The Best Films of 2023
It’s the end of another year! And what a year it’s been. I successfully met my resolution to watch more movies than last year - around 360 total, nearly half of which were new releases. On the one hand, I’m not sure if it’s entirely healthy to watch a movie every day. On the other hand, it’s a lot of fun!
As I reflect on the past year of movies, I’m struck by a deeper understanding that there simply isn’t enough time. I doubled the amount of new releases I watched this year — in fact, this might be the most (roughly 170) that I’ve ever seen before compiling a “best of the year” list — yet I still feel like I’ve missed some important gems. As usual, I didn’t watch many documentaries, and my cinematic diet was very Eurocentric, though I did watch more international films than in 2022. I find that the more invested I am in experiencing movies, the more aware I become of just how much is out there. I can understand the appeal of devoting one’s viewing habits to a particular genre — action, for example, or horror — simply because doing so allows greater exposure to productions from a variety of places in a variety of styles.
Regardless of practicality, is it advisable to watch even more, particularly if I’m not getting paid to do so? Part of me wants to aim for 200 new releases in 2024, yet after the amount of personal tragedy I’ve experienced in 2023, I find myself reluctant to make that commitment. When I’m on my deathbed, will I regret the amount of time I spent watching movies instead of reading books, walking outside, or spending time with family and friends? I firmly believe that experiencing art is an important part of a healthy life, but it certainly can’t be the primary activity, particularly when so much of our artistic infrastructure is rooted in capitalist economics. Those “hidden gems” are hidden for a variety of reasons, and I’m not sure I always have (or can make) the time to track them down.
The journey continues. Of all the movies I saw this year, here are the ones that stuck with me the most. When I say that they are “the best,” I mean simply that they are the ones that have lingered in my mind and that I continue to ponder days, weeks, or months after I first saw them. As I look over the list, I’m surprised by how many of them are fairly “mainstream,” if not in terms of marketing / public awareness then in terms of genre or style. Perhaps, as I get older, I find myself more engaged by films that take traditional tropes and execute them particularly well rather than those that take bolder, more “artistic” approaches. (Though I still appreciate those, as well.) All of the Honorable Mentions are also highly recommended — I rated them all equally as high on Letterboxd, but for whatever reason, I find myself less compelled to revisit them. As always, the list is in alphabetical order, though in a few cases I’ve chosen to group multiple films together for thematic purposes. You can use JustWatch to see where all are available to stream or rent.
Honorable Mentions: Anatomy of a Fall, Asteroid City, Brooklyn 45, Evil Dead Rise, The Holdovers, Jericho Ridge, May December, Nimona, Pathaan, Poor Things, Wes Anderson’s Roald Dahl Shorts, Shortcomings, Suitable Flesh, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, You Hurt My Feelings
A THOUSAND AND ONE
The directorial debut of A.V. Rockwell follows Inez (Teyana Taylor), an ex-con who decides to kidnap her son Terry out of the New York foster care system. Over the span of a decade, the two navigate the difficulties of single parenthood amidst a backdrop of a changing city that seems designed to make their lives harder, particularly in the years following the 9/11 terrorist attack. Rockwell keeps the focus on their evolving relationship, refusing to paint either as fully heroic or villainous; while the camerawork is gorgeous and intimate, this is far from poverty porn. I was familiar with Taylor only through her music and dance work, but A Thousand And One proves she’s a force to be reckoned with onscreen. Her performance, especially when the film reaches its climactic reveal (the most surprising of the year), deserves serious awards consideration.
ALL OF US STRANGERS
MONICA
As a cisgender, straight man, I admit to often finding LGBTQ cinema difficult to relate to, perhaps because so many of them foreground the characters’ queerness as their primary identifier. (In other words: they are primarily about the experience of being queer, rather than the experience of being a queer person, if that makes sense.) The protagonists of All Of Us Strangers and Monica are focused on other things — grieving long-dead loved ones in the former, caring for an aging parent in the latter — yet that paradoxically highlights their queerness even further. I suppose that, intellectually, I always knew that gay and trans people feel things differently from me, but these movies made me profoundly aware that our deepest emotions, while similar, are not the same. While all loneliness is crushing, and all sorrow is painful, there is a particular hue of suffering that I, as a straight man, will likely never have to experience.
Both films are also about the complicated dynamic that exists between queer people and their parents. Strangers follows Adam (a transcendent Andrew Scott, wearing his grief like an open wound) as he visits his childhood home, only to discover that his parents, who died in an accident when he was 12, are still there, as if they never left. Monica finds the titular character (Trace Lysette, Oscar-worthy) returning home after decades away to care for her dying mother who doesn’t recognize that her son is now her daughter. Both are tearjerkers, yes, but both earn every drop rather than cynically mining pathos. Directors Haigh and Pallaoro utilize shallow depth-of-field to visually portray their characters’ isolation, but there are moments of vivid warmth and compassion that made me feel connected not only to the characters onscreen but to the world around me. When they were over, I was left with a profound sense of gratitude for my life and all of its dimensions, both the beautiful and the painful. Sometimes, they’re the same thing.
ARE YOU THERE, GOD? IT’S ME, MARGARET.
Based on the seminal middle-grade novel by Judy Blume, this is the sophomore directorial effort from Kelly Fremon Craig, whose 2017 coming-of-age comedy The Edge of Seventeen is an underseen and underappreciated gem. Are You There, God? follows 11-year-old Margaret Simon (Abby Ryder Fortson) as she adapts to a new neighborhood — not to mention puberty, peer pressure, and a growing attraction to boys — after her family moves from New York to New Jersey. Craig's direction is masterful, subtly conveying Margaret’s growing sense that the social dynamics of the world are far more dynamic than she previously thought, from the fact that the real estate agent told the neighbors about Margaret's family in advance (presumably to assuage racist fears) to the way that her upper-class friends’ entitlement isn't delivered as obnoxious but simply as matter-of-fact. In a just world, Rachel McAdams would receive an Oscar nomination for her performance as Margaret’s mother, a Christian woman married to a Jewish man who is navigating her own relationship to family and religion. Every character here feels like a living person, full of contradictions, and everyone is seeking acceptance and support (if not from family or friends, then from a higher power). It’s one of the few films on this list I saw more than once, simply because it’s just that lovely.
BLACKBERRY
Unlike a lot of the superficial, corporate hagiography released this year (I’m looking at you, Air), Blackberry dares to portray capitalist competition as dehumanizing rather than aspirational. A chronicle of the rise and fall of Blackberry — the precursor to the modern smartphone — it’s a thriller disguised as a boardroom biopic. Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel) and his best friend Doug Fregin (director Matt Johnson) have an idea for a revolutionary cellular device, but they’re only able to secure funding by ceding company control to Jim Balsillie (an electrifying Glenn Howerton), a shark-like businessman who will do whatever it takes to turn a profit. Stylistically, Johnson seems intent on doing the opposite of Fincher in The Social Network, filming his subjects in close-up with telephoto lenses rather than opting for pristine, wide-angle framing. The movie feels appropriately cheap and taped together, not unlike the first BlackBerry “prototype” Mike constructs. The true star of the show, however, is Howerton, who walks a fine line between magnetic and terrifying, portraying Balsillie as an unstoppable predator who won’t stop when he smells blood in the water. Howerton has plenty of experience playing an asshole on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but here he plays an asshole who makes no attempt to hide it; in fact, it’s what makes him so good at his job. Blackberry is all about exposing the myth of capitalist meritocracy — brilliance means nothing without salesmanship, and quality is secondary to money. It also makes several darkly comedic nods to Raiders of the Lost Ark, which I suppose makes it the best Indiana Jones movie of the year, in spirit.
THE CAINE MUTINY COURT-MARTIAL
It seems fitting that director William Friedkin’s final film would be a teleplay based on a novel that has been previously adapted into a play and multiple other movies. Though he’s best-known for provocative, controversial genre work like The Exorcist and Cruising, Friedkin was fond of adapting plays (his collaborations with Tracy Letts are some of the most masterful and disturbing films I’ve ever seen), and he had more than a few television films under his belt. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that the man who helmed an update of 12 Angry Men two-and-a-half decades ago might decide to make another legal drama, nor that his take on justice and morality would be far from simple.
Like that classic chamber piece, The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial takes place almost entirely in one location. The bulk of the film unfolds in the courtroom as a trial plays out in what feels like real-time; statements are read, witnesses are interrogated, and new layers of information are gradually exposed. Lieutenant Stephen Maryk (Jake Lacey) of the U.S. Navy is charged with mutiny after relieving his captain, Lt. Commander Phillip Queeg (Keifer Sutherland), of command during a cyclone. The central question is whether Queeg was mentally stable — underneath that, however, are deeper issues around the nature of hierarchy and obedience. In his two scenes, Sutherland does the best work of his career, depicting Queeg as both intimidatingly gruff and pathetically vain, his brash demeanor perhaps a mask that hides deep insecurity. It’s an astonishingly nuanced performance by an actor known to most as a sex symbol or a primetime action star.
Friedkin, as always, refuses to provide easy answers. He films Queeg head-on, speaking directly into the camera, placing the viewer as his ultimate judge. I'm struck by how much Sutherland has been made up to look quite similar to Friedkin himself, and I can't help but wonder if Friedkin — who was known to be a very demanding, exacting filmmaker — sympathized with the idea of a dictatorial commander, or perhaps feared that his own legacy and reputation might come under fire from a new generation. Who are we to question our elders, particularly the ones who achieved success partially because of their arrogance and bullying? In Friedkin movies, there are no easy answers, particularly when it comes to right and wrong. With The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, he seems to me to have made himself the target of his own provocations and to be wrestling with his own life and legacy. Will he be remembered as a visionary or as a dictatorial bully? Was his arrogance justified, or did it merely stem from paranoid insecurity? Ultimately, what do we leave behind, if not our reputations, either whitewashed or tarnished? The answers are as nebulous, and the questions as potentially devastating, as the storm that incites the titular mutiny. No wonder they drew the attention of Friedkin. After all: they called him Hurricane Billy.
CHAMPIONS
RYE LANE
The feel-good movie of the year, Champions follows washed-up minor-league basketball coach Marcus Marakovich (Woody Harrelson) after he’s forced to coach a team of intellectually disabled players. We’ve seen this story before; we know that the bitter coach will start to form an attachment to his new team, take them to the championship, and probably fall in love along the way. What separates it from other movies of this ilk is its refreshing honesty. Maybe I’m just desperate for movies that treat people like actual adults with complicated relationship dynamics; this one delivers that far better than I expected. One quick dialogue exchange made me gasp with its insight around forgiveness and reconciliation. Plus, the jokes are actually funny!
Raine Allen-Miller’s Rye Lane also takes a genre that it’s easy for people my age and older to dismiss as formulaic — the romantic comedy — and injects new life into tired tropes. David Jonsson and Vivian Oparah star as Dom and Yas, two young strangers in South London who bond over their relationship woes and decide to spend the day together. The use of extrawide lenses, jarring angles, and saturated colors goes a long way to making this working-class romance feel like a genuine fairy tale. It also boasts the best cameo of the year. Allen-Miller manages to strike just the right balance between homage to classic romcoms of the past and also attempting to capture something fresh. Her remarkable directorial debut deserves to find an audience and become a generational classic, just like the movies it references.
DICKS: THE MUSICAL
SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE
In case the title didn’t clue you in, Dicks: The Musical is the crudest, most tasteless movie I saw all year. I also loved every minute of it. Based on an off-Broadway play by stars Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson, this shockingly raunchy comedy follows Craig and Trevor, two competing salesmen who realize they’re long-lost twin brothers and vow to get their parents back together. The catch: their biological father (Nathan Lane) is gay, and their mother (Megan Mullally) is a solitary, eccentric kook. Imagine The Parent Trap if it were rated R, queer, and not afraid to get just plain weird. Megan Thee Stallion sings an ode to female empowerment while walking her male employees on a leash. There’s a talking vagina. At one point, God himself makes an appearance, dressed in booty shorts. Nathan Lane deserves awards recognition for what might be (as he himself puts it in the post-movie blooper reel) the most humiliating moment of his career. And I’m convinced Megan Mullally might legitimately be the funniest woman on the planet. Director Larry Charles seems intent on helping Sharp and Jackson push every joke to their limit, and then going just a little bit further. For every gag or lyric that doesn’t quite land, there are at least two that leave my jaw on the floor.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse also seems motivated by a desire to challenge the norm, though the boundaries it pushes against are ones of style rather than taste. A sequel to Into the Spider-verse, this animated superhero adventure follows Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) as he teams up with Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld) and an assorted of other Spider-People to travel across the multiverse and take down a mad scientist-turned-supervillain called The Spot. The real star here is the animation. The filmmakers combine a variety of art styles — hand-drawn, computer-generated, stop-motion, water color, you name it — into a jaw-dropping smorgasbord of color and motion. At times, I found myself overwhelmed by the sheer amount of visual flair on display. I spent most of its runtime with my mouth agape. I’m reminded at the first time I saw the Nostromo sequence of Disney’s Pinocchio: the main thought running through my mind was, I didn’t know such a thing was possible! Beyond the spectacular aesthetics, though, Across the Spider-verse is bolstered a thematically dense script that treats its characters with respect and tackles big ideas about consequences, responsibility, and how we respond to tragedy. Its ending is abrupt — we’ll have to wait at least another year to see how things wrap up in Beyond the Spider-Verse — but there’s still little doubt that this is a bona fide masterpiece.
HUESERA: THE BONE WOMAN
TO CATCH A KILLER
Fears around motherhood seem to be a major trend in horror these days. Of all the “(becoming a) mommy issues” movies I’ve seen in the past year or so, Huesera: The Bone Woman is the best, not only tapping into fears about the physical trauma of childbirth, but also how it represents an existential threat to identity. In the early stages of pregnancy, Valeria (Natalia Solian) is filled with joy at the prospect of being a mother. But as the birth date approaches and passes, she becomes more and more anxious. It seems that something is out there in the darkness, waiting to destroy her — if not the strange, bony figure she glimpses in the shadows, then perhaps her baby itself. Huesera is a slow burn that gradually raises the tension, and while director Michelle Garza Cervera provides a few bone-crunching moments of body horror, the really terrifying stuff is happening internally, as Valeria wrestles with how to mesh motherhood into her sense of self.
Another underseen genre gem is To Catch A Killer, a police procedural from director Damian Szifron that feels like the kind of movie that doesn’t get made much anymore: a mid-budget thriller that 30 years ago would have been released on thousands of screens, made a healthy profit, and attracted new viewers for years on cable. Shailene Woodley stars as a Baltimore cop who gets recruited by the FBI to help track down a sniper who opened fire on a crowded party. It’s no Se7en (though David Fincher is clearly an influence), but the dialogue crackles, the action thrills, and Ben Mendelsohn is tremendous as a no-nonsense special agent who knows this isn’t a typical mass shooter. The script interweaves commentary on our cultural obsession with guns (and our growing desensitization) in a way that doesn’t feel forced or preachy, daring to flesh out a villain who most people would happily paint in broad strokes. Szifron’s direction takes a fairly standard script up a notch — one shot made me gasp out loud at its simple, mesmerizing innovation. It barely received a domestic release, and that’s a shame, because as far as cops-hunt-a-murderer movies go, it’s the best I’ve seen in years.
JOHN WICK CHAPTER 4
If the first John Wick is what helped Chad Stahelski make a name for himself as more than just a stuntman, Chapter 4 is the film that secures his position as one of the capital-G Greatest action directors in history. It also effectively ends any debate that action movies are legitimate works of art, worthy of being discussed alongside Michelangelo's David or the Mona Lisa: to Stahelski, “low brow” and “high brow” are two sides of the same coin. The opening scene pays homage to Lawrence of Arabia, the ending is a tribute to Kubrick, and there are nods to Walter Hill, Tarantino, and other titans of the craft. But there is also slapstick comedy and two stunning set pieces seem largely inspired by video games — one in aesthetics (a jaw-dropping crane shot), the other conceptually (Frogger fans will dig it). Stahelski seems to ask, why should some of these be considered more artistically noteworthy than the others? Isn’t it all provoking a reaction? Isn’t it all beautiful to look at?
Chapter 4 finds John Wick (a near-silent Keanu Reeves) seeking vengeance on the High Table, a mysterious organization embodied most forcefully by Marquis Vincent Bisset de Gramont (Bill Sarsgaard). Sure, one might be made uncomfortable by watching an assassin mow down hundreds of faceless "bad guys," but Stahelski portrays violence as archetypal and mythic, whether it's the desire to inflict it (in the first film) or to escape it (in the sequels). When, if ever, is it righteous? How can we hold people accountable -- particularly people in power -- without at least the threat of violence as a consequence? While I don't philosophically align with Stahelski's ultimate conclusion, I can't deny that there's pleasure in seeing rich bureaucrats find that the same rules they use to inflict violence on others and escape violence themselves might be enforced on them. The violence in these films is cultural, political, and, above all, religious, with the High Table functioning as an institution with the ultimate authority to lay out the moral laws everyone else must live by. John Wick isn't just a hero in the vein of Hercules, he's one in the mold of Odysseus (in his love for his wife), Oedipus (in his guilt over past deeds and near self-imposed doom), and Paradise Lost's Satan (in his rebellion against authority).
It’s also just plain beautiful to look at. Stahelski understands that what matters most is the fundamentals: talented people doing incredible things in unique locations in ways that allow the audience to fully grasp the impressiveness of what they're seeing and receive a jolt to the senses. With each installment, he and his team have gotten better at filming low-light action in a way that doesn't look muddy, cheap, or like a crutch to hide poor craftsmanship. And what wonderful people there are to look at! In Chapter 4, he lets Reeves share the spotlight with martial arts masters from around the globe: Japan's Hiroyuki Sanada, China's Donnie Yen (my personal favorite martial artist, doing a drunken master routine by way of Zatoichi), England's Scott Adkins (king of DTV action paying homage to the great Sammo Hung), and Chile's Marko Zaror (no stranger to superheroics in films like Mirageman). In a time when the humanity in art seems poised to be overtaken by tech, this movie is a reminder that nothing is ever quite as impressive as real human beings engaged in actual human feats — even if that feat is tumbling down a very long staircase.
John Wick: Chapter 4 might not have the cultural impact of Da Vinci or Michelangelo. But on the other hand, who knows? It just might. Between this, Top Gun: Maverick, and Avatar: The Way of Water, we might be entering another golden age of artists pushing back against the notion that individual creative voices no longer matter. The movies? Yeah, I'm thinking they're back.
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON
OPPENHEIMER
THE ZONE OF INTEREST
The predominant theme at the cinema this year was guilt and how we too often don’t feel it until far too late. The three movies listed above could loosely form what I’d call a “Normalization Trilogy,” a collection of films about how evil becomes banal and we lose our ability to recognize it. All of the crimes portrayed — the murder of indigenous people, nuclear holocaust, ethnic cleansing — would be deplorable on their face, yet all of them still occurred. How does atrocity cease to seem barbaric? In Oppenheimer, the titular physicist justifies the creation of atomic weapons under the guise of patriotism and scientific innovation, only to recognize the full gravity of his actions after the bombs have been dropped. The protagonists of Killers of the Flower Moon and The Zone of Interest, meanwhile, have already lost their consciences by the time we meet them, perhaps due to their experiences in war, or maybe because a conscience could bring with it unbearable guilt. All three films are about white men who lack self-awareness, who insist on viewing themselves — as one anti-racist educator has put it — as “victor or victim, but never villain.” They wear their spiritual atrophy on their face, in the form of a perpetual grimace (Leonardo DiCaprio in Killers) or blank boredom (Christian Friedel in Zone). It makes sense that these movies would come out now, at a time when several states have strictly regulated what can be taught in public school history classes: all of them are about how we often omit or sanitize the uncomfortable truths about ourselves. I was disgusted and saddened by the evil I saw depicted; I was chilled by how much I recognized myself in the perpetrators.
MASTER GARDENER
Paul Schrader has a story that he likes to tell, and he tells it over and over again. Lucky for us, he’s very good at it. From the moment I saw the protagonist of Master Gardener sit at a solitary desk and begin narrating a journal, I knew I was watching a master play the hits. Like many of Schrader’s films, it’s about a lonely man in search of redemption, and like his most recent offerings (First Reformed and The Card Counter), it’s also about America and our desire for national absolution. Joel Edgerton stars as Narvel Roth, a horticulturalist on a beautiful estate who finds hope through gardening. As he puts it: “Gardening is a belief in the future. A belief that things will happen according to plan. That change will come in its due time.” Without spoiling things, suffice it to say that Narvel has a secret, and he puts up an emotional wall between the people he interacts with, longing for the day that change will come. It does, in the form of Maya (Quintessa Swindell), the biracial niece of the estate’s owner. Many critics balked at the narrative twists Schrader crafts for Narvel, but by the end of Master Gardener, I was weeping, because he had reignited my own long-dormant hope for myself and for my nation. After all, Schrader seems to say, if someone like Narvel can be redeemed, maybe the rest of us can be, too.
THE MISSION
The latest documentary from Boys State filmmakers Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine, The Mission explores what inspired John Chau, a 26-year-old Christian, to try to illegally contact the indigenous people of North Sentinel Island in the name of evangelism. Chau was killed for his efforts — the tribe is notoriously defensive against the outside world — and his death sparked debates around the relationship between isolated peoples and the “civilized” world. As a missionary kid who grew up overseas in an evangelical community, I recognize a lot of the attitudes and types of people who are interviewed here — both the born-again true believers and the critics. I'm struck by how much empathy the filmmakers have for Chau, even as they ultimately (and correctly, in my opinion) make the case for why his actions were dangerous and harmful. There are people I know and love who believe many of the same things, who are products the same subculture, and who have probably wrestled less than he did with the ethics and contradictions of missionary work. If one truly believes one has a potentially life-changing Truth, how does one share it without perpetuating colonialist attitudes and while respecting others' agency? McBaine and Moss also seem acutely aware of how they themselves might unintentionally craft problematic narratives around the Sentinelese, and they wisely encourage the viewer to see them as fully-dimensional individuals, despite their ultimate unknowability. Faith and intercultural communication are not simple, and the movie rightly refuses to simplify them.
NO ONE WILL SAVE YOU
SILENT NIGHT
Sometimes actions speak louder than words — literally. Both No One Will Save You, Brian Duffield’s alien invasion thriller, and Silent Night, the first Hollywood production from Hong Kong action icon John Woo in two decades, have little-to-no dialogue, and they’re better for it. No One Will Save You is Duffield’s follow-up to his 2020 dark comedy Spontaneous, which used spontaneous combustion as a metaphor for school shootings; it too seems to be commenting on the current state of the world — the way our perceptions can be manipulated, for example, and how we struggle to align our values with our actions — but the allegory isn’t nearly as obvious. Kaitlyn Dever stars as Brynn, a seamstress grieving the loss of her mother and best friend, who finds herself fighting for survival after aliens infiltrate her home and the surrounding community. Duffield uses the absence of dialogue to communicate Brynn’s isolation and ratchet up the tension: if she lives alone and hardly ever interacts with other people, who can she turn to for help? Dever does astonishing work; there are entire sequences that hinge entirely on her ability to nonverbally communicate what Brynn is thinking and feeling, and she manages to convey multiple emotions together with sheer terror.
Joel Kinnaman does similarly impressive work in Silent Night, a holiday-themed retelling of Death Wish about a suburban dad who goes on a vengeful rampage after local gang members accidentally kill his son in a drive-by shootout. His silence is rooted in trauma — his throat was injured on the day his son died. More importantly, though, the lack of dialogue allows Woo to focus entirely on visual storytelling and embrace the root emotions baked into the premise. Yes, we've seen this type of story before, so why belabor it? Woo is known for his action spectacle, but he also wears his feelings on his sleeve. The character-focused portions of Hard-Boiled and The Killer challenged my Western sensibilities when I first saw them, precisely because the raw sentimentality was so foregrounded. Silent Night is an only slightly-more-grounded affair, complete with a music box that connects a man to his grief, frequent close-ups of silent suffering, and a finale that finds the protagonist literally surrounded by symbols of masculinity and death.
The filmmaking is stripped-down and elemental, utilizing sound effects, careful shot composition, and editing to convey everything the audience needs to know. On a purely formal level, Silent Night is the most inventive action movie I've seen this year aside from John Wick Chapter 4. Whereas Stahelski prioritizes scope and theatricality, Woo’s action here is usually short, brutal, and far from heroic. Even though the people being shot seem legitimately awful, Kinnaman's vengeful father is never presented as anything other than a man trapped by his own bloodlust, someone who knows that all this killing won't bring him any peace but feels powerless to do anything else. There are no slow-motions heroics here, just cold-blooded desperation. When the titular song plays over images of the protagonist waking up in the hospital, it's a darkly comic subversion of what we've come to expect — this "savior" being born is taking his first steps on a road of death, with no peace to be found. At 77, Woo appears to be engaging in a degree of self-reflection, subverting the tropes and iconography he helped to create; he still seems intent on pushing himself to experiment and try new things. At the very least, it's nice to watch an expert craftsman at work. I find myself pre-emptively mourning the day when he and all of the current masters are gone.
the Starling Girl
Yet another in a year filled with remarkable feature directorial debuts, Laurel Parmet’s first film follows Jem Starling (Eliza Scanlen), a 17-year-old girl in a fundamentalist Christian community who finds herself drawn to 26-year-old, married Owen Taylor (Lewis Pullman), the new youth pastor, recently returned from overseas missions work. As their mutual attraction increases, they find themselves questioning their faith and the values they were raised in, culminating in a forbidden romance that will upheave her entire life.
As someone raised in a fairly conservative religious environment, I found Parmet’s exploration of fundamentalist subculture equally fascinating and recognizable. While Jem’s community is slightly more fundamentalist than even those the Southern Baptist context I was raised in, I’ve met and known several people who would be quite at home in that congregation. I was also struck by what this movie gets right about fundamentalist Christianity that I haven’t seen depicted in other media: the way small indiscretions (choice of outfit, for example) are seen as symptomatic of larger spiritual shortcomings; how silence and suppression are viewed as preferable to authenticity; the manner in which judgment is so casually expressed under the guise of love; the subtle ways that patriarchy asserts itself; and, above all, the way God and prayer are treated as both ends and means — you can’t get to God if you don’t act godly, and you can’t act godly if you’ve departed from God.
Jem’s community is puritanical, not just due to its strict rules about sexuality, but because every choice is seen as equally weighty in its potential impact on the soul. As Reverend John Hale — another well-meaning yet ultimately blind minister — puts it in The Crucible: “Theology is a fortress; no crack in the fortress may be counted small.“ What happens when the only way to maintain that fortress is to crack one’s own sense of self and to deny that reality of what’s happening? The Starling Girl made me flash back to my own struggles with purity culture as a young adult and the way my own desires were weaponized against me. The actors walk a fine line: Scanlen nails the sense that dozens of competing thoughts and feelings are on the verge of boiling over, while Pullman strikes just the right balance between villain and victim — while Owen’s action are never justified, Parmet strives to make them understandable, the choices of a man who himself his agency until now has been stripped from him. I look forward to what she makes next; we need more filmmakers willing to dive into the messy contradictions of what it means to be human.