Review of 2011's Films

So, with the end of 2011 more or less upon us, I thought I’d try my hand at a Best Films Of The Year article. It’s been an odd, but compelling year in cinema, with films coming out of nowhere to knock our socks off while highly-anticipated efforts have failed to capture audiences’ imaginations. We’ve had new efforts from Terrence Malick, the Coens, Martin Scorsese and Danny Boyle, while European directors such as Nicolas Winding Refn and Tomas Alfredson have broken into the mainstream. There have also been career-best performances from such acting luminaries as Gary Oldman, Ryan Gosling, Kirsten Dunst and Natalie Portman.

Television has also raised its game, and is worth mentioning because of it. Favourite imports from America like Boardwalk Empire and The Walking Dead have been supplemented by one-offs like the Kate Winslet/Guy Pearce-starring HBO mini-series Mildred Pierce. Stung by their success, British programming attempted to respond with BBC2's The Hour (the new Mad Men it was not, but it was a decent effort) and The Shadow Line, which gave us one of the year’s most compelling characters of any medium in the sinister Gatehouse, played by Antony Sher, whose work was only matched by Dominic West as serial killer Fred West in ITV's Appropriate Adult. There was also continued acclaim on Channel 4 for Shane Meadows and his three-part continuation of the This Is England series, as well as Charlie Brooker for Black Mirror.

So, to the list. I allowed myself to pick any films I had seen that had been released in the UK in the 2011 calendar year. Unfortunately, there are a lot of films I suspect may have made the list had I got a chance to see them. With apologies, there is therefore no place for Senna, Bridesmaids, The Guard, Beginners, The Skin I Live In, Melancholia, Tyrannosaur, The Adventures Of Tintin, Contagion, The Ides Of March, The Help, The Deep Blue Sea, Moneyball, My Week With Marilyn, Take Shelter, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and The Artist. There are also films that have come out in the USA but not the UK, so I couldn't include Shame, The Descendants, War Horse, A Dangerous Method, J. Edgar or Young Adult.

With honourable mentions for 127 Hours, True Grit, Submarine, Tracker, Route Irish, Super 8, We Need To Talk About Kevin and (shock horror that it’s been omitted) The King’s Speech, this is my list of 2011’s top 10 films:

10. The Tree Of Life. The film that divided critics and audiences alike. Is Terrence Malick’s meditation on family, love and nature deep and profound or pompous rubbish? The fact that the film appears to be at least partly autobiographic is to its credit, as is the way it has been developed and filmed in defiance of the demands and constraints of Hollywood. Whichever way you look at it, it’s a hell of a discussion topic. 

9. Wuthering Heights. There have been so many adaptations of Emily Bronte’s epic novel that radical changes had to be made for this new version. Fortunately, Andrea Arnold had the balls to do so, and while her handheld camera style and sparse dialogue may not be to the tastes of the period drama purists, she certainly gives future projects another take to consider. Fresh and raw, her Wuthering Heights is not for the faint-hearted, but is rewarding for those prepared to give it a chance.

  

8. Barney’s Version. In the same way that 2011 might be called the Year Of The Gosling, this particular type of film might come to be labelled as the Paul Giamatti Genre. Arty, smart, witty, gritty, literate and touching, this is Giamatti’s finest performance. Barney Ponofsky is a television producer whose life and loves are spanned over forty or so years – while the plot and time-frame is large and rambling, it just about hangs together to produce another hell of a sleeper hit. Dustin Hoffman is a particular delight as Barney’s father.  

7. The Fighter. Possibly the best sports film since Raging Bull? Certainly the best boxing film since Raging Bull. What is about boxing that makes it such a compelling cinematic topic? Maybe the fact that most boxers appear to be massive pricks – certainly the character of Dicky Eklund helps to bear that theory out. Christian Bale is electric in that role, while Mark Wahlberg must be gutted that everyone except him won awards for the film that was his passion.

 

6. Never Let Me Go. This devastating film was largely overlooked by more or less everyone, which it didn’t deserve. Based on Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel set in an alternative England, Never Let Me Go elicits the best work to date from Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield, ably supported by Keira Knightley. Heartbreakingly elegiac from the beginning, this is a very...English film.

 

5. Black Swan. If you’re in the mood for a massive head-fuck, this is the film for you. While playing the title roles in Swan Lake, ballerina Nina (Natalie Portman in a deservedly Oscar-winning performance) experiences something of an identity crisis which is exacerbated by the influence of fellow dancer Lily. With so many clues to discover and things to notice, this is a film that only gets better with every viewing. 

 

4. Drive. It’s probably fair to say that this was cinema’s biggest unexpected surprise, and is the main reason why 2011 may in future be known as the Year Of The Gosling. The pulsing electro soundtrack sounds like it should be at odds with the driving sequences, but instead it helps to perfectly illustrate the isolation of the Driver, while the sequences of extraordinarily bloody violence punctuate the film like lightning. 

 

3. Hugo. The first ever Martin Scorsese film for kids and the first ever Martin Scorsese film to be shot in 3D. While the merits of 3D remain unconvincing even in his talented hands, this story of a boy who winds the clocks in a Parisian train station and is thrown into the world of early film provides a shot of charm and magic to warm even the most cynical and jaded filmgoer.

 

2. 50/50. The surprise of the year. A bromance about comedy could have been a cliché-ridden embarrassment, but Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen’s natural chemistry made this tale of two friends trying to deal with one’s sudden cancer diagnosis both hysterically funny and desperately sad in equal measure.

 

1. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. One of the most anticipated films of the year, and it didn’t disappoint. Supposedly our American cousins didn’t “get” it, which will hurt it during awards season, but a Swedish director making his first English-language film had no such problems. Led by Gary Oldman as George Smiley, the superb cast helped to ensure that this stylish, claustrophobic, stiff-upper-lip take on John le Carre’s masterpiece was the best film of the year.

50/50 Review

I think it’s fair to say that 50/50 is far, far better than a lot of people expected it to be. While the cast looked promising, there seemed to be a definite tendency to write this kind of film off as a bromance with cheap depth and little heart, which would have surely incurred the wrath of cancer support groups attacking it for trivialising terminal illness. I was one of the people fearing the worst. I was wrong. 50/50 is a ballsy, one-of-a-kind film filled to the brim with heart, soul, laughter and tears.

Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a young, fit, healthy man, with a hot girlfriend and a cool job at a radio station, but when he goes to the doctor for treatment on a painful back, he is shocked to find out that he has a rare type of spine cancer. As he puts it, ‘I don’t smoke...I don’t drink...I recycle.’ With his chances of survival only 50%, he embarks upon a well-trodden cinematic journey of anger, depression and chemotherapy with his foul-mouthed best friend, Kyle (Seth Rogen), his flaky girlfriend, Rachael (Bryce Dallas Howard), his overbearing mother, Diane (Anjelica Huston) and his hospital-appointed but vastly inexperienced therapist Katherine (Anna Kendrick).

Another screenwriter, given the concept, characters and plot fully fleshed out for him to work dialogue in for, could not have crafted a film half as good as this. Only someone who has lived through this could possibly understand the mental, physical and emotional trauma that Adam goes through during the film, and screenwriter Will Reiser has. The film is based on his own struggle with cancer and, though it follows a fairly standard three act structure, perfectly balances male comedy on the juvenile side with shattering emotion of the sort more often reserved for ‘real’ films with ‘real’ actors without ever straying into hysteria or melodrama, with credit also going to director Jonathan Levine for his sensitive direction. It pulls back at the right moments to preserve its credibility and power.

Seth Rogen, who as Reiser’s best friend played this role for real, appears to be playing the role of crude buffoon he’s so often displayed in the past, but displays touches of genuinely heartfelt acting in the emotional final third. Kendrick gives another solid performance, reminding us why she was nominated for an Oscar last year, while Huston’s scenes with Adam are the most emotionally devastating of the film. 50/50 as a whole, though, belongs to Gordon-Levitt, who brings such humour and pathos to the Adam’s journey that it would not be surprising, despite the Academy’s comedy snobbery, to see him on the Best Actor shortlist next year. 

In the kind of film normally reserved for audiences of women to bawl their eyes out with their friends, this astounding film is the surprise of the year, and you’d be hard-pushed to find a showing that doesn’t have at least one man asking his girlfriend for a tissue. 50/50 is beautifully acted, wonderfully written and sure to be completely underrated by everybody until they actually sit down and watch it.

5/5