Half Time 2020 Best of the Year

No one needs to tell you that 2020 has been a strange year – not just for movies, but for, well, everything. Theaters have been closed for months now, and while they should be opening up in some capacity sooner rather than later, we don’t really know what form that will take, what we’ll see, etc. And yet, movies have not gone anywhere – every week it seems I’m seeing something new, sometimes excellent, sometimes not as per normal. It does mean perhaps I’ve missed less of the substantial films than I normally do – as they slowly make their way around the country. The biggest title I have not seen is undeniable Shirley (Josephine Decker), because in Canada we don’t have Hulu, and it hasn’t been on demand yet. There’s also a few 2019 holdovers – eligible for Oscars last year - like animated Weathering with You. There are, of course, other films I’d like to see – like say The Wolf House – but I’ve caught most of what I wanted to so far this year – and it’s been a good year in many ways – proving that the Oscars didn’t need to push their dates back, but it seems like the Academy will do any and everything to avoid giving Oscar nominations and trophies to small films.

Anyway, below is a summary of the top five performances in each Oscar category (going, roughly, from 5-1) and then a list of the 15 best 2020 films I’ve seen so far this year – that’s half of my normal totals, and less thought went into them, but if you see any of these films, you cannot go wrong.

Best Supporting Actress

I’ll start this list with two performances from the same film - Catrinel Marlon and Rodica Lazar in The Whistlers, a film from Romanian auteur Corneliu Porumboiu which I don’t think is quite up his normal high level, but you cannot argue with the performances in his noir – especially by Marlon as the complex femme fatale and Lazar as the corrupt cop’s corrupt, in a different way, boss who are both great. Next is the great Sonia Braga in Bacurau as the aging doctor in the small Brazilian town beset by outsiders which goes in some grisly directions – and Braga goes right along with them. Young Talia Ryder in Never Rarely Sometimes Always is pretty much perfect as the main characters best friend – along for support, and the ride, to New York to secure an abortion – and as her character takes some interesting turns, Ryder rolls with it in fascinating ways. The one truly amazing performance in this category though belongs to Vasilisa Perelygina in Beanpole as Russian soldier, returning from WWII to try and get her son back from the friend who she left him with, only to discovery tragedy has struck. Where the film goes from there – and Perelyygina’s character in particular is heartbreaking, but she does an amazing job keeping her performance centered and grounded, no matter how cruel she seems, before the terrific scene late that unlocks what happened. A truly exceptional performance.

Best Supporting Actor

The first of two performances from this film in this category is Jonathan Majors in Da 5 Bloods which confirms the immense talent that was on display in last year’s The Last Black Man in San Francisco – here playing a man trying to get to know his distant father, while also trying to be his own man in a rather complex performance. Gael Garcia Bernal in Ema delivers one of his best performances as a great artist, but a petulant baby in his relationship with his wife that they kind of have a Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf style relationship with. Orion Lee in First Cow is terrific as the outsider in early America – a Chinese man, who fully embraces capitalism, even as he learns that perhaps it wasn’t meant for people like him, as well as an interesting portrait of friendship. Brian Dennhey in Driveways gets the send-off the great character actor deserved with a heartfelt performance, culminating in a five-minute monologue looking back at his life that is absolute perfection. Clarke Peters in Da 5 Bloods is the necessary, calm counterpoint to Delroy Lindo’s fire and rage as he plays the de facto leader of the group, who has buried his emotions for years.

Best Actress

Up first is what should be a star making performance - Mariana Di Girolamo in Ema, who absolutely commands the screen in this film as a dancer, and a complicated person who does some truly awful things, but holds your interest throughout. Riley Keough in The Lodge is able to keep the movie on track, even as there is danger that it’s going to go off the rails with too many plot twists, with a subtle horror movie performance about the effects of childhood and slow psychological deterioration. Julia Garner in The Assistant is terrific, even as she appears to be doing nothing as the assistant to a Harvey Weinstein like Hollywood executive, and the toll it takes on her seeing what she sees. Sidney Flanigan in Never Rarely Sometimes Always is another example of a brilliant subtle performance – playing a teenage girl from Pennsylvania who has to travel to NYC for an abortion and doesn’t want to betray her emotions – although a long scene (that gives the films its title) shows what an amazing talent Flanigan is. Finally, Elisbeth Moss in The Invisible Man further proof that Moss can do just about anything – as one of our great actresses delivers a horror movie performance for the ages, as a woman tormented by her abusive, now invisible ex, but how she comes through it.

Best Actor

Bartosz Bielenia in Corpus Christi is wonderful as the newly released convict who pretends to be a priest in rural Poland – and turns out to be pretty good at it. Ben Affleck in The Way Back bares his soul and elevates what could have been another standard issue sports film with his tortured, but redemptive, performance. Ingvar Sigurdsson in A White, White Day gives a quiet, subtle performance of a man filled with rage quietly imploding and ruining everything around him. Willem Dafoe in Tommaso works with Abel Ferrara once again, and does some of the best work of his career playing a thinly veiled version of the director himself. Delroy Lindo in Da 5 Bloods sets the screen ablaze in his already legendary performance in Spike Lee’s epic – a Humphrey Bogart in Treasure of the Sierra Madre from the Trump era.

Top 15

A couple runners-up – The Trip to Greece (Michael Winterbottom) is the fourth, and apparently last of these films, which are greater together, than any individual part. Driveways (Andrew Ahn) is such a gentle, heartfelt film. Les Miserables (Ladj Ly) is a modern take on Hugo’s novel, that has simply become more and more relevant as the year progressed. Onward (Dan Scanlon) isn’t quite top notch Pixar, but it’s still wonderful. Bird of Prey (Cathy Yan) was just a pure blast of joy. A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon (Will Becher & Richard Phelan) is further proof that we will never appreciate this series as much on this side of the pond as we should. The Way Back (Gavin O’Connor) really does work as an inspirational sports movie, with a little more going on. Color Out of Space (Richard Stanley) is just pure weirdness. Vivarium (Lorcan Finnegan) is a movie of the moment – about a couple trapped in a house with a demon child. Disappearance at Clifton Hill (Albert Shin) is a weird detective story as only Canadians would make. The Twentieth Century (Matthew Rankin) would probably make my list below, if I could decide it was a 2020 movie – the kind of weird Canadian film that wouldn’t be made anywhere else. Swallow (Carlo Mirabella-Davis) is an odd, kind of horror movie about a kept woman who cannot stop swallowing things she shouldn’t.

15. Fourteen (Dan Sallitt)

A study in female friendship fraying and breaking over the years, down in deliberately lo-fi, low-key style by critic turned filmmaker Dan Sallitt. It would have been easy – perhaps even trite – to make this a study in millennial malaise and navel gazing, but this film is far more complicated than that as mental illness becomes a factor, as the film skips through time without warning. Two great performances – by Tallie Madel and Norma Kuhling – anchor the movie, and Sallitt remains an expert at this kind of slow, deceptively simple style.

14. The Lodge (Veronika Franz & Severin Fiala)

My only real complaint about Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s follow-up to Goodnight Mommy (a film I don’t think is as good as this) is that the plot mechanics require you to swallow some huge leaps in logic to get the film where it needs to be. However, once there – with Riley Keough and her two-future step kids, who hate her guts, trapped in an isolated cabin, snowed in, over Christmas break the film becomes a study in atmosphere, psychological warfare, and slowly spiraling out of control. Keough has been doing great work for a few years now – and isn’t about to pass up her chance at this type of rich, complex lead role. In other years, it would be the performance of the year in horror – but not this year.

13. Tommaso (Abel Ferrara)

Abel Ferrara is essentially making a thinly veiled film about himself – an American director, living in Italy with his much younger wife, and toddler daughter, struggling to leave his addiction and violence fueled past behind him – and perhaps not quite succeeding. Willem Dafoe, who has worked with Ferrara often, delivers one of his best performances as the man who wants to be good, and struggles with it. The film looks like it was shot for no money, but that only adds to its charms. Ferrara has always been a hit or miss director – and it’s not surprising to see him make something auto-biographical, as all his films are to one degree or another – but this one is so nakedly vulnerable that it felt surprising. A film not to be slept on.

12. Sorry We Missed You (Ken Loach)

Ken Loach has been making his studies in miserabilism for years now – some of them work better than others, as often I think he prioritizes messaging over everything else. Sorry We Missed You though is his best in years (perhaps since The Wind That Shakes the Barley back in 2006). It’s a story of a lower-class British family – the film, a homecare worker, the husband has just started delivering packages for an Amazon-like company. Loach is still very much making a message movie here – but it’s also a deeply humanistic one, genuinely sad and moving. At his best, he approaches the Italian neo-realists – and this is one of his better efforts.

11. Corpus Christi (Jan Komasa) – An Oscar nominee for Best International Film last year (although not released until well into this year), Jan Komasa’s hard hitting drama was probably overlooked during Oscar season, but should gain more attention now. The drama, starring Bartosz Bielenia, as a young man, just released from juvie, who has had a religious conversion – and wants to be a priest, but whose criminal record will never allow it. So, in a small town, he just pretends to be one – and is surprisingly good at it, even if he realizes his ruse will eventually be discovered. It’s a fascinating little film – whose closing scene is haunting, as you wonder just how much, if at all, he really has changed – and perhaps questioning what makes a good priest in the first place.

10. Ema (Pablo Larrain) – I’ve run hot and cold on Chilean director Pablo Larrain over the years, but there has never been a question about how stunning his films often look and sound. His latest, Ema, is one of his best – a stunning visual and aural experience, with what should be a star-making performance by Mariana Di Girolamo as the title character – a talented dancer, who choreographer husband (Gael Garcia Bernal) – who she has akin of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf-style relationship – believes she’s wasting that talent on street, reggaeton dancing. She is also obsessed with the young boy they adopted – and then gave up, and that may not be the worst thing she does. Is Ema a terrible person? Perhaps – but she’s fascinating, and at the center of this stunning, ambiguous film.

9. A White, White Day (Hlynur Palmason) – A police detective – a stunning Ingvar Sigurdsson – becomes convinced that his wife, recently deceased in a car wreck – was having an affair, and allows the anger that he feels to completely infect everything else in his life – most disturbingly his relationship with his young granddaughter. Hlynur Palmason’s film may sound like a typical revenge film – and it does hit a lot of those expected beats – but it’s also a deeper, darker, more disturbing film than that – with an absolute stunner of a closing scene. It kind of got lost in the shuffle this year – but is well worth seeking out.

8. Bacurau (Kleber Mendonca Filho & Juliano Dornelles) – This film is a giddy mash-up – a grindhouse exploitation take on The Most Dangerous Game and a political commentary on modern Brazil all rolled into one. The film focuses on a small, isolated Brazilian town – reeling for the death of a prominent citizen, and being pulled apart by various interpersonal conflicts. The mayor of the area doesn’t care for this town – he focuses on the richer areas, further away, which has led to the area being infected with drought. And then, a group of gun-toting American tourists – led by Udo Kier as their “guide” descend on the town to kill them all. A more effective, political relevant (and even more fun, in a down and dirty exploitation way) than the much publicized The Hunt – the movie is further proof that Mendoncz Filho (Neighboring Sounds, Aquarius) is the most exciting voice to emerge from Brazil in a while – and whatever Dornelles’ influence here was, it certainly feels different than those other films. This is going to be a cult film for years to come.

7. The Vast of Night (Andrew Patterson) – Andrew Patterson’s remarkable debut feature is built on familiar elements – small Americana in the 1950s, a possible alien invasion, etc. – that nevertheless feels completely original and new. He accomplishes that through his style – a tracking shot early that goes through the entire town, withholding close-ups of his two leads until they really mean something, etc. Yes, you know where this film is going – and indeed, it gets there – but it’s such a remarkable achievement on almost no money that it announces Patterson as a major new voice in American film.

6. Beanpole (Kantemir Balagov) – An absolutely devastating film set in the Soviet Union in the aftermath of WWII – Beanpole focuses on two female soldier – one just returned from the front, and the other who was sent home earlier, and had been caring for her best friends child before tragedy strikes in a scene almost too hard to watch in the early going. The two lead performances – by Viktoria Miroshnichenko and especially Vasilisa Pereygina are absolute knockouts. This is not an easy film to watch to be certain – but it’s one of the very best of the year so far – so you shouldn’t shy away from it.

5. First Cow (Kelly Reichardt) – Another excellent film from Kelly Reichardt, who has been making subtle, devastating film, deconstructing American myths, and quietly questioning the economic systems in place. This one, set in a frontier town of the old West – is about the roots of capitalism – with a pair of outsiders building up a business based on stolen milk. It’s a quietly funny film, one about male friendship, economic inequality, done in Reichardt’s trademark, quiet style that builds to quite a climax.

4. Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman) – Eliza Hittman more than fulfills the promise of her earlier features – It Felt Like Love and Beach Rats – with this story a teenage girl from rural Pennsylvania, who travels to NYC along with her cousin in order to get an abortion. Sidney Flanigan is great in the lead role – she never betrays her emotions, no matter how dire things get, but lets them slip in the remarkable scene that gives the film its name. Talia Ryder, as her cousin, is almost as good – in perhaps an even trickier role. Yes, the film has a message – but Hittman isn’t lecturing here, isn’t browbeating you – but rather lets the film play out as it must. Hittman has been a talent to watch for a while now – here she has made her best film to date.

3. The Invisible Man (Leigh Whannell) – I would not have guessed that Leigh Whannell’s remark of The Invisible Man would be one of the best films of the year so far – but here we are. Whannell, who got his start as the writer of the Saw series – has become a fine director as well – this one being leaps and bonus above his two previous efforts, Insidious Chapter 3 and Upgrade – as he has learned that less is more. The best decision made here is to not focus on The Invisible Man himself, but rather his victim – his long suffering wife (Elisabeth Moss, once again showing she can do anything) – who he is gaslighting even after his supposed death. Yes, this is mainstream horror – but done with so much style and wit, and legitimately scary, shocking, creepy moments, that is becomes one of the best of its kind in recent years.

2. The Assistant (Kitty Green) – Kitty Green’s The Assistant takes its cue from the classic Jeanne Dielman (1975) by Chantal Akerman, as it depicts a young assistant, played with understated precision by Julia Garner (who has built up a great resume of performances at a young age) as the assistant of a Harvey Weinstein like studio boss. She sees what is going on, doesn’t like – even tries to do something about it (the scene with Matthew McFadyen as the HR guy is brilliant) – but just keeps chugging along anyway, unsure of what to do, and whether she can actually do anything about it. It’s a smart decision to never depict the Weinstein character – this is all through her eyes, and he would detract from that. This is a quiet, but devastating film, that confirms what those of us who loved Green’s documentary – Casting JonBenet – suspected. That Green is a major talent.

1. Da 5 Bloods (Spike Lee) – Nothing makes me happier than Spike Lee becoming a filmmaker, again, that we all reckon with (while at the same time thinking that more people should have been talking about his other recent work. He follows up his brilliant, Oscar-winning BlackKklansman with this Vietnam movie – about four black vets returning to the country for the first time in decades – to recover the body of their fallen friend/mentor, and to get their hands on the gold they thought they lost. Lee’s take on The Treasure of the Sierra Madre features a brilliant Delroy Lindo in the Bogart role – paranoid and greedy, which leads to his downfall. But it’s more than that – it is a depiction of fathers and sons, and the toll war takes on the participants – all of whom have never been the same since coming home from the war. Lee had attempted something similar with Miracle at St. Anna – which ended up being a deeply flawed film – but here he pulls it off. It is an electrifying, entertaining and ultimately devastating film – and the easy choice for best of the year so far.