something that not only made sense, but which made you wonder how they’d gone to this particular well before? ‘Dynamic Duets’ was mostly about getting the team together for next week’s Sectionals, which it managed well and, thankfully, even wrought a bit of drama from its previously fairly uninspired new cast members. The Marley/Ryder/Jake/Kitty quadrangle introduced last week seemed to be going nowhere fast, but here at least acquired a few more rough edges. Even if I’m wary of the Marley bulimia story, Kitty’s relationship to her is at least complicated by her need to build Marley up before taking her down. There’s an accuracy to this sort of caustic friendship, as much about offering faux support as it is about keeping someone under the thumb. Of course, this is the same show that threw Quinn Fabray (upon who Kitty is clearly based) under every storytelling bus the writers could find, so this could all prove to be a misdirect. But Glee’s fourth season has shown a surprisingly long memory, with story arcs lasting two, three, sometimes even four episodes. And so not only is Blaine still smarting from his betrayal of Kurt, but it’s his newfound friendship with Sam that helps him realise that a move back to The Warblers won’t change his guilt. Similarly, Finn’s bumpy transition to Schuester substitute hasn’t been smoothed out just yet, even if it does provide him with a classic ‘teachable moment’ when he helps Ryder realise that he’s dyslexic. Even this cheap ploy for tears went down easier than it might in other weeks because so much of what surrounded it was not only funny but was also executed with a light touch. And when was the last time you can remember when Glee acted like a comedy? Or maybe I just enjoyed Sam’s jock-strap-enhanced impersonation of Bane…

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Tue, 27 Nov 2012 11:20:34 +0000

Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 17:27:45 +0000

David O’Russell’s gradual drift towards the mainstream, confirmed by the success of The Fighter two years back, has hardly been a smooth one. If Three Kings made people take notice of his talent, his existential comedy I Heart Huckabees, fell flat with audiences and split critics down the middle, and Nailed, his film about a young woman whose sexual libido runs rampant after a nail-gun to the head never got off the ground. If The Fighter felt like a concession in some way, with Christian Bale’s over-egged performance and a gaggle of hair-pulling sisters threatening to unbalance its pleasingly conventional narrative of suffering and redemption, then Silver Linings Playbook feels slightly more rough-and-ready.

Bradley Cooper gives his best performance to date, his brash charm a perfect match for Pat Solitano, a bi-polar teacher recently returned to his parents’ home from a mental health facility following a violent altercation with the man his wife was having an affair with. His parents, played by Jacki Weaver and Robert DeNiro (better than he has been in some time), struggle to get a handle on their son’s monomania concerning winning his wife back, even if their own domestic bliss is held together by similar rituals, particularly his father’s superstitions about the football games he acts as bookie for. When Pat meets widowed, similarly troubled Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), he agrees to enter a dance competition with her if she passes on a note to his wife, thereby circumventing his restraining order.

If this feels like a typical rom-com set-up, O’Russell’s adaptation of Matthew Quick’s novel refuses to round off the edges of his characters. Both Pat and Tiffany are selfish, destructive and often blind to the feelings of those around them, but it’s thanks to the two performances at the film’s centre that we root for them from the get-go. Lawrence has rightly been receiving praise for the alternately vulnerable, flinty and stubborn energy she brings to her character, and she’s more than ably served by Cooper, who not only proves infinitely more likeable than roles in The Hangover and Limitless might have suggested, but capable of grounding a film emotionally as well. The film also manages to remain honest and humorous about mental illness in the sort of high-wire balancing act that might look more difficult were it not for O’Russell’s scrappily intimate approach to Quick’s story. These characters can turn on a dime, and so the script finds unexpected pleasures in their unpredictability and truth in their irrationality. It’s credit to everyone involved that the film still feels ‘light’ in spite of its deeper concerns.

When Silver Linings Playbook takes a turn for the conventional in its final act, with an all-important dance contest and pulling together of the movie’s themes, it does so with such a joyful exuberance that it feels less like the film bowing to a happy ending, and more like the natural endpoint for these two people, who we’ve rooted for unremittingly over its 122-minute running time. Pat’s initial assertion about finding the ‘silver lining’ in any given situation, and turning the worst aspects of one’s life into something positive feels pitiful, deluded even, in the film’s early goings, but by the end, O’Russell and his actors manage to find truth within that corny sentiment.

Damsels In Distress (2012)

Fri, 23 Nov 2012 16:56:27 +0000

Whit Stillman’s first film in thirteen years is set at an East Coast university, where new student Lily (Analeigh Tipton) is taken under the wing of a group of precocious girls, led by Greta Gerwig’s preternaturally confident Violet, whose aim is to rescue depressive students from both their suicidal tendencies and poor hygiene. But Lily is not quite the convert the group expect, and her challenge to Violet’s authority shifts the group’s dynamics when the latter experiences her own heartache after she finds her jock boyfriend entangled with one of the very students she’s ‘saved.’

There’s a thin line between affectation and endearment, one which Stillman’s film walks effortlessly. He’s found the perfect voice in Greta Gerwig, all softly-spoken arrogance and suggested melancholy. It’s thanks to her that even if we question beliefs, we never quite turn against Violet. Instead, her tap dance therapies and strict dating mantras form a defence mechanism against a campus full of such personality cults and obsessions (a running joke about anal sex is the film’s shining moment). Damsels in Distress lives in its own rarefied bubble, and it’s easy to imagine certain people reacting against Whit Stillman’s world in the same way that they do, say, Wes Anderson’s, but for those willing to be swept along, it’s a light-footed, pastel-coloured pleasure.