For most of 2021, old Sydney town was COVID shuttered. Not since…last year, actually…has the cinema experience been such a truncated, compromised one. The US summer blockbusters earned perfunctory, catch-me-if-you-can releases (The Suicide Squad; Malignant; Space Jam) or were bumped again (come in, Top Gun Maverick?). Some finally landed, like No Time to Die and Dune, though with question marks over whether they maxed-out their box-office potential or felt a little ‘fatigued’. It would be the streaming services that thrived in 2021 - sixteen of my Top 20 films were watched in my ‘critic’s cave’.
Which made not a shred of difference to the quality of 2021 films. As I write this, Spiderman: No Way Home is smashing box office records on the back of great reviews. The award season is taking shape with films like Licorice Pizza, Spencer, The Tragedy of Macbeth, King Richard and Belfast entering the fray. And the streamers continue their push for critical relevance and commercial dominance, offering films like Don’t Look Up (Netflix), Finch (Apple+) and Being The Ricardos (Amazon Prime).
So let’s get on with celebrating the films that provided a jolt of exhilaration (and a handful that sucked) in this shit of a year...
1. CODA (Dir: Sian Heder; USA, 111 mins) Emilia Jones plays Ruby, the only able-hearing member of a deaf family. She’s got talent, is smart, and is destined for a life beyond the family’s struggling fishing business, but stepping away from her role as a Child Of Deaf Parents… And so Sian Heder’s wrenching drama is set in motion, charting a deceptively simple journey that breaks down one’s expectations of a film that pitches like a ‘Movie of the Week’ but plays out like…well, like the year’s best film. Wait for the bait-&-switch moment at Ruby’s school concert; it reduced your cynical, ‘seen-it-all’ film reviewer to a sobbing wreck.
2. THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD (Dir: Joachim Trier; Norway, 127 mins) Julie is someone we’ve all known, or may have been - an unsettled, impetuous twenty-something trying to understand how she fits into everyone’s expectations of her life. Serious romance, cohabitation, marriage, kids…blah, blah, blah. Joachim Trier’s film is a journey with Julie which subverts, even defies, the well-trodden path to society’s version of maturity. We are engaged with every honest frame of this transcendent story because of Cannes Best Actress winner Renate Reinsve; her ‘Julie’ is and will remain a touchstone film character for the ages.
3. LAST NIGHT IN SOHO (Dir: Edgar Wright; UK, 116 mins) All the key indicators were in place - director Edgar Wright, primed to bring his command of the camera to the visually propulsive setting of London in the ‘60s; two actresses, Anya Taylor-Joy and Tommasin McKenzie, duking it out for ‘it-girl’ status; and, above all else, an original high-concept genre piece. The result was a giddy, thrilling, slightly daft but pulsating chiller that both honoured and challenged the ‘stylish slasher’ sensibilities of classic Hitchcock and De Palma.
4. SHIVA BABY (Dir: Emma Seligman; USA, 77 mins) A perfectly directionless Jewish twenty-something (the wonderful Rachel Sennot) finds all the tensions in her life colliding under one roof at the titular funeral service in Emma Seligman’s masterpiece of discomfort. This comedic, white-knuckle emotional journey somehow emerges as a romantic, sexy, bittersweet snapshot of millenial uncertainty.
5. ADRIENNE (Dir: Andy Ostroy; USA, 98 mins) Adrienne Shelley was a ‘90s indie darling, the toast of Sundance after the Hal Hartley films The Unbelievable Truth and Trust, and on the verge of breakout success as director and co-star of Waitress, when she was murdered. Her widower Andy Ostroy reconciles the loss of Adrienne through a multi-tiered recounting of her career, their life and, in the most heartbreaking of many heartbreaking sequences, a meeting with her killer.
6. ANNEES 20 (Roaring 20s. Dir: Elisabeth Vogler; France, 85 mins) In the midst of the 2020 COVID outbreak, filmmaker Elisabeth Vogler choreographed this single-shot miracle through the streets of Paris, capturing how the human spirit fronted up to, adapted in the face of and ultimately beat down the loneliness of the ‘new normal’. Sublime steadicam artistry (by the director herself) and a vivid collection of Parisian persons make for a snapshot of a time that will never be recaptured; by definition, this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
7. PETITE MAMAN (Dir: Céline Sciamma; France, 72 mins) How a little girl deals with grief and the friendship she strikes in the realm of the fantastic proves the perfect premise for Céline Sciamma’s latest study in profound connection. The material is weighty but the lightness of touch is masterful; you’ll cry for days afterwards, as Sciamma and her two wondrous leads achieve deeply resonant moments that refuse to let go of your thoughts and emotions.
8. PRISONERS OF THE GHOSTLAND (Dir: Sion Sono; US/Japan, 103 mins) Why did it take so long to smash together the cinematic psyches of Japanese punk-auteur Sion Sono and G.O.A.T. Nicholas Cage? Because their hyper-stylised, vengeance-fuelled, dystopian Eastern-western is a work of fearless originality and W.T.F. creative choices that make it an adrenalized, bewildering blast (Ed. - For the record, Pig was #21 in ‘21; Cage had a great year.)
9. DUNE (Dir: Denis Villeneuve; USA, 155 mins) It all looked good in the planning. Denis Villeneuve’s track record (Blade Runner 2049 and Arrival, especially) indicated he could do spectacle with intelligence; the cast were all hot-button names with talent to boot. Of course, we said all this back in ‘84, too. This time, though…grandeur, depth and the promise of more to come.
10. BENEDETTA (Dir: Paul Verhoeven; France/Belgium, 131 mins) Early coverage zeroed-in on the ‘nun-sploitation’ angle of Dutch stirrer Paul Verhoeven’s latest, in particular luminous leading lady Virginie Efira depiction of sapphic experimentation and self-pleasuring. But Verhoeven has much more on his mind (no, really); Benedetta is a brutal take-down of institutionalized religion and the ease with which the ambitiously immoral can exploit the zealous masses.
THE NEXT TEN BEST:
11. VERA DE VERDAD (Dir: Beniamino Catena; Italy/Chile, 100 mins)
12. WEST SIDE STORY (Dir: Steven Spielberg; USA, 156 mins)
13. LA PANTHERE DES NEIGES (The Velvet Queen. Dir: Marie Amiguet; France, 92 mins)
14. ILARGI GUZTIAK (All The Moons. Dir: Igor Legarreta; Spain, 102 mins)
15. TED K (Dir: Tony Stone; USA, 120 mins)
16. MEDUSA (Dir: Anita Rocha da Silveira; Brazil, 127 mins)
17. BERGMAN ISLAND (Dir: Mia Hansen-Løve; France, 112 mins)
18. FREE GUY (Dir: Shawn Levy; USA, 115 mins)
19. THE COLONY (Dir: Tim Fehlbaum; Germany, 104 mins)
20. DORAIBU MAI KA (Drive My Car. Dir: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi; Japan, 179 mins)
THE WORST FILMS OF 2021:
For every exhilarating discovery on the streaming channels, there were piles of steaming dross to scroll pass. Shame on Disney+, for over-extending old franchises with greenlights for the terrible HOME SWEET HOME ALONE and the shamefully uninspired MUPPETS HAUNTED MANSION. With cinemas opening erratically and distributors unwilling to commit theatrical films, straight-to-video product was deemed worthy of multi-screen releases - the turgid Jeremy Irons-Diane Keaton rom-com LOVE, WEDDINGS AND OTHER DISASTERS and the Bruce Willis D-grade scifier COSMIC SIN found themselves in wide circulation. As the pandemic ebbed, exhibitors made space for some Hollywood product, but there was little excitement for misfires like SPIRAL: FROM THE BOOK OF SAW (featuring some Razzie-worthy shout-acting from Chris Rock); the numbing banality of VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE; or, the official death knell of YA-lit 'Hunger Games' wannabes, CHAOS WALKING. But it is from the bottom of the sequel barrel that we scrape the year’s most idiotic film; an inconcievable ninth dip into the well of fake family melodrama and CGI stunt work, overseen by producers who thought launching a car into outer space was a good idea. F9 dipped considerably at the box office (it's the lowest earner in the franchise since 2011’s FAST FIVE), although probably not enough to kill off this knuckle-headed insult to cinema.
