The best (and worst) films of 2021
Though 2021 was a phenomenal year for movies, 2022 has begun with a whimper. Awards season is well underway and there are dozens of new releases lining cinema marquees. The recent Omicron wave, however, has once again shut down theatres and forced Ontario moviegoers to retreat into their all-too-familiar living rooms. Though cinemas are now shuttered, the lull in human activity occasioned by the recent upsurge in COVID-19 cases has provided many of us with a renewed (but perhaps somewhat unwelcome) opportunity to delve into 2021’s impressive library of films.
In this edition of Ryan’s Movie Corner, I will discuss what are (in my opinion) the best and worst films of 2021. Hands down my favourite film of the year is C’Mon C’Mon, a perfectly executed black-and-white exploration of the complexities of motherhood and unclehood (if such a word exists). Coming in at the bottom of my list is Don’t Look Up—a film that is so concerned with being both smart and funny that it ends up being neither. In between these extremes, I’ll also list a few honourable mentions that I think are absolutely worth watching as we settle into a long winter.
Best
C’Mon C’Mon (Mike Mills)
C’Mon C’Mon is my favourite film of 2021. It is an emotionally-fluent and self-aware meditation on the incredibly rich internal lives of normal people. The film centres on the relationship between Johnny (Joaquin Phoenix) and his nephew Jesse (Woody Norman). Johnny is called on by his sister Viv (Gaby Hoffmann) to mind Jesse while she cares for her husband who is suffering from a mental illness. Johnny is a documentary filmmaker who spends the bulk of C’Mon C’Mon creating a documentary about the personal narratives of American youth as they endure the many challenges of growing up in contemporary United States. The film eschews a plot-driven story for a slower and more meandering narrative. This is not to say that nothing happens in the film. The film instead makes the emotional quirks and quandaries of its characters the focal point.
Shot in black-and-white, this film is a monumental achievement in audiovisual storytelling. The film takes its time with the depiction of the internal, emotional world of each character. Much of the film’s runtime is dedicated to documentary-style segments where Johnny narrates the emotions and feelings of the film’s characters. Johnny’s most significant subjects are his sister and nephew. In these quasi-documentary moments, Johnny explores the rich emotional lives of Jesse and Viv—acknowledging their hopes, fears, and insecurities. The tone struck by Johnny and director Mike Mills is honest and forthright, but also non-judgemental. This directorial gaze creates the perfect atmosphere for the film, encouraging viewers to be compassionate in their comportment towards the film’s characters. More than that, the film imparted upon me a strong impulse to take that same compassion into my real-life relationships. To me, this is the most significant sign of the film’s excellence.
One of the most deft moments of the film occurs when the directorial gaze of Johnny is reversed back upon him by Jesse. Generally, Johnny’s perspective guides both the action of the film and the brief documentary-like interludes that punctuate it. With a child-like curiosity, Jesse’s interest in Johnny’s life, history, and feelings inverts the relationship between artist and subject, serving as a reminder of the humanity on both sides of the camera. As the relationship between Johnny and Jesse deepens, it is incredibly refreshing to see Jesse reflect Johnny’s compassion back towards him, turning documentary to dialogue. All this is depicted through an inspired cinematography that is concerned, primarily, with depicting the world and the people that live in it, as they are. This is without a doubt one of the most creative and innovative films of the year—it is a must-watch.
9.5/10
Worst
Don’t Look Up (Adam McKay)
Watching Don’t Look Up isn’t a terrible experience, but it is a terrible film. The film attempts to synthesize some of the most important political issues of our time into a single, 143-minute opus. Though the film is occasionally funny, it is consistently ham-fisted. Its political message feels half-baked and its sense of humour equally so. Rolling Stone describes Don’t Look Up as “a blunt instrument in lieu of a sharp razor.” Though it’s generally considered lazy writing to rely on the turns of phrase of better writers to get your message across, I simply cannot think of a better way to put it.
The film depicts the uphill battle faced by astronomers Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) in trying to convince the powers-that-be that a comet hurtling to Earth presents a grave threat to human civilization. Mindy and Dibiasky are 99 percent certain that the comet will collide with earth, annihilating virtually all life, unless the United States can destroy it before impact. Instead of garnering sympathy and concern, this urgent message falls on deaf ears. Policymakers, politicians, and journalists are skeptical, unconcerned, or both.
Don’t Look Up is directed by Adam McKay, who garnered considerable acclaim for his politically- and socially-aware films The Big Short and Vice. Though these films were certainly funny, they were unlike some of McKay’s earlier directorial work (Anchorman and Step Brothers, to name a few) in that they were primarily dramatizations of important social and political events. The rest of McKay’s library is pure comedy. Don’t Look Up walks an uncomfortable line between these two forms. It at once tries to make a serious political commentary while inserting countless gag moments engineered to make the audience laugh out loud. Pulling off such a delicate balance would be no easy feat for even the most seasoned of filmmakers—and it turned out to be no easy feat for McKay, either.
Though Don’t Look Up purports to be a politically radical allegory for climate change, it trades on a tired and uninspired approach to social commentary. Viewers will no doubt have already had their fill of the film’s tone on the likes of Saturday Night Live. President Orlean (Meryl Streep) and her chief-of-staff son (Jonah Hill) are stand ins for the nepotism and incompetence of Trump-style Republicans. They are portrayed as raunchy, stupid, and scandalous. In trading on this well-worn line of attack, McKay exchanges polemic for denigration, critique for invective. Though the caricature can arouse a chuckle or two on its first or second iteration, McKay beats viewers over the head with it for all 143 minutes of his film. This is not to say that the film is wrong for its strident critique of America’s political right—the film just spends a bit too much time patting itself on the back for this critique for it to be taken seriously. The film’s treatment of Big Tech feels equally amateurish. Peter Isherwell (Mark Rylance) is the CEO of a Google-like tech giant; he sees the comet as a potential source of profit, rather than danger. He is a slapdash combination of Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos that, much like Streep’s President Orlean, is more of a cartoonish caricature than anything else.
Overall, the film is not without its moments. When the film isn’t taking its message too seriously, it can be genuinely funny. Generally, however, Don’t Look Up’s hyper-fixation with making a spot-on social and cultural commentary comes at the expense of the film’s comedic value, and vice versa. Everyone seems to have an opinion about this film, so it’s probably worth watching on that basis alone. I nevertheless count Don’t Look Up as my least favourite film of 2021.
4/10
Honourable Mentions
Licorice Pizza (Paul Thomas Anderson)
A refreshingly positive (yet incredibly quirky) period piece depicting a 1970s love story set in the Valley.
9/10
The Green Knight (David Lowery)
A bizarre riff on a medieval English poem. Dev Patel portrays an Arthurian knight in a trippy and confounding anti-epic. I reviewed this film in full in a previous edition of Ryan’s Movie Corner.
9/10
The French Dispatch (Wes Anderson)
An inventive compilation of stories that commemorate a fictional magazine modelled on the New Yorker. I reviewed this film in full in a previous edition of Ryan’s Movie Corner.
8.5/10
Spencer (Pablo Larrain)
Kristen Stewart delivers a devastating performance as Princess Diana. This film is a vivid, disturbing depiction of the unravelling of Princess Diana’s relationship with the rest of the royal family.
8/10
