Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore in The Room Next Door
I’ve missed a lot of the tentpoles this year, but I did see many smaller films that deserve recognition and viewership, even though they’re unlikely to win anything big (at least on Oscar night). So here are ten films that use the tools of cinema to create something unique and which took me inside worlds and sensibilities I’m unlikely to ever experience in reality.
All Your Faces: Jeanne Herry’s film is a fine example of a French specialty: scripted films based on the stories of real people that are cast with actors but feel like documentaries. In this case, the subject is a restorative justice program in which victims and perpetrators of crimes meet to share their feelings about their experiences, in the hopes that they can learn to understand each other better and begin to heal (it sometimes works, although not always in the way the program intends).
Bird: Andrea Arnold has a special gift for portraying the inner lives of young women in difficult circumstances, and she does it again in Bird, whose focal character is played by the remarkable newcomer Nykiya Adams. There’s something different this time, however: Arnold uses magical realism recalling the Canadian series Trickster to inject hope into a gritty lower-class British world where misery is more often the rule.
Cabrini: Christiana Dell’Anna’s performance as Mother Cabrini (a.k.a. St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, the first American citizen canonized as a saint) carries Alejandro Gomez Monteverde’s film, which has a lot of criticism about both sacred and secular institutions and a lot of positive things to say about faith and the virtues of stubbornness.
Driving Madeleine: Like Daddio, most of the running time in Driving Madeleine consists of conversations between a cab driver (Dany Boon) and his passenger (Line Renaud). The destination may be predetermined, but before you reach it director Christian Carion takes you a lot of places you didn’t expect to go, incorporating critiques of some of the less lovely aspects of French history and culture in the process.
Evil Does Not Exist: Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s film tops my list of “I’m not sure what this means but I can’t stop thinking about it” films this year. The central conflict involves a rural village slated for destruction in favor of a recreational site for people with way too much money to spend, but the real experience of this film lies in the way it manipulates pace, contrasting the leisurely way the villagers in tune with themselves and nature with the intrusive impatience and greed of the developers.
Gasoline Rainbow: Bill and Turner Ross blend documentary and scripted fiction to create a portrait of a group of high school students who have spent their lives being overlooked, given that they are neither the golden children who win awards nor the juvenile delinquents who get locked up. On a road trip celebrating their graduation, they smoke pot, play music, and prove to each other that they exist and they matter.
Ghostlight: It’s difficult to summarize the plot of Kelly O’Sullivan’s film without making it sound trite, but the story is told so guilelessly that the impact will remain with you long after the final credits roll. Bonus points for being shot in and around Waukegan and for starring two great actresses in supporting roles: Dolly de Leon and Katherine Mallen Kupferer.
Mountains: Monica Sorelle’s film about a Haitian family in Miami contrasts the experience of living in a tight-knit minority community with the threats posed to that community by so-called urban renewal, a.k.a. gentrification. This conflict is embodied in the character of Xavier (Atibon Nazaire), a blue-collar laborer who makes his living knocking down people’s houses and has caught the American disease of wanting more when you already have enough, yet remains committed to his community and the life that he and his family have created there.
Nowhere Special: This story of a dying father (James Norton) and his adorable son (Daniel Lamont) could have easily descended into tearjerker territory. But Uberto Pasolini’s film avoids that trap by keeping the story at a determinedly human scale, so that the need to prepare for one’s death becomes, reassuringly, just a normal part of life.
The Room Next Door: Pedro Almodovar’s first film in English, based on a novel by Sigrid Nunez, has at its heart these words of wisdom from Simone Weil: “The love of our neighbor in all its fullness means being able to say to him ‘What are you going through?’” Inbal Weinberg’s production design, which puts the familiar trappings of successful and sophisticated New Yorkers front and center, acts as a tempting distraction from what’s really at stake. | Sarah Boslaugh
