2020 was a rough year for the film industry, but things picked up a bit in 2021.
2020 was a rough year for the film industry, but things picked up a bit in 2021.
F ollowing moviegoing’s worst year in its history, during which many high-profile releases were postponed, 2021, you might have expected, would be an exceptionally strong follow-up. Alas, much-touted films originally slated for 2020, such as Dune, No Time to Die, and West Side Story fell short of expectations, but unexpected treasures turned up regularly. Here are my favorites:
10. C’mon C’mon. Mike Mills’s touching black-and-white road movie follows a middle-aged uncle (Joaquin Phoenix) and his young nephew (Woody Norman) across a malaise-infected, perpetually frightened iteration of the contemporary U.S. The kid’s inventive imagination and generally forward-looking personality suggest an antidote to the American gloom that Mills correctly diagnoses. (In theaters and video-on-demand).
9. Luca. An uncharacteristically sunny offering from Pixar, this delightful animated feature gently presses a sweet theme about pluralism as two Italian boys who just happen to be sea monsters hide their secret from townsfolk who would murder them if they knew the truth. Some things are worth the risk, and in this case, it’s the Vespa scooter the kids seek to win in a contest. (Disney+)
8. The Velvet Underground. Working with much the same material as other rock documentarians — talking heads and archival concert footage — director Todd Haynes elevates the tale of a startlingly original band to totemic status. Haynes uses a mesmerizing array of stylistic flourishes to refract the avant-grade sensibility of the entire Andy Warhol-centered downtown-Manhattan art world of the 1960s. (Apple TV+)
7. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. The best blockbuster of the year (indeed, the only one I really liked) displays a genuine feel for the deep roots of Chinese culture as it explores how two young people in San Francisco reconnect with their ancestral ways in the Middle Kingdom. Director Destin Daniel Cretton crafts some knockout action scenes, but really, this is a superhero movie about honoring family and tradition. (Disney+)
6. The Last Duel. Ridley Scott’s salute to Rashomon is a rape drama, a brutal combat picture of blood and iron, and a sly black comedy that pokes fun at the way each of three despicable men (Matt Damon, Adam Driver, and Ben Affleck) advance a culture that degrades and subjugates women. Affleck’s anachronistic but funny portrayal in this film of a rapey blond nobleman, combined with his charismatic turn as a wisecracking publican in The Tender Bar, made him the cinema’s comeback kid of 2021.
5. Dear Comrades! A sort of companion piece to HBO’s spellbinding Chernobyl, this drama about a Soviet workers’ strike that ended with the KGB opening fire and killing more than two dozen is another marvel from veteran director Andrei Konchalovsky, who is probably best known in the U.S. for the 1985 Jon Voight drama Runaway Train. Told from the point of view of a committed Stalinist who is also a middle-aged mom and wishes only to serve blandly in the bureaucracy, the film devastatingly highlights the internal contradictions of Soviet Communism. (Hulu).
4. Red Rocket. Writer-director Sean Baker’s latest feature about the struggles of hilarious lowlifes obliquely considers the Trump phenomenon through a fast-talking, charismatic, shameless reprobate who bounces out of a career starring in porn movies in California and returns home to small-town Texas only to cause literal and metaphorical wreckage. Simon Rex, who gives a performance so huge it barely fits on the screen, is an unstoppable whirlwind of vice, and Suzanna Son, who plays a teenaged cashier at a doughnut shop, is a starlet in the making. (In theaters)
3. The Worst Person in the World. The title is misleading as well as off-putting; far from being a wicked satire (or a horrific drama), Norwegian writer-director Joachim Trier’s cinematic novel is a sensitive, thoughtful character study of a beautiful young Oslo woman named Julie, enchantingly played by Renate Reinsve, who can’t quite decide what to do with her life. Changing lanes haphazardly, she sees off men and careers on a whim as she motors through one epiphany after another. Julie personifies what sometimes seems to be the quintessential modern problem of the Western world: the paralysis that comes with having a superabundance of choices. (Coming to theaters February 4).
2. Licorice Pizza. As charming, funny, undisciplined, and unpredictable as a St. Bernard puppy, Paul Thomas Anderson’s teen comedy provides a break from the dark doings that guide most of the writer-director’s films. This time, Anderson sketches a winsome portrait of two quirky young people in Seventies Southern California, and he has found two wonderful actors to play them. Both Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim are beguiling in a pair of naturalistic, relaxed screen debuts, and Sean Penn and Bradley Cooper are hilarious in their supporting roles playing two Hollywood legends. (In theaters)
1. Belfast. Kenneth Branagh’s gritty black-and-white movie memoir about how his hometown suddenly fell into the grip of sectarian violence when he was eight is drenched with appreciation for his family and a place he loved until his parents couldn’t take the violence anymore and moved to England. Caitriona Balfe is wrenching and lovely as the embattled mother of Branagh’s character, and as his grandmother, Judi Dench gives a beautifully restrained performance that stands out even in a superlative career. (In theaters)
