2009 in Review: Part One

2009 isn’t likely to be remembered as a great year for cinema. Despite many of the world’s best directors releasing films this year, it’s hard to see more than a handful of the films released remaining in people’s lists of favourites for very long. Filmmakers such as Michael Mann, Wes Anderson, Pedro Almodovar and Werner Herzog failed to live up to their usual high standards, although each of their films (PUBLIC ENEMIES, FANTASTIC MR FOX, BROKEN EMBRACES and ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD, respectively were all among the years 50 best).

Meanwhile, Joe Wright, whose previous two films I loved, directed one of the year’s worst in THE SOLOIST. Wright was something of an outlier, though, among British directors, as several British films were among the year’s best, from Eran Creevy’s outstanding debut SHIFTY to Andrea Arnold’s excellent FISH TANK, with Duane Hopkins’ BETTER THINGS potentially the most impressive of the three, from a stylistic point of view, at the very least. Sam Mendes made his best two films to date (although both were American films: REVOLUTIONARY ROAD and AWAY WE GO), while the two best British films: BRIGHT STAR and AN EDUCATION were directed by foreign-born directors, the New Zealander Jane Campion, and the Dane Lone Scherfig, respectively.

There were a handful of hugely impressive European films, from Laurent Cantet’s THE CLASS to Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s THREE MONKEYS. Special seasonal mention should go to Arnaud Desplechin’s A CHRISTMAS TALE, which featured some of the best acting of the year. Michael Haneke should, probably, be worried, as THE WHITE RIBBON is the first film of his that I could bear to even contemplate watching again, it’s a full-blown masterpiece, one of just four from this year, (to learn the others, you’ll have to wait for the full list – due on New Year’s Day).

Commercially speaking, the year was depressing. The worst film of the year may end up it’s most successful – TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN. Only three blockbusters were truly great, UP, THE HANGOVER and STAR TREK (the year’s most pleasant surprise), although INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, Tarantino’s best film for a decade, took an awful lot of money considering it is three hours long and in a foreign language.

Special word, comes at the end, for the Man of the Year. You read a lot of articles about how difficult it is to make films, which is why we have to wait so long for new films from Paul Thomas Anderson et al. So I’d have enormous respect for STEVEN SODERBERGH even if all of his four new films released in 2009 had been terrible. As it is, two were great, one was very, very good, and the fourth an interesting experiment that doesn’t quite work. The latter is THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE, a brave film, featuring an equally courageous performance from adult film star Sasha Grey. Meanwhile, THE INFORMANT! once more proved how talented and dependable a star Matt Damon is. A salacious expose of American corporate culture, it’s a funny and offbeat delight. As for greatness, though, it’s apt that the greatest films of Soderbergh’s career came from his exploration of a man who has had the title of greatness bestowed upon him. Soderbergh’s THE ARGENTINE and GUERRILLA – known from here on in as CHE, and counted as one film, are yet another massive step away from his comfort zone from the American director most eager to push himself into areas and subjects massively different from each other.

Find out where the Soderberghs, and all of the other films of 2009 rank on New Year’s Day. And, of course, have a wonderful Christmas and a terrific New Year.

Review: Avatar

There are acres of the internet dedicated to explaining just how expensive James Cameron's follow-up to the world-conquering TITANIC has proven to be. My estimate is that, once distribution and marketing costs have been added to a mammoth production budget, you're looking at a film that has cost nearly $600m to bring to the screen.

Of course, one of the costs has been the sheer lengthiness of the project. For the last four years, Cameron has been in the various stages of the production process, including using a brand new camera, in order to make the film look the way he wanted. This new camera has made quite the difference, this is by far the most impressive looking 3D film to date.

What Cameron has done, in a way that at least equals the achievement of Peter Jackson's THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy, is create a world that is so real and so believable that you are completely transported. AVATAR is a towering technological achievement, and a sumptuous, visual delight.

It's not without flaws, though. The film is 164 minutes long, and while this is less of an issue than might have been feared, there are moments when it drags. The dialogue is, on occasion, Lucas-esque and the focus on environmental issues is woolly, and abandoned somewhat for the money shots (isn't nature great? Well, yeah, but look how much greater it is when we blow the living shit out of it!)

It's probably best to compare it to some of the films that have been the best or biggest blockbusters since TITANIC. It's infinitely better than any of the Star Wars prequels, for example, but not as good as any of the LORD OF THE RINGS films.

You could argue that the balance of the film is askew, there's about 65% of it that could, uncharitably, be described as bollocks. On the flip-side, though, the other 35% is marvellous, more than good enough to make the film a captivating, and compelling watch. In fact, so brilliant is Cameron's film, when in full flow, that it would be easy to proclaim it as more than it is: a genuine, visual marvel, with a story borrowed from several places (most notably the legend of Pocahontas), some dodgy acting and shonky moments, levied by moments of genuine brilliance.

Review: A Serious Man

A SERIOUS MAN is the fourteenth feature film collaboration between Joel and Ethan Coen. The Coen brothers have been critical darlings ever since their debut, the brilliant BLOOD SIMPLE. They won their first Academy Awards with FARGO in 1996, and their two latest films, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN and BURN AFTER READING have been their most commercially successful.

It's been a strange career path, one which probably only features one film universally regarded as a failure; the ill-advised remake of THE LADYKILLERS (although INTOLERABLE CRUELTY is unjustly held in low regard by many), but has seen their last decade of work be seen as inferior by most reviewers.

Looking through their filmography, this is probably the case, but only because their 'nineties' were so great. In addition to FARGO, they created stone-cold masterpieces MILLER'S CROSSING, BARTON FINK, THE HUDSUCKER PROXY and THE BIG LEBOWSKI. In comparison, the likes of THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE, INTOLERABLE CRUELTY and BURN AFTER READING can't help but feel slight.

Slightness is something that has been attributed to A SERIOUS MAN; albeit wrongly. This is an intensely intimate film, one which asks questions of man's ability to live in a world without levity. Our hero is Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), a midwestern professor whose wife is preparing to leave him, and whose children are laws unto themselves. He suffers a small crisis of faith, which in addition to an unwell brother (a terrific Richard Kind [cousin Andy from CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM) and problems at work lead him to the brink of a breakdown.

Stuhlbarg delivers a knockout performance. Larry is a sympathetic character, a man unable to see humour in anything in his life. It strikes me that this film is about men like this. Men who allow each slight to compound the previous one. Getting inside the mindset of Larry is no easy task, so filmmakers and actor deserve credit for the breadth of the character study. That the film has little time for any other character aside from as a reflection of Larry is true (the same could be argued of BARTON FINK, of course), but this is no bad thing. It's Larry's world we're inhabiting, and a diversion from it would lessen the impact, although on this note, the film's extended prologue, which takes place many years, and miles away from the main narrative is a delight.

Review: Bright Star

It would be fair to say that Jane Campion and I don’t really get on, cinematically. Someone only has to play a piano for me to begin to have a panic attack. It’s with great surprise then, that BRIGHT STAR will doubtless end up as one of my favourite films of the year. It’s a simple, and brilliant film, graceful, beautiful and profoundly moving.

BRIGHT STAR is the story of the love affair between poet John Keats (Ben Whishaw) and Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish, superb). Shot with immense care and eye for beauty, Bright Star is far and away Campion’s best, and richest film. She has elicited terrific performances, not just from Cornish who is the standout, but from the supporting cast, including Paul Schneider and Kerry Fox.

It is, though, the central relationship that is, as it should be, at the film’s core. Whishaw and Cornish are a hugely appealing couple, and it’s impossible to not have sympathy for their plight as their tentative love affair runs into obstacles such as class, money and social acceptance. While Campion has painstakingly created an atmosphere in which you feel transported back to the nineteenth century, she has thrillingly also managed to make a love story as timeless as it is perfect.

Review: The Men Who Stare at Goats

An all-star cast delivers plenty of laughs but little substance in this comedy that suffers from a crisis of identity.

Grant Heslov's directorial debut is an adaptation of Jon Ronson's comic memoir of his time spent in Iraq in the build up to the invasion by the Allied Forces. Ewan McGregor plays journalist Bob Wilton, who heads to Iraq determined to prove himself as a writer and as a man (he's recently been cuckolded by his boss).

When in Iraq, he meets up with Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), a self-proclaimed psychic soldier who recounts the story of his life in the US Army, while the two attempt to enter Iraq and find the action each seeks for different reasons.

The film is funny, both leads give good performances, and they are ably supported by Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey, but the film loses it's way badly in the final third. What had been an irreverent comedy becomes something more conventional, something in need of closure for characters, which as they were set up, could never have achieved it. As such, it's hard to truly recommend Heslov's film as anything other than a mild diversion.

Review: An Education

AN EDUCATION is one of the year's best films, and features a virtuoso, star-making turn from Carey Mulligan. Adapted by Nick Hornby, from Lynn Barber's memoir, AN EDUCATION is a period set drama, which once again belies the notion that Britain doesn't have a film industry to be proud of.

Directed by Dane, Lone Scherfig, AN EDUCATION is pretty much pitch perfect in essaying a believable 1960s London, in which our central protagonist must balance her (and her parents') ambitions to go to a prestigious university, with the excitement of a fledgling romance with an older man. Hornby has done a fine job in turning Barber's story into a film (and one with a likable heroine - no mean feat considering...).

Much of the credit for this should go to Carey Mulligan, whose performance is exquisite. In a cast of experienced and excellent actors, she stands head and shoulders above the rest, so beautifully judged is her performance, and the transition from teenaged girl to young woman has rarely been handled with such empathy and accuracy on screen.

Alongside Mulligan are a who's who of screen talent, including Olivia Williams, Emma Thompson, Peter Sarsgaard, Dominic Cooper, Rosamund Pike and a never better Alfred Molina. It's an actors' showcase, and the understated direction is perfectly attuned to this. Credit too, to Hornby, whose script is warm and witty, and occasionally incredibly moving.

Very highly recommended.

Review: Fantastic Mr Fox

Witty rather than funny and clever rather than emotionally arresting, the ironic thing about FANTASTIC MR FOX is that rather than being the departure from Wes Anderson's norm, it is almost a parody of his work.

There was obviously pressure on Anderson, handling an animation for the first time in his relatively short career, and taking on the quintessentially English world of Roald Dahl. His previous film, THE DARJEELING LIMITED had received the worst reviews of his career, which made FANTASTIC MR FOX an even more intriguing prospect than it seemed on the surface.

It's important to point out here that the film is not, by any means, a failure. I remarked after seeing THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU that I could quite happily watch Anderson make the same film over and over again, but in spite of the incredible levels of craft and attention that have clearly been lavished on this project it feels too familiar, too self-consciously Wes-esque that it doesn't quite deliver on what could, and should, have been a much more riotous experience.

Like I said, though, the viewing experience is not a bad one. The vocal performances are good, and the film looks terrific. There are moments of great emotional clarity, the moments that Anderson does better than anyone else, but they come more infrequently than they perhaps should do.

Every film that he has made gets better on repeat viewings, and a second viewing of FANTASTIC MR FOX continues the trend, but still stands as the most disappointing film of his terrific career.