In spite of this menu of prime cuts, though, I found myself
drawn back to a few movies or recommending the same handful of films above others.
It was still quite difficult to whittle a Top Ten list out of the number of strong
films I saw this year. At one point, I tried splitting the lists into fiction
films and documentaries, but that didn’t feel right to me since three of my
favourite films of the year are docs. Some of them also tread the line between
truth and fiction, so I felt that I was doing them a disservice by taking them
away from the head table. Likewise, I debated including festival films from
this year that did not yet make it to a theatre near you, but I decided to push
them back – both to free up some spots and to keep them in the conversation when
moviegoers outside of Toronto could see them. On that note, shout oust go to
Frances Ha, Twice Born, Something in the Air, Great Expectations, Imogene, and What Maisie Knew. They will set the bar for 2013. Before we get to
2013, however, let us celebrate the year that is ending.
The Best Films of 2012:
(UK, Dir. Joe Wright)
This year had a heavy slate of strong page-to-screen
efforts, but director Joe Wright and screenwriter Tom Stoppard rewrote the book
on adaptation with their ingenious take on Tolstoy’s classic novel. Joe Wright
deserves especially strong recognition for his innovative decision to shoot Anna Karenina in a dusty old theatre
when budgetary restrictions prevented him from filming in the conventional
scope one would expect for such a sweeping epic. Wright makes
astute use of the setting and incorporates the theatricality into the dramatic
energy of Anna Karenina, which in
turn stresses the themes of Tolstoy’s novel. It’s a stunningly realized feat
that accentuates Stoppard’s economical adaptation. Not a page
feels lost. Adding to the inspired artistry of Anna Karenina is Keira Knightley’s fearless showstopper of a performance
as Tolstoy’s heroine. Equally good are the supporting performances by Jude Law,
Matthew Macfadyen, Olivia Williams, Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander, Kelly
Macdonald, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, et al. and sumptuous arts and crafts work by costumer Jacqueline Durran, composer Dario Marianelli, production designer Sarah Greenwood, and DP Seamus McGarvey, who captures the film in exquisite theatrical lighting and offers another noteworthy long take. Anna Karenina, with all its breathtaking boldness and ingenuity,
stands tallest in year of strong contenders.
If all the world’s a stage in Anna
Karenina, then the cast and crew should take a well-deserved bow.
(Canada, Dir. Sarah Polley)
I am in awe of Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell. Polley took matters into her own hands when she learned
that a personal story of hers was to be printed in the press. Polley decided
that if people were to be privy to her story, she would rather tell it to them
in her own fashion. Stories We Tell
shows a true knack for storytelling as Polley rewrites history anew and crafts
commonplace family details into an engrossing mystery. The film celebrates the
fleeting elusiveness of history by crosscutting deftly between interviews with
Polley’s family and friends and archival footage of the Polley family during
Polley’s youth. Narrated by Polley’s father, Michael (pictured), Stories We Tell consistently plays with
our expectations, emotions, and allegiances as the truth is shaped and moulded
in a cinematic game of broken telephone, but then reconfigured with a brilliant
reveal that extends the personal memories of the subjects into the collective
experiences of the audience. The result is like an intangible universal truth:
all stories are collective stories. Histories, narratives, and experiences are
shared, and Polley extends her story to the audience by immersing them in the
overwhelming frankness and accessibility of her tale.
(USA, Dir. Amie Williams)
Every year sees a contest to find the “zeitgeist film” of
the year. Namely, the film that best seems to capture the current cultural
climate, such as Fahrenheit 9/11 in
2004 or Margin Call in 2011. The film
that, to my mind, looks to have its finger on the pulse of 2012 is Amie
Williams’s documentary We Are Wisconsin,
which follows a group of passionate individuals protesting Governor Scott
Walker’s Wisconsin Reform Bill. The We Are Wisconsin team first amazed me when
I saw the film at Hot Docs back in May, but I was doubly impressed by the
convictions of Williams and her subjects when the Wisconsin team took their film on the road and screened it grassroots-style
for groups across Canada and America. I found it so inspiring to revisit We Are Wisconsin with members of
the local CUPE union when the film came to Ottawa, and to hear them discuss with
Williams and subject Rachel Friedman how the consequences of Wisconsin reform
could serve as a guide to looming changes in Ontario legislature. A rarity
among documentaries, We Are Wisconsin
intuitively blurs the line between art and activism.
4. Quartet
(UK, Dir. Dustin Hoffman)
Hat’s off to Dustin Hoffman for being the breakthrough
director of the year at the young age of seventy-five. Quartet, Hoffman’s first completed film as a director, is an
appropriate choice of project for the great actor to make the next step in his
prolific career. Hoffman directs a quartet of esteemed British thespians—Maggie
Smith, Tom Courtenay, Billy Connolly, and Pauline Collins—as a troupe of opera
singers who come out of retirement to settle old ghosts and test the talents
that made them stars. A small-scale miracle of a film, Quartet smartly relies on the strength of its actors and its script
(by Oscar winner Ronald Harwood), which Hoffman surely learned through are the
key ingredients for a great film thanks to his wealth of experience as an actor.
Working with many great directors over the years paid off: Quartet is an immensely enjoyable film and it feels as if Hoffman
has been behind the camera for his entire career.
(USA, Dir. David O. Russell)
I usually want to punch happy endings in the face, but I’m a
fan of any film that sees a crazy guy named Pat get the girl. I’m twice as
happy when said girl is Jennifer Lawrence. Silver
Linings Playbook is one of those curious films that work on just about every
level. It even culminates in a feel good dance number without hitting a false step.
The warm charm of Silver Linings
Playbook is executed perfectly thanks to the sprightly manic energy
invested in the film by director David O. Russell and his sturdy ensemble
headlined by Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert DeNiro, and Jacki
Weaver. There’s a classic screwball rhythm to the banter between Cooper and
Lawrence as they trade barbs in Silver
Linings Playbook. The running scenes have an especially unique feverishness.
Silver Linings Playbook beats the
odds in a genre riddled with empty calorie sweet-things and leaves you brimming
with so much feel-good energy that you’ll find yourself skipping as you exit
the theatre.
6. The Imposter
(UK, Dir. Bart Layton)
Like Sarah Polley’s Stories
We Tell, The Imposter shows that
truth is stranger than fiction. A gripping, absolutely riveting film, The Imposter chronicles a bizarre case
in which a missing American boy was reunited with, and accepted by, his loving
family. However, the narrator of the film gleefully reveals that he is actually
a full-grown Algerian man who fooled the boy’s family into giving him a better
life abroad by convincing them that he was their long lost family member. Thanks to a phenomenal editing job—the best of the year, in my
opinion—The Imposter offers one
mind-boggling revelation after another. This film by Bart Layton is a dazzling
puzzler. The kindness of strangers has never been such an outrageous farce.
(France, Dir.
Jacques Audiard)
Rust and Bone (De rouille et d’os) brings to the screen
a collection of short stories by Canadian author Craig Davidson. In an inspired
adaptation of Rust and Bone,
writer/director Jacques Audiard and co-writer Thomas Bidegain craft a powerful,
densely layered story of two wounded athletes (played by the excellent duo of
Marion Cotillard and Matthias Schoenaerts) as their stories converge in an
ironic criss-cross of rise-and-fall narratives. Audiard takes the viewer on a
journey more searing and powerful than his 2009 film A Prophet: Rust and Bone
is a bare-knuckle gut-punch, with Katy Perry acting as its surprise left hook.
(USA, Dir. Benh Zeitlin)
I have never seen a film like Beasts of the Southern Wild. A fable of gritty yet whimsical
realism, Beasts of the Southern Wild
is the closest thing to poetry to appear on the screen this year thanks to its
refreshing energy and artistry. Anchored by a mesmerizing performance by young
newcomer Quvenzhané Wallis as Hushpuppy, the fearless little girl who weathers
the storm as the waters rise in The Bathtub, Beasts feels like a fairy tale. It’s like a magical game of
make-believe, yet the drama looks like it takes place in the here and now.
9. Skyfall
(UK/USA, Dir. Sam Mendes)
James Bond is back and better than ever. Skyfall is arguably the strongest studio
offering in a year that saw Hollywood’s biggest players unload blockbusters that
were actually worth the price of admission. Skyfall
stands above the trend of remakes and reboots, though, because it embeds
details of Bond’s origins within a story that moves the series forward. Skyfall kills off the campy 007 films and
gives the franchise a fresh start, but without dispensing all that has gone
before it. It honours the films that helped James Bond build such a strong fan
base and it gives the cinema’s greatest franchise a second life. Thanks to
director Sam Mendes and the work of cinematographer Roger Deakins, 007 has
never looked so sleek. Moreover, Daniel Craig proves himself the only actor to
rival Sean Connery’s claim as the best Bond of them all.
10. Smashed
(USA, Dir.
James Ponsoldt)
Not a frame is wasted in James Ponsoldt’s Smashed. At a brisk 81 minutes, Ponsoldt
delivers a harrowing character study about a troubled alcoholic named Kate
(Mary Elizabeth Winstead) who decides to free herself from her booze-fuelled
marriage to Charlie (Aaron Paul), which seems to be on collision course of
self-destructive behaviour. Avoiding easy answers and rejecting clichés, Smashed takes the audience along Kate’s
turbulent road to recovery. Mary Elizabeth Winstead gives the breakthrough
performance of the year, and she’s surrounded by a team of equally noteworthy
turns from co-stars Aaron Paul, Octavia Spencer, Megan Mullally and Nic Offerman.
I knew nothing about Smashed before
seeing it a TIFF this year: I only wanted to fill a time slot and snap a
picture of a newly christened Oscar winner. Smashed
shows the kind of gems that are hidden throughout the festival circuit. I
will surely keep an eye out for new credits by Ponsoldt and Winstead the next
time they hit Toronto, since Smashed was
the film that came out of nowhere and floored me at the festival this year.
Honourable mentions: Argo, Cosmopolis, The Dark Knight Rises, Django Unchained, English Vinglish, The Hunger Games, The Impossible, Inch’Allah, The Invisible War, Les Misérables, Lore, The Master, Midnight's Children, Moonrise Kingdom, Rebelle, The Sessions, Take This Waltz.
*I should note that I have not been able to see some of 2012's biggies, such as Central Park Five (despite my best efforts), Zero Dark Thirty (it doesn't have an Ottawa screening until January), and Amour (which doesn't hit town until, wait for it, February!).
More in ‘2012 in Review’:
Part 1: The Worst Films of the Year
