A brief note before the final five films. A lot has been made of the lack of female representation at the Oscars in terms of directors this year. There are plenty of good and excellent films made by women out there. The problem is so few of them get seen, so few get a wide release, let alone a semi-wide release.
I ranked these films not in terms of quality, but with the highest ranked films being the more obscure judging by IMDB ratings, RT Audience scores guiding where I ranked these films. It's telling that that approach led to 6 of the top 10 being directed by women (excluding the honourable mention of Berkshire County) and half of the top 20 were directed by women. The problem isn't that we don't nominate female directors; the problem is how obscure many of their films are. Everyone loses their shit when a woman makes a superhero movie yet these terrific, female-helmed films fade into obscurity. And it's a shame.
If only there were outrage articles about how the #1 entry below has less IMDB ratings and RT audience scores combined than there are people in the United States House of Representatives. Maybe then people would know the film exists.
5. Maudie (2017)
Directed by Aisling Walsh
Written by Sherry White
Starring: Sally Hawkins & Ethan Hawke
It is rare in this day and age where you can call a film “an actor’s film”. Most films have too many moving parts even with great performances. The Lighthouse and Carnage are two examples of what I mean, in which the film hinges entirely on actors acting. Maudie is a glorious example of this. Sally Hawkins is better in this than she was in her Oscar nominated performance of the same year in The Shape of Water. She portrays Maud Lewis, a folk artist in Nova Scotia who rose to fame in the mid-20th century. She suffers from a debilitating condition the film barely addresses, let alone names. While Hawkins gives a fantastic physical performance that only improves as Maudie ages in the film, it’s her heart and soul which define her, not her obvious physical debilitation. There is a pureness and earnestness to her, almost as if she never stopped seeing the world as a child sees it, though she isn’t naïve or lacking in fortitude.
Opposite Hawkins is veteran actor Ethan Hawke, who gives maybe my favourite performance of his long career. He too is an outsider like Maud, an orphan, a fisherman and doer of odd jobs who isn’t overly bright or educated and early in the film his inability to read or communicate causes him anger. Hawke lets us see Everett as a flawed man, even a cruel man, but he is not a bad man. I think his cruelty is the only weapon he has because he is quite a powerless man. He’s the sort of man who puts his foot down on an issue only to lift it in the next scene. Maud may be a frail, small, arthritic woman yet she can manhandle Everett with her forthrightness. And it’s fascinating to watch Hawke portray a reclusive man who knows his simple life is being upended, rebels against it vociferously, and then accepts it. The nuances in his performance, especially in the eyes, tell us a multitude more than Everett would ever dare express.
The third central character of the film is the landscapes themselves that inspired Maud’s painting,s which are beautifully captured from Ireland, Newfoundland, PEI, and Nova Scotia. There are some truly terrific shots spread throughout the seasons of tiny coastal fishing settlements to roads cutting through wheat fields and their tiny little house jutting out from an Earth buried in feet of snow. The time period too is handled so smoothly. I find many period pieces really try to show off their time period, yet Maudie lets those details merely serve as the canvas without being showy. Most biopics don’t work for me. But Maudie isn’t so much a biopic about Maud Lewis and her art, but about her relationship with her husband Everett. It’s a tremendously affecting film that never heightens its most dramatic scenes. It is also a very funny film, funny in subtext, in expressions, in the editing and tone of speech, but there are no jokes. This is one of the best films of the decade and probably my second favourite film of 2017 after A Ghost Story.
4. Beneath (2013)
Directed by Larry Fassenden
Written by Tony Daniel & Brian D. Smith
Starring: Daniel Zovatto Bonnie Danninson, Chris Conroy, Jon Orsini, Griffin Newman, Mackenzie Rosman & Mark Margolis
I’ve recommended this one to people in the past and no one else seems to like it. I watched this with my best friend who isn’t even a horror film fan and he really liked it…so I’m surprised many big horror fans don’t. In the simplest terms, Beneath is about a giant, man-eating catfish. There are six high school kids are partying in the woods where a creepy local guy says ominous things beore they get in a rowboat to cross a lake to camp on the far side. That’s when the fish strikes. This film is definitely low budget and full of camp and it doesn’t try to hide it. It’s clearly a guy in a suit with a big fish head that’s digitally touched up. It’s both a satire of horror/monster films while being an effective genre pic in its own right, especially the tension in the final third.
The main conflict of the movie is in the relationships of these six “friends”, whom, once they’re stuck in a slowly sinking rowboat with no paddles, turn on each other with bile and fury. What works in Beneath is the concept of the rowboat is taking on too much water because of the first catfish attack, so they begin to vote people to jump into the water as prey for the catfish, allowing the boat to sink slower to give the others a chance. There is so much pettiness and animosity and jealousy that comes out, that it’s great. Beneath is almost a satire of a competitive reality TV show, in which the goal is to prove which contestant is the shittiest person and losers get eaten by a catfish. The order in which the characters are killed off is interestingly chosen and some of the death scenes themselves are pretty well done.
Beneath is a definite B movie, but it’s a fun, tongue-in-cheek campfest that can switch from pure cheesiness to genuinely tense from one minute to the next. I also see the film as a subtle meta-critique of how we watch horror films. When we watch a horror film, we are the catfish, watching these characters fight to hold onto lives as we circle them and their dire situation; we know no matter what decisions these characters make (and they make some hilarious bad decisions which are hilariously bad on purpose), we’re just going to gobble them up anyways, and we don't have to do any work. . It’s a lot more subtle than Cabin in the Woodsin that respect.
3. For Ellen (2012)
Written and Directed by So Yong Kim
Starring: Paul Dano, Margarita Levieva, Jon Heder, Dakota Johnson & Jena Malone
Ah, For Ellen. I remember when I watched this. I had my first Netflix 30-Day trial about seven years ago. I watched Being Flynn and Ruby Sparks, both of which are Paul Dano films, and then it recommended me another Paul Dano film so I watched it before bed. And what a film this is. A lot of the tiny details of the film have slipped from my mind since I watched it yet it’s still stayed with me nonetheless. Whether it’s Dano’s fantastic performance; the scenes between his character of Joby and his daughter, Ellen, whom he is about to lose complete custody of and hasn't seen for years; the divorce proceedings; the acceptance of the death of dreams of fame and immortality; or the desolate cold that is the landscape of this film: there is a lot to appreciate in this tactful, thoughtful film.
It’s always special when you’ve never heard of a film and you know literally nothing about it and you decide to watch it and just let it wash over you like a waterfall. For Ellen was one of those for me. It really took me by surprise with how simple and stripped of all conceit it is. This is a good story about people, the reality of life, regret, and losing your way. The fact that it’s the best work Paul Dano has ever done should be reason enough to watch it. So watch it. Hopefully it isn’t difficult to find! Also props to Jon Heder who is pretty decent in this film as Joby’s divorce lawyer. His performance reminds me of other lawyer roles of the 2010s where actors I didn’t think much of pleasantly surprised me, like Nick Kroll in Loving and Tyler Perry in Gone Girl.
For Ellen is a film about failure and regret and self-loathing. It’s heart-breaking to watch a despairing man coming to understand how much he wants to live differently yet that realization comes at the last minute, leaving just enough time to watch that better life turn to dust in front of his eyes.
2. Uncle John (2015)
Directed by Steven Piet
Written by Steven Piet & Erik Crary
Starring: John Ashton, Alex Moffat, Jenna Lyng Adams & Ronnie Gene Blevins
Words cannot describe how much I love this film. It’s a taut suspense picture paired with a rom-com film. And I mean this literally. These are two films running side by side that mash together for the ending. The first film is about John, a carpenter in a small Wisconsin town who murders someone in town and the tense, paranoid aftermath of the crime. The second film is about John’s nephew, whom he raised, Ben, who works in an office and really wants to bang his hot new co-worker yet he lacks the confidence to. And the way these two films come together in the finale seems as if it’s leading one place, but the film deftly subverts what we expect and gives us an ending that is simply hilarious and changes the complexion of the entire film when you rewatch it.
There is nothing conventional about this film. It is oil and water with its separate narratives and it shouldn’t work and yet it does. The acting is great. The direction is tight and focused. The photography is wonderful. The insular world of small town life, how everyone in a small town knows everything when you want them to know nothing, is executed flawlessly. I would write a lot more about how fantastic this film is, but I don’t want to spoil anything about it. Instead I’ll link this brilliant trailer that doesn’t spoil much yet and enticed me to watch it as soon as possible. If there is one film in this top 10 you should watch, it is Uncle John. It is phenomenal. The fact it has a mere 1,605 IMDB ratings and clicking the title on RT results in a 404 Error is a crime.
1. A Light Beneath Their Feet (2015)
Directed by Valerie Weiss
Written by Moira McMahon
Starring: Madison Davenport, Taryn Manning, Carter Jenkins, Maddie Hasson & Kurt Fuller
With no RT score (and only 110 audience scores) and only 323 scores on IMDB, I think it’s safe to say this is the most hidden of hidden gems on this list. This is a touching film about a daughter coping with looming adulthood while taking care of her bipolar mother, while her mother struggles with the looming severe change in her life once her daughter leaves for school. It’s rare that films about adolescence exist this much in the gray and not shying away from or outright ignoring the complexities of growing up and the hardships of life, which some people learn way too young, and some learn way too late. It’s a film about obligation, about the need of support, and the constant struggle of caring for others and caring for ourselves with the fear of what may happen to us if we put others before ourselves. A Light Beneath Their Feet treats mental illness with empathy and with frank honesty because no matter how much you love someone who is afflicted, at some point you have to choose your own well-being or theirs, a decision that cannot be made easily and one where either choice has guaranteed positive or negative outcomes.
Outside of Madison Davenport, who I knew from From Dusk Till Dawn (TV), and Kurt Fuller, it was a cast of unknowns and I thought they all did very well, especially the mother played by Taryn Manning (apparently she’s worked a lot and I’ve never seen her) who portrays Bipolar Disorder in a realistic and affecting manner. There is so much going on in her incessantly moving eyes that alone conveys someone so driven by neurological compulsions that it’s difficult to see her as a human since she seemingly has so little autonomy over her actions, like she’s strapped to the front of a speeding machine like Mad Max without actually moving at all.
A good parallel to this film would be Lady Bird, though only reversed: the daughter is the even-minded, pragmatic one looking out for the parent, who is the troubled one, and in both films the daughter leaving for school is the major life event looming in the distance with some teenage relationship problems tossed in. I prefer this film to Lady Bird because, while it isn’t quite as relatable as Lady Bird, its earnest portrayal of mental illness is one of the finest examples I’ve seen in a film. Mental illness, especially in a performance, requires a tremendous amount of tact and self-control to constantly straddle that line between over-the-top and under developed: Taryn Manning pulls it off.
Also I want to give a shout out to Madison Davenport too. It’s hard for me to accept a girl as obviously beautiful as she is to be the troubled weird girl that is an outcast at school. Some films try this and utterly fail because it's as unbelievable as a rom-com where Jennifer Lopez can't find a man until Voldemort sees her. But as the film progressed, she won me over as we see more of her character shine through. She contrasts nicely with the goth girl, who is quite obviously different in appearance, compared to Davenport’s weirdness beneath ostensible normalcy.
Well, that's it for this series. I hope you enjoyed it, whether you loved or hated any of these movies. And I hope you'll check out some of these films that you haven't seen. If you do, let me know what you think! Follow the page on Facebook or on Twitter.
I apologize for the wait in between posts. My University portfolio and other things were just a higher priority. For those of you following my South Park Ranked, I'm going to aim to get three posts done by the end of the month to make up for lost time.