We’re approaching the end of 2014, and with that comes the supreme joy – ranking pieces of art as either great or bad through year-end lists. As a compulsive list-maker and reader, I understand the pleasure of enforcing order on a chaotic system, but it does force me to make a series of tough choices as I whittle down my list from those that are merely good to those that are transcendentally great. I can’t promise all of these choices will be on my year-end list when it drops, but they’re all films that came to us this year and are well-deserving of your attention.
UNDER THE SKIN (2014, dir. Jonathan Glazer)
Available on Amazon Instant Video. Read my review here.
I don’t think any movie has stuck with me as persistently this year as the latest effort from Jonathan Glazer, a story about an alien life form’s assimilation into our society, accomplished very easily when that life form looks like Scarlett Johansson. Glazer is unpacking a lot of fascinating ideas in his film about the male gaze, female agency, and what it means to be human. And he’s doing so without providing concrete answers while crafting a package that is cinematically unlike anything I can remember. From its haunting score, to the hidden camera trickery involved in getting scenes of Johansson interacting with Scottish citizens unaware they’re wandering into a film, Glazer has made a one-of-a-kind motion picture. It’s not just one of the best movies of this year; it’s one of the best movies I’ve seen in my lifetime.
IDA (2014, dir. Pawel Pawlikowski)
Available on Netflix.
Pawel Pawlikowski’s black-and-white jewel of a film came and went without much fanfare through Milwaukee, but I would be shocked if it doesn’t get a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nod, so acquaint yourself with it now and feel the air of superiority when Oscar night rolls around and you can lecture your friends on it. The story follows a young woman about to take her vows to become a nun that discovers both her Jewish heritage and the fact that her parents were murdered during the war. Traveling along with her aunt, Wanda, Ida seeks out their final resting place while also seeking to find out who she truly is. There is so much more to the film than “nun discovers she’s Jewish,” and lead actress Agata Trzebuchowska does amazing work (and is an absolute vision in B&W cinematography) in a movie that keeps its emotions close the vest. You’ll be doing yourself a disservice by not immediately catching up with this one.
OCULUS (2014, dir. Mike Flanagan)
Available on Netflix. Read my review here.
Mainstream horror cinema has been going through a rough patch for a while (although last year’s The Conjuring was very strong) and though it’s not perfect, Oculus is one of the best horror movies I’ve seen in recent memory. Making the most out of its limited budget (the majority of the film is set inside one house) without ever feeling cheap, and powered by a really great performance from Karen Gillan (Doctor Who, Guardians of the Galaxy) as the young woman haunted by memories of her father’s slow descent into madness, Oculus gets lots of mileage out of the metaphorical value of exploring the abusive childhood of its main characters and the idea that they may have inherited a very non-supernatural curse of mental illness from their parents. It eventually peters out as things are more thoroughly explained, but few modern horror movies take the important step of making you care about the fates of its characters as well as Oculus, and for that it should be lauded.
BLUE RUIN (2014, dir. Jeremy Saulnier)
Available on Netflix.
I already proselytized for Jeremy Saulnier’s incredible sophomore effort earlier this year in one of our On the Marquee columns, and this is a lock to be mentioned again in a couple weeks on my year-end list so I’ll keep this brief. A revenge movie where the supposed catharsis is reached in the first 20 minutes, Blue Ruin follows a character ill-equipped to deal with the fallout his actions have wrought, like dropping Jesse Eisenberg into the middle of Commando, and Saulnier (a frequent cinematographer) maximizes the intensity despite his modest budget and captures some truly stirring imagery as Macon Blair (so great in the lead role) winds his way through the countryside in an attempt to break the cycle of violence. Plus: Jan Brady with a machine gun.
ALAN PARTRIDGE (2014, dir. Declan Lowney)
Available on Netflix.
Much like the aforementioned horror, mainstream comedies aren’t lighting the world on fire lately, so I was very pleasantly surprised by the latest iteration of Steve Coogan’s Alan Partridge character, this time in movie form, being one of (if not) the funniest movies I saw this year. Now an afternoon DJ, Partridge throws a fellow aged disc jockey (played by Colm Meaney) under the bus when he realizes new ownership is looking to jettison dead weight, only to find himself in the middle of a possibly career-revitalizing hostage situation when this former co-worker returns to exact revenge on his former employers. There is no vanity in the work done by Coogan here, and his brilliant performance is complemented by the not-so-slyly satirical situation he’s crafted for himself here. Consistently funny and snappily paced, it’s one of the year’s funniest and well-worth catching up with even if you aren’t familiar with the Alan Partridge character. Self-absorbed celebrities in quotation marks are something we have a surplus of over here as well, so I think the comedy carries across the pond.
THE ONE I LOVE (2014, dir. Charlie McDowell)
Available on Netflix.
It’s best to go into this film – starring Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss and Mark Duplass as a couple taking a counselor-prescribed weekend retreat to a cottage in a last ditch effort to salvage their marriage – without having much of what transpires spoiled ahead of time. I’ll simply say that the film is interested in examining the idea that we might be in love with an ideal vision of our partner instead of the reality and that even those visions start to show cracks in their façade when examined too closely. There are moments when the film feels like an exercise in testing the elasticity of an underlying metaphor, pulling this central concept to its narrative breaking point, but it is never anything less than riveting and both Moss and Duplass do solid work given the unique challenges provided by the material. Don’t read anything, don’t watch anything. Go in blind, and allow yourself to be surprised.
