30. A Cop Movie
“Documentaries” don’t come much more daring or unexpected than Alonso Ruizpalacios’ A Cop Movie, a twisted pretzel of a film that examines the issue of Mexico’s highly corrupt police force in deeply arresting fashion.
The particulars of the central conceit are better left unspoiled, but needless to say, this isn’t what it first appears to be, nor really what it second appears to be either. This is a deliciously slippery slice of meta-storytelling that doesn’t let its tricksiness overwhelm its dead-serious message about Mexican policing.
Getting into the weeds of police corruption and the systemic issues which facilitate it, A Cop Movie is sympathetic to those officers catching flak from all sides, yet refuses to merely forgive their participation in such an ugly system.
Read my full review from the London Film Festival here.
29. The Middle Man
Few movies have touted a more fascinatingly oddball premise this past year than Bent Hamer’s new black comedy The Middle Man. In an economically, spiritually depressed U.S. town overflowing with bad news, a man Frank Farrelli (Pål Sverre Hagen) has won the job of “Middle Man,” tasked with delivering the news to those affected.
It’s a wonderfully weird concept and one Hamer milks for every unassumingly absurd drop. Its slightness may not work for all, but Hamer’s ruminations on fate, secrecy, professional duty, and the state of modern America all combine to make The Middle Man a film as haunting as it is funny.
Fans of Roy Andersson’s films in particular should give this one a go, deftly switch-footing between tones as it does while giving star Pål Sverre Hagen the floor to deliver a wonderfully conflicted, simmering performance.
Read my full review from TIFF here.
28. The Suicide Squad
It didn’t surprise a single solitary soul that James Gunn’s soft-reboot of DC’s big-screen Suicide Squad franchise was a monolithic improvement upon 2016’s editorially frankensteined – yet commercially successful – David Ayer film.
Comparisons to Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy films are inevitable, but armed with a permissive R-rating and evidently hands-off attitude from the famously nervy Warner Bros. execs, The Suicide Squad allows the irreverent filmmaker to deliver his most free-wheeling – and ultra-violent! – work to date.
Smartly streamlining its narrative to effectively serve as a parody of ’80s action films while training its focus on a fantastic ensemble cast – Idris Elba and Margot Robbie being the sure highlights – Gunn cannily balances character development with hilariously over-the-top action sequences to ensure this new take on the Squad delivered a refreshingly unsafe, unpredictable superhero movie.
The Suicide Squad gives James Gunn big-budget carte blanche to deliver his unhinged vision for the titular cabal of anti-heroes, and the result is one of the most thrillingly unrestrained comic book movies ever made.
27. The Pink Cloud
Iuli Gerbase’s stellar directorial is 100% impossible to separate from the ongoing pandemic, despite the fact that Gerbase wrote and shot the film before the world had ever even heard of COVID-19.
The Pink Cloud focuses on the arrival of a mist-like pink cloud which kills anyone it comes into contact with in mere seconds, forcing the world into lockdown. This includes Giovana (Renata de Lélis) and Yago (Eduardo Mendonça), whose boozy one-night stand turns into something much longer-lasting due to their mandatory confinement.
Gerbase’s film unintentionally captures the mood of the last two years with staggering aplomb, but more broadly comments on the self-eroding inevitability of isolation and the well-greased continuity of the outside world that most of us took for granted until recently.
Read my full review from Sundance here.
26. Swan Song
Beloved character actor Udo Kier gets an all-too-rare opportunity to flex his chops in a leading role in Swan Song. No, not the newer Mahershala Ali-starring one that’s sadly wiped it off the Google index – Todd Stephens’ tender, hilarious drama about an ageing hairdresser who flees his nursing home in a last-ditch effort to find himself.
Rather than simply milk its amusing logline for some easy chuckles, this is a shockingly perceptive and thoughtful film about the throes of ageing and the dangling blade of mortality, wrought so wonderfully by Stephens’ insightful filmmaking and especially Kier’s superb performance.
We’ve seen so many “old coot goes rogue” movies over the years, but Swan Song is among the few to tout its own real sense of character, aesthetically and narratively, with emotional specificity to boot.
Read my full review from SXSW here.
25. C’mon C’mon
C’mon C’mon is a warm, monochromatic hug of a movie that gracefully sidesteps syrupy predictability. Joaquin Phoenix is unsurprisingly terrific as radio journalist Johnny, who ends up spending a week caring for his sister’s (Gaby Hoffmann) precocious nine-year-old son Jesse (Woody Norman).
You’ve heard similar setups countless times before, but Mills isn’t so much interested in the progression of a Plot as he is the inner workings of his characters.
It’s easy to picture a more archly Hollywood movie doing far more with Jesse’s eccentric personality, perhaps to the point that he ceases to be recognisable as a child, but Mills knows exactly how to toe the line, and keep the focus trained on a boy and his uncle learning to bond in his mother’s absence.
There’s plenty said here about family dynamics in the modern age, mental illness, and the geographic ties that bind people, wrapped around a drama that never dares to get too Dramatic or Sentimental for its own good.
Mike Mills’ latest reaffirms the filmmaker’s penchant for matters of the human heart and soul; a sweet, straight-forward story that avoids the treacly pitfalls a lesser director would surely succumb to.
24. The Card Counter
Paul Schrader follows up his career-rejuvenating First Reformed with another fiery character study with far more on its mind than its mere logline might suggest.
Oscar Isaac gives one of the finest turns of his career as William Tell, an unassuming pro poker player who wrestles with his torrid past as a disgraced former soldier and convicted felon.
Far from your garden variety sexy, slick gambler movie, this is a psychologically terse, simmering drama about a man’s attempts to atone for his sins, and the complexities of achieving catharsis with a horrifyingly chequered past.
With solid support from Tye Sheridan, Tiffany Haddish, and Willem Dafoe, Schrader’s intoxicatingly moody meditation on guilt and America’s dark recent political past is a character drama with real, biting staying power.
23. One for the Road
Baz Poonpiriya’s (Countdown, Bad Genius) sumptuous, shamelessly heightened melodramatic road movie is so damn handsome and emotionally rich you want to reach out and eat it. One for the Road centers around two estranged pals meeting up in Thailand for one final road trip through the country while one of the pair is dying from cancer.
Poonpiriya’s film certainly isn’t the most subtle or emotionally restrained film on this list, but its unapologetically full-hearted approach, stylistic brio, and terrific triumvirate of performances from Thanapob Leeratanakajorn, Ice Natara, and Violette Wautier add up to an intoxicating mix.
Yes, it’s lengthy at 136 minutes, but also hinges itself so brilliantly on its devastating central character dynamics – and some effective twists and turns – that even ardent cynics may be won over by film’s end.
Read my full review from Sundance here.
22. Ali & Ava
Clio Barnard’s latest drama offers up a refreshing look at middle-aged love amid trying circumstances, as chatterbox Ali (Adeel Akhtar) and lonely single mother Ava (Claire Rushbrook) navigate the respective familial forces that threaten to keep them apart.
There’s a refreshing simplicity to Barnard’s film, which pares the potentially frothy drama down to its most slight elements, while always keeping the focus trained on its two effortlessly likeable lead characters.
Akhtar and Rushbrook exhibit remarkable chemistry throughout a film that avoids kitchen-sink indie drama cliches, ultimately proving to be more heart-warming and charming than miserabilist.
Read my full review from TIFF here.
21. Scarborough
Shasha Nakhai and Rich Williamson’s adaptation of Catherine Hernandez’s acclaimed 2017 novel Scarborough is a directorial debut of staggering emotional heft and ambition, weaving an epic tapestry centered around three children living in the titular inner-city district of Toronto.
It’d be easy for a film dealing with the ultimate impact of unemployment, drug addiction, and underfunded schools to descend into poverty porn, but the power of the dynamic between these children – each so immaculately played throughout – easily wins out.
It’s not a feel-good sit by any means, and pushes against the fringes of what some may consider acceptable brutality, but worth sitting through the devastation for such a soul-searing and important piece of work.
Read my full review from TIFF here.
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