Catching Up With 2021
Welcome to Thelma & Alice #11! This month, as 2021 winds down, all of my recommendations are from this year, because I’ve been trying to catch up on titles for end-of-the year “best of” lists. Next month, I’ll have some holiday picks for you, and in January, I’ll share my favorite 2021 movies that are written and directed by women. Until then, here are this month’s selections . .
Spend Some Quality Time With an Icon
Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It (2021)
Directed by: Mariem Pérez Riera
Streaming on Netflix
West Side Story was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid, and Rita Moreno’s iconic performance was burned into my brain at a young age. But I didn’t have much awareness of her career beyond that, and this reverent documentary filled in the blanks. (Did you know she has EGOT status?) Moreno is an activist as well as an amazingly versatile performer, and her trailblazing led the way for a generation of Latina actresses. She’s also just a really joyful person to spend time with. Her personal life hasn’t been the easiest but she’s one of those people who has become more and more herself as she ages. IMDB * REVIEW * TRAILER
Get Meta on a Remote Swedish Island
Bergman Island (2021)
Written & Directed by Mia Hansen-Løve
VOD $6.99
This movie about movies zooms in on a filmmaking couple, Chris and Tony, (Vicky Krieps and Tim Roth) who attend an artist’s retreat on Fårö, an island off the coast of Gotland, Sweden, where Ingmar Bergman lived and worked. It’s a movie about filmmaking, marriage, and the relationship that female artists have with the Great Men who have inspired them. I loved it for its playfulness, for its honest grappling with Bergman’s work and life, and for Vicky Krieps’s restless, mischievous portrayal of a female artist trying to break free of her male influences. IMDB * REVIEW * TRAILER
Keep the Tissues Handy
Our Friend (2021)
Directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite
Streaming on Amazon Prime
I think this movie has been unfairly overlooked, but I’ll admit that I’m not the most impartial critic when it comes to stories about mothers dying of cancer and leaving children behind. I lost my own mother to the disease twenty years ago, and I appreciate films that handle the experience honestly. I felt that Our Friend did, which surprised me, because the many of the reviews from film festivals described a movie that was an overly sentimental mess. As a result, it was released in January and dumped in the theaters before anyone was really going back. Now it’s streaming on Amazon Prime and I hope it will get a second chance on the platform. I started watching it on a whim, thinking I would turn it off after twenty minutes, but instead I found myself immersed in a beautifully acted and directed family drama about friendship, ambition, marriage, and dying. IMDB * REVIEW * TRAILER
Grifters Just Wanna Have Fun
El Planeta (2021)
Written & Directed by Amalia Ulman
VOD $4.99
Amalia Ulman’s debut has the spirit of a 1990s art house indie with its quirky leads and black-and-white cinematography. Set in Gijón, a small city on Spain’s northern coast, the film centers on a mother and a daughter who are flat broke and waiting to be evicted from their small apartment. Instead of facing that reality, they run up bills all over town, treating themselves to restaurant meals, shopping sprees, and beauty treatments. Ulman stars with her real-life mother, Ale Ulman, and they share an off-kilter, melancholy charm. IMDB * REVIEW * TRAILER