On 12.31.20 I published the 15 best films of 2020, but here are a few more streaming/VOD suggestions from the past year. Ten, to be exact.
‘The Nest‘
Sean Durkin’s “The Nest” was met tepidly at its Sundance world premiere screening. It’s not that Durkin’s slow-burn-of-a-movie is bad, actually, it’s quite good, an artfully rendered take on the disintegration of a family. It’s just that the film goes by its own rhythms and may test the patience of restless audiences expecting something that is plot-heavy. Rory (Jude Law) and Allison (Carrie Coon) are a well-off NYC-based couple whose life couldn’t be filled with more wealth and happiness. Or so it seems. He’s a successful commodities broker, she’s a freelance horse trainer, together they have a son and a daughter. Things couldn’t be peachier. However, Once Rory moves Allison and the kids to London because of a new job, things start to deteriorate badly. Sure, they now have a huge mansion, she gets her own personal horse, and the kids end up going to the most elite of schools, but something seems a little off. Rory’s lies start to get exposed, Allison starts to rebel against the deception, whilst the kids see mom acting up and decide to do the same at school. Durkin, much like he did in his excellent “Martha Marcy May Marlene,” uses mostly wide and medium angle shots, there is nary a close-up here. The atmosphere is filled with dread as we, the audience, must learn to expect the unexpected. The last half hour of the film is when the slow build-up delivers scathing thrills in unexpected ways. Coon, a commendably underrated actress, gives her best performance to date as Allison, a repressed wife who starts to realize that the privilege she’s been seeking her entire life, and finally got by marrying Rory years ago, may be too toxic to live with.
‘Possessor’
Only a Cronenberg could direct something like “Possessor,” a bloodily convoluted and erotic sci-fi caper that is never dull to watch. No, David isn’t in the director’s chair for this one, but rather his son Brandon Cronenberg, who clearly shares the same cinematic DNA as his father. The body-horror in “Possessor” is upped to the nth degree as a female agent (Andrea Riseborough), working for a corporation that uses brain implant technology to inhabit other people’s bodies to commit assassinations, slowly loses control of her mind when she inhabits a new body (Christopher Abbott). To reveal more would reveal all the twists and turns Cronenberg has in store for his audience, but, make no mistake about it, it’s the violence that makes this movie well worth a look. I tweeted that “Possessor” may just be the most violent movie I have ever seen at Sundance.
‘Spree‘
Director Eugene Kotlyarenko’s Sundance-premiered “Spree” is the Uber driving nightmare absolutely nobody wants to experience. As seen in the newly released NSFW trailer, the film plays like a found-footage thriller (which means things will end very badly for all involved) and is filmed from the point of view of a young celeb-obsessed Uber driver. This guy is desperate, a clear heir to Rupert Pupkin, an individual who would do absolutely anything in order to gain notoriety and fame.; we see him kidnapping, drugging rideshare passengers, and running over people with his vehicle There’s a lot more that isn’t shown. I saw the film at Sundance in January and it will polarize many, which is a good thing in my books, we need more polarization in 2020, a good kick in the butt to all the safe spaced, timid minds out there. “Spree” should do the trick.
‘Host’
Six friends accidentally invite the attention of a demonic presence during an online séance and begin noticing strange occurrences in their homes. Host is a 2020 British found footage horror film directed by Rob Savage and based on a script written by Savage, it was filmed while quarantine restrictions were in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Savage had to direct the actors remotely while they had to set up their own cameras, lighting, and stunts. Practical effects were also handled by the actors and a virtual workshop was held on how to set up effects such as "moving doors, making things fly off shelves". Savage has stated that the movie took twelve weeks to complete, from conception to its delivery to Shudder. The result is a neat little frightfest.
‘Horse Girl’
I saw director Jeff Baena’s “Horse Girl” at Sundance (it is now available to stream on Netflix), where it was completely ignored in favor of the bigger, flashier titles. Written by Baena, the film stars the incomparable Alison Brie (“Mad Men,” “Community,” “GLOW”) as Sarah, an arts and crafts store employee who may be slowly, but surely losing her own grasp of reality. Brie delivers some of her finest work as the complex, fragile and, potentially, delusional Sarah. In the first few minutes, you wouldn’t think Sarah is just a mere brain switch away from the looney bin. The deceptively simple way that Baena builds up his movie could have you thinking it’ll be another observational low-key, character-driven indie, but “Horse Girl” isn’t.
‘Incitement’
Yigal Amir, who on November 4, 1995, killed Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, is the subject of Yaron Zilberman’s quietly harrowing “Incitement.” The film shows the Orthodox Yigal (Yehuda Nahari Halevi in a magnetic performance), studying law at Tel Aviv’s Bar Ilan University, but when his girlfriend Nava (Daniella Kertesz) breaks up with him due to Ashkenazi and Sephardic traditional differences, he snaps and further immerses himself in the anti-peace movements which were rapidly building up all around the country. Of note, Halevi comes from the same neighborhood of Herzliya as Amir and his family belonging to the same synagogue as the assassin. Co-written by Zilberman and Ron Leshem, the film tries to find the conclusive trigger for Yigal’s actions, when did the idea of assassinating Rabin enter his head? What made it grow profusely to the point of being incited to do the unthinkable? As in life itself, it is never that simple. Never does a calculated and purposeful assassination arrive out of thin air, there are moments, both grand and small, which build up to a point of no return.
‘The Devil All the Time’
Director Antonio Campos’ “The Devil All The Time”, a sprawling mosaic of religion, family, and DNA, is what one could describe as an “Appalachian noir.” It’s a tale filled with gougers, murderers, and losers — nobody wins in Campos’ weighty film and, set in an America on the brink of change, maybe that’s the point. The film is an ambitious attempt by Campos to adapt Donald Ray Pollack’s 2011 novel of the same name. The setting is in a small town in post-War America and narrated by an unnamed narrator with a heavy southern drawl, who, at times, deviates from the storytelling by going into puzzling backwoods philosophical diatribes. Filled with more than a dozen characters, and slipping easily into the Southern Gothic realm, this is the kind of story that the late-great Jim Thompson may have written a long time ago. The locale is southern Ohio, in the town of Knockemstiff. The story spans 20-years of genetic bloodshed as Tom Holland’s Arvin enters the frame, orphaned at an early age, and whose parents’ deaths lay the burden for the rest of the story.
’76 Days’
Filmed mostly in a single hospital in the city of Wuhan, Hao Wu’s film shows the period of 76 days of lockdown in a Chinese hospital coping with an endless amount of outbreaks. Having unequivocal access to the frontline of doctors and nurses fighting against the virus, this is an unexceptional film that just wants to give us a peak of what it must have been like at the epicenter of the virus. It helps us understand and feel the horrors of those days when we didn’t know much about COVID-19 and is a tribute to the hospital staff, doctors, nurses and everyone else involved who tried to contain the damaging effects.
‘Education’
The fifth and final movie of Small Axe is a bittersweet end to Steve McQueen’s anthology. Tackling the coming of age story of 12-year-old Kingsley (Kenyah Sandy), McQueen, much like David Simon masterfully exuded in his fourth season of “The Wire,” eludes that success, whether you’re black or white, comes down to the kind of quality schooling needed to make it in this world, not to mention an abundance of care and loving parenting at home. When Kingsley is pulled to the headmaster’s office for being disruptive in class, he discovers he’s being sent to a school for those with “special needs.” His mother (Sharlene Whyte), unaware of the unofficial segregation policy at play in the U.K. system, finds out the school Kingsley resides in actually prevents many Black children from receiving the education they deserve. This 63-minute film turns out to be McQueen’s most hopeful, still residing its wishes and cares on a system that has let down the Black population in the UK for more than a century now.
‘The Lodge’
The latest addition to the current trend of arty horror ifs the often slow, but freakish, psychologically traumatizing, and formally audacious “The Lodge,” from directors Veronika Franz and Severin Fiara. This is a deliberately quiet but meaty dissection of the complexities of motherhood and even faith, which continues many of the same themes the directing duo employed to chilling effect with their 2015 breakout “Goodnight Mommy.” Franz and Fiara seem to be fascinated by the thorny relationship between mother and child, but, this time, “The Lodge” tackles the complicated and emotionally delicate and fraught area of step-motherhood and surrogates, while making disquieting comments on religion and beliefs. Franz and Fiara prove once again they are two of the best in the biz at unsettling cinema. This is a meditative plumbing of the darkest parts of the human psyche, our vulnerabilities, and self-doubts and it’s these personal fears that resonate loudly.
I don’t know about you, but I’m kind of looking forward to the “Michael” sequel. Whether Vantoine directs it or John Logan, it doesn’t matter—it’s an inevitable sh*tshow that will result from its making and release.