Coming in at number 10 on my countdown of last year’s best films was a movie I had the chance of screening twice, and perhaps that plays into my even higher rating of Manchester by the Sea this time around. Originally, I had been reluctant to include the film due to certain abuse issues pertaining to the lead actor, but there is no denying the intense portrayals of exes Lee and Randi Chandler (played by Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams). Yet another emotional family film that permeates your soul, but this time it plays into the visceral nature of sibling love. Dealing with the loss of a sibling is something I’ve never faced and pray not to for many decades to come, but nevertheless, this tale hit close to home, leaving me teary-eyed from the strength of the script and actors' performances. If ever there was a slow film that deserved every scripted and perfectly-nuanced acting accolade it receives in recent cinematic history, this is it! ####-1/2
The soft, if gloomy lull that is Moonlight came in at number three on my Best Of 2016 list, and I stand by what I said last month—that this is the kind of film that should be shown in high schools and institutes across the globe for teaching purposes. It deals with the stages of a black child’s/man’s life, and how he grapples with being a young homosexual in an off-putting, conflicted zone of Miami. The intensity of the performances by the three incarnations of Chiron, from child to adult (played by Alex Hibbert, Ashton Sanders and Trevante Rhodes), is flooring.
Inspired by Tarell McCraney’s play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, the script by director/screenwriter Barry Jenkins divides his focal character’s life into three chapters, which makes for an episodic narrative, never lacking in sheer reality and impact. Of outstanding presence—worthy of any acting praise—are father-figure stalwart Mahershala Ali as Juan, and drug-addled Naomie Harris as Chiron’s mother, Paula. When the 10-year-old Chiron discovers Juan is the drug dealer supplying the crack that has made his mother a neglectful monster, the boy leaves his caretaker’s home in confused rage. But then years later, he smokes a joint on a moonlit beach with his longtime friend and crush Kevin, and the two furtively kiss. In the third act, a buff and muscled twenty-something Chiron is visiting his now sober mum in a halfway house, and she finally apologises for his shitty childhood. But it’s also in the third act’s final scene where such a heavy scene culminates into a beautiful, stirring conversation between the grown-up Chiron and Kevin. It’s a stunning and somewhat heartbreaking moment, and it’s all staged with that ever-enduring pang of unrequited love. For that I say, forget La La Land…the secret is in the Moonlight. ####-1/2
The scariest aspect of most zombie movies is the way they transform the familiar human form into a grotesque, unthinking, carnivorous beast. The Girl With All the Gifts is director Colm McCarthy’s adaptation of M.R. Carey’s novel of the same name, and the way the director helps create a lead actor and star whose role in the film is a young, adorable zombie is fierce…after all, when a zombie is both the lead AND a child, we immediately take notice. Newcomer Sennia Nanua gives us such a startling, yet nuanced performance because she delivers a one-act school-type rendition mixed with the scariest of acting chops. It's weird and it obviously worked, as she went on to snag the Best Actress award at this past autumn’s Sitges International Film Festival.
The premise goes that while the rest of the world has been transformed into flesh-eaters called "Hungries”, the younger generation is imprisoned at a research facility and, within reason, continue to behave like normal children. Ruthless Dr. Caldwell (Glenn Close, great as always, yet more manlike than ever, yeesh!) keeps all the kids locked up and tied to wheelchairs, even when they’re brought into a classroom for daily lessons from the friendly Helen (played to an odd degree by the fetching Gemma Arterton). When the hell from outside breaks through the barriers, we’re thrown into a survival tale that is at once gruesome and enticing, and slow and a tad annoying. Still, when the film passes its denouement, we get the creepiest and sweetest taboo. ###-1/2