2016 hasn’t been the greatest year for film, but for me personally it has been a cinematic journey that I will never forget. I have been lucky enough to have taken in around 270 of them this year, and have been fortunate enough to have ventured to the Berlin, Cannes, London and Toronto film festivals to sit on front of films that I perhaps would not have had the opportunity to otherwise, something that I am hugely grateful for.
With 2016 drawing to a close, and in one of my final posts of the year, I thought I would whack together one final list made up of ten films that really grabbed me during the year, some of which have made it into cinemas, but some which have not.
Not limited by any release spectrum, here are my top ten film experiences of 2016.
24 Weeks
I saw this film at the Berlin Film Festival (Berlinale) in quite possibly the biggest film auditorium there is, but 24 Weeks (or 24 Wochen in its native German language) is a film that could not be more intimate.
Anne Zohra Berrached‘s film, from a screenplay she co-wrote with Carl Gerber, revolves around two central characters; stand-up comedienne Astrid (Julia Jentsch), and her manager/ boyfriend Markus (Bjarne Mädel). The couple are living together, have a healthy nine-year old daughter, and both of their careers are looking up. Astrid is also pregnant with their second child and, when they learn that the child will almost certainly be born with a disability, must make choices. Optimism initially enters both of their minds with both confident that they will able to balance looking after a disabled child, along with their nine-year-old, and still work together on Astrid’s blossoming career. However, as the pregnancy continues, it becomes clear that this may not be the case with the couple, and indeed the rest of her family, arguing over the possibilities and the uncertainties. With her job guaranteeing that any choice will be acted out and scrutinised in the public eye, Astrid realises that her choice over her future can only be made by her, and her alone.
I haven’t been affected by a film nearly as much as this one all year. It’s harrowing, deeply emotional and full of fine performances from its central cast, particularly Julia Jentsch, who I thought would go on to gain awards plaudits once the film saw the light of day. As far as I know, apart from festival screenings, the film hasn’t been given a general release in the UK or USA. We’ll obviously keep you posted, but please do read our original review of the film over here.
Things To Come
Another one from my first trip to the Berlinale, and I embarrassed to say my first introduction to Isabelle Huppert, who would wow me again later in the year in the superb revenge thriller Elle from Paul Verhoeven.
A middle-aged woman, Nathalie (Isabelle Huppert), from Paris, is happy with her existence – a great job teaching philosophy; great husband, and two children that have happily flown the nest. Then, there are the two homes, and the holidays in Brittany, but things are about to change as her husband reveals that he has met another woman, and has chosen to be with her; so, after 25 years of marriage, Nathalie must ultimately reinvent herself to accommodate the change.
Huppert dominates every scene, and I fell in love with the actress immediately after viewing this film in Berlin. The same can be said of Mila Hansen-Løve, talented filmmaker whose work I have now caught up on in the months since (this is her fifth film). Released in the UK earlier this year, and bound for the home formats, it’s a film you out to check out.
Our full review is here.
Eddie The Eagle
The film was never going to make my best of the year, but I really cannot tell you the last time I had this much fun with the a film.
Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards’ name is firmly steeped in Olympic history for his efforts at the Winter Olympics in Calgary, Canada in 1988. If you’re unfamiliar with the story, it all starts in the quiet Gloucestershire town of Cheltenham (from where I’m from) in the late 1970s, where a young boy dreams of glory at the Olympics. After quickly realising that he hasn’t got the ability to compete at the highest level in the big summer games, young Eddie switches sports for the winter type, and in particular, downhill skiing. After being harshly rejected for Great Britain, Edwards, played by rising star Taron Egerton, realises that Britain doesn’t have anyone represented in the sport of ski-jumping, so after pulling together some cash from his Mum and Dad (played by a wonderful Jo Hartley – fresh from This Is England fame, and the legendary Keith Allen), he heads to the slopes of Germany to train. Along the way Edwards meets alcoholic former competitor Bronson Peary (Hugh Jackman), who he slowly starts to win over to help him fulfil his destiny.
Eddie The Eagle is uplifting, so very funny and full of heart, and I’ve seen it multiple times since. A definite winner.
Read the full review here.
The Neon Demon
Nicolas Winding Refn’s latest film is one that I watched twice. The fist time I absolutely hated it – the second half really wound me up and I walked out of the screening utterly deplored by it. The second time, when it came around to the home entertainment release, I absolutely loved it – and I cannot tell you why.
The story revolves around young girl Jessie (Elle Fanning) as she arrives in Los Angeles aspiring to be a model. An instant success, she soon has to deal with the envy and dark desires of those around her.
The film screened at Cannes, which I sadly didn’t manage to see it, but there it was met with a bizarre mixture of boos and cheers – and that is the great thing about the film. It’s a proper Marmite movie, and you’ll either love it or hate it, but I managed to do both, which while I can’t explain, does make me sit up and pay attention to Refn’s genius as a filmmaker, as that is a remarkable achievement. I really want to go watch it again, right now.
Read our original review of The Neon Demon here.
Mum’s List
This one’s a bit left-field, and totally unexpected. I must admit, I cast this film to one side and put it into the over-sentimental schmaltzy pile reserved for gushing novel to film adaptations, but this film is something else, something special. I have never cried so much during a (whole) movie.
Based on a true story, the film follows a couple, Singe (Rafe Spall) and Kate (Emilia Fox) from North Somerset in the south west of England, whose lives are turned upside down when Kate is diagnosed with an incurable breast cancer. The film charts how the family cope with Kate’s terminal illness and the list she creates as a guide for her family to carry on her absence.
This film is truly memorable, and hit me so hard that it made me burst into tears within the first two minutes of starting. I didn’t stop until the end credits where I simply sat at the screen in silence. Expertly crafted and wonderfully told, Niall Johnson’s film is outstanding and totally unmissable. I will never forget the first time that I watched this with my wife.
Here’s the full Mum’s List review.
The Greasy Strangler
Now for something completely different. The Greasy Strangler is so weird, so totally out there, that it deserves to be one of my most memorable cinema outings of the year.
The film revolves around two very odd Los Angeles inhabitants, Big Ronnie (Michael St. Michaels) and Big Brayden (Sky Elobar), a father and son who earn their living by running a disco tour in their home city. They stop their paying customers outside of old cafes or tobacco kiosks and make outlandish claims that “The Bee Gees wrote ‘Night Fever’ here,” or “The Earth Wind and Fire lived here…” On one particular tour very early on in the movie, Ronnie and Brayden meet Janet (Elizabeth De Razzo), a young woman who immediately flirts with the younger of the two, igniting a spark which will see the pair go on a date together, much to the annoyance of the father, Big Ronnie.
I laughed so hard at this, and I don’t really know why. It could be the wonderful writing, the brilliant direction, or the outstanding performances, but I think that it is its utter stupidity and uniqueness that captured my attention so perfectly when I saw it at Sundance London last summer. It’s brilliant. Here’s my full review.
Lion
Lion is a film that will be released in 2017, and will surely be one of the highlights of the year; a film that will probably remain in my top ten of the year for most of the year. I’m yet to review the film of the site, but I will say that I totally loved every single moment of this truly heartfelt story of family and finding oneself.
The film tells the true story of a five year old Indian boy named Saroo who gets lost on a train which takes him thousands of miles across India, away from his home and family. Saroo must learn to survive alone in Kolkata, before ultimately being adopted by an Australian couple. Twenty-five years later, armed with only a handful of memories, his unwavering determination, and a revolutionary technology known as Google Earth, he sets out to find his lost family and finally return to his first home.
Dev Patel and particularly Sunny Pawar as the young Saroo are stand-outs in this truly memorable film from debut feature director Garth Davis. The story stays with you long after the credits roll. It’s so very good and I can’t wait to see it again when it releases in cinemas on January 20th, 2017.
Supersonic
A film which quite literally took me, and its audience back to the mid-nineties and the time when Oasis were, quite simply, the greatest rock band in the world. Mat Whitecross’ film is a visual and aural feast of music, bad language, sheer destructiveness, sentimentality and nostalgia all crammed into two hours. A documentary that welcomes hardcore Oasis fans and newbies alike. It is so perfectly crafted and edited, with new off-screen interviews with all of the original members of the band, that it lodges in your memory for weeks after you first see it.
Manchester By The Sea
2016 marked my first visit to the Toronto International Film Festival, and Manchester By The Sea was the very first film that I saw at the festival. It was early on a Thursday morning and I was totally unprepared for what was to come – which is the perfect way to experience this film.
The film follows Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck), a character who has been given sole guardianship of his teenage nephew Patrick following the death of his father, and Lee’s brother Joe (Kyle Chandler). When Lee is forced to travel back to Manchester from his one-bedroom studio home in Quincy, Boston to settle his brother’s estate, he must face ghosts from his past – including his ex-wife Randi (Michelle Williams) and the rest of the community where he was born and raised.
Manchester By The Sea will open in cinemas in January, and you must see it. Here’s my original review from TIFF.
La La Land
La La Land is, without doubt, my favourite film that I saw in 2016. The film will actually be released in the United Kingdom in January 2017, so unfortunately it is not valid for my best of 2016 list.
The film follows two characters, Ryan Gosling‘s struggling jazz pianist and Emma Stone‘s equally hard up aspiring actress in modern-day Los Angeles. Both are on their own paths of discovery; Gosling’s Sebastian working a dead-end musical job playing Jingle Bells in a seedy bar in downtown L.A., while Stone’s Mia waits tables and serves coffee on the Warner Bros. lot, dreaming of filling the shoes of the constant stream of actors and actresses that line-up for her to serve them coffee. The two come together following a chance meeting on a highway in a city renowned for crushing hopes and breaking hearts.
Best film that I saw in 2016; the best experience in terms of watching a film in 2016, and will ultimately be my favourite film of 2017. It’s every bit as good as you’ve heard. Here’s my original review, but please do check out our reaction video from Toronto below, something that was recorded shortly after viewing the film for the first time.
