Top Ten Films Of 2011
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1. Martha Marcy May Marlene - A disturbing exercise in mood (or a
moody exercise in disturbance), Elizabeth Olson's performance as the titular character is so well done you forget you're watching a performance. No character all year was more believable than MMMM, a girl unable to shake her memories at an upstate NY Catskills area commune, even as she lives it up in comfort at her sister's posh residence with little responsibility. John Hawks, who played a tough guy role in Winter's Bone, is even scarier here (cryptically so) as the commune leader. Full disclosure: my highest praise for this film exists in a work print leaked previous to its commercial release, where the sequence of events, including its most pivotal scene (hint: MMMM in the water) are structured more effectively.
2. Beginners - Like M4, this is another great adventure in non-linear storytelling. We see Oliver (Ewan McGregor) bounce through time as he remembers his parents, most notably his father's twilight years as a finally out gay man (Christopher Plummer at his best). These melancholy vignettes are applied to Oliver's own emotional distances as he meets a young French actress (Melanie Laurent) worthy of his love if only he can find the way. Writer/director Mike Mills uses such a great Vonnegut inspired structure, you hope it actually gets applied to a Vonnegut adaptation someday.
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3.Take Shelter - In a follow up to 2007's Shotgun Stories, writer director
Jeff Nichols shows he can max out both the drama of small town American life as well as the acting chops of Michael Shannon (also in Stories). Heavy with metaphor on the struggles of the rural economy and its effect on families, both mentally and financially, Take Shelter plays on the feeling of looming dread lurking in the minds of many about the state of this country and where it may lead. Speaking of looming and lurking, Jessica Chastain is in this too, and she's sublime.
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4.A Separation - Asghar Farhadi's melodrama is as honest about its
country's problems as our best films are about the United States. This is a bold move considering that the country in questions is Iran, who still has its best director Jafar Panahi under house arrest for propaganda against the state. One trait of great film narrative involves the intersection of various societal and environmental forces, and in A Separation a family is split apart through a convergence of religion, economics, tribal responsibility, and sacrifice. The subject of divorce is a fairly universal one, made more complicated by 21st century Iran's push/pull struggle with modernity. A virtual foreign film Oscar certainty.
5. The Interrupters - One of the more sobering documentaries ever made is also the year's best. The film's title is taken from a group of brave community organizer types (such the media villain in the Obama era) who attempt to stifle the cycle of violence in inner city Chicago. Director Steve James, who showed such a dedication to his work with the iconic 5 year project Hoop Dreams, follows his subjects through an undoubtedly rough and dangerous terrain here. Wisely James casts no falsehoods on the task involved, and while the violent streets of the South Side depicted aren’t the most hopeful place, at least they aren't being surrendered without a different kind of battle.
6. Margin Call - An expertly cast dramatization of the 2008 financial meltdown. A stock trading company sorts out the looming fiscal crisis and conspires to beat the catastrophe to the market. The film is sprinkled with perfect little ironies through out. The director of risk management is fired just as the film opens, those in charge of this beacon of world finance seem to know the least about it, and a floor executive orchestrates the dirty work while preoccupied by the necessary euthanization of his sickly dog. Remember Tim Blake Nelson's monologue in Syriana defending American capitalism? There's three better ones here.
7. The Tree Of Life - There are days when I hate this film, when I wish for more narrative, or for Sean Penn to do more than stare up at the skyline of Dallas. Maybe when you flashback to the dinosaur era mid-movie there aren't many words to tie everything together. Maybe it's fitting that after 135 minutes of jaw dropping visuals, intimate visions of family, and a good dose of whiskey tango foxtrot, there are few words to describe the full experience. Malick stubbornly relies on his own syntax and methodology to make this powerful film, employing an agenda that can’t quite be fingered exactly but still exists. It forces me to conclude there truly is no director quite like Terrence Malick, and that's both a good and bad thing.
8. The Adventures of Tin Tin - While Pixar decided to build Cars 2 around a talking toe truck named Mater, aka Jar Jar on wheels, Steven Spielberg and Dreamworks took a popular Euro-comic and dazzled international and domestic audiences alike with the most realistic animation of the year. Tintin material dates back to the beginning of the 20th century, with scores of stories in a variety of mediums. Here's hoping more get this sort of big screen treatment. A science in frenetic energy.
9. Midnight in Paris - Some of the same light-heartedness found in The Artist, but more genuine and less gimmicky here. I'll go ahead and repeat what's been said ad nauseum by now, that Owen Wilson was born to recite Woody Allen dialogue. The alter ego this time around goes to Paris and gets whisked away to the 1920's every night at midnight, carousing with the likes of Ernest Hemingway and Josephine Baker (and many more). An English major's wet dream.
10. Drive - Has film noir ever been set to synth-pop before? What about setting Albert Brooks as the heavy? Ryan Gosling plays a stuntman who moonlights as a getaway driver for the Los Angeles underground. He takes to his night trade cautiously until the family in the apartment next door needs his help. An overly bloody third act is all that keeps it from being a film for the ages.
A still from the best scene of 2011, in Martha Marcy May Marlene
by Jason Cox
