Hello and happy holidays. I hope your year is beginning to wind down as we approach the longest night of winter. I’ve spent the last couple of weeks catching up on 2022 movies because it’s time to vote for best of the year with the OAFFC, a group of online female film critics whose voices I rely on throughout the year. I’ve also been coming up with my own “best of” list, which I’ll share with you next month (I still have some movies to fit in over the holidays…) In the meantime, here are some films to consider adding to your queue.
Tilda & Tilda
The Eternal Daughter (2022)
Written and Directed by Joanna Hogg
1 hour 36 minutes; In theaters and VOD $12.99
The more I think about this movie, the more I want to see it again. It’s a coda to Joanna Hogg’s two-part autobiographical film The Souvenir, but I don’t think you need to have seen those movies to enjoy this one. (Though, by all means, see those movies.) As in The Souvenir, Tilda Swinton plays the aging mother to Joanna Hogg’s alter ego, a filmmaker named Julie. But in The Eternal Daughter, Swinton also plays Julie. It’s a wonderfully eerie story about trying to connect across the generations, about communicating with the dead, about ghosts and guilt and the never-ending reverberations of war. There are hints of The Shining, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and The Turn of the Screw. It’s about filmmaking, too. And being stuck on a disappointing vacation. IMDB * REVIEW * TRAILER
A Tense Psychological Thriller
Nanny (2022)
Written and Directed by Nikyatu Jusu
1 hour 37 minutes; Streaming on Amazon Prime Dec 16
Nanny is an unsettling mix of carefully-observed realism and mystical horror. The story centers on Aisha, a Senegalese immigrant who is the primary caregiver to a little girl, Rose, the child of two workaholic New Yorkers who are barely home. Aisha’s employers seem nice enough, at first, but soon they are insisting on longer hours and refusing to pay overtime. Aisha, who is trying to save enough money to bring her son over to the U.S., is desperate to see her child and lonely in her job. Outside of work, she’s able to ground herself in friendship and a new romance, but it’s not enough to avoid tragedy. Director Nikyatu Jusu uses African folklore and a recurring water motif to illustrate Aisha's faltering emotional state as she begins to feel that something has gone terribly wrong. IMDB * REVIEW * TRAILER
Eccentric Sci-Fi
Vesper (2022)
Directed by Kristina Buozyte and Bruno Samper
Written by Kristina Buozyte, Brian Clark, and Bruno Samper
1 hour 54 minutes; VOD $6.99
Okay, this one is not for the faint of heart. But if you like eccentric sci-fi and aren’t overly grossed out by the idea of flesh-eating fungi, it might be for you. Taking place in an apocalyptic future that has been overrun by synthetic viruses, plants, and fungi, Vesper is a coming-of-age story about a young girl, Vesper, who is trying to survive on this forbidding version of Earth. She lives in poverty with her father, who is bedridden, but whose brain—or at least parts of it—has been transplanted to a floating drone. He’s kept alive by a strain of bacteria that Vesper obtains by selling her blood. She’s a gifted botanist and dreams of working for “the Citadel,” a castle-like city where resources are plentiful. When a mysterious stranger from the Citadel shows up in her life, Vesper sees a way out of her desperate situation. The pacing is a bit slow, but the set design is extraordinary and very creepy as it flirts with horror and monster movies. IMDB * REVIEW * TRAILER
Christmas in Australia
Ladies in Black (2018)
Directed by Bruce Beresford
Written by Sue Millikin and Bruce Bereford, based on Madeleine St. John’s novel
1 hour 49 minutes; streaming on Tubi (with ads 😱), VOD $2.99
There’s a lot of heavy movies on this list so I wanted to throw something sweet in the mix. Set in the summer of 1959, the “ladies in black” are a group of women working at an upscale department store in Sydney, Australia. When the film opens, a new girl who looks like a young Sylvia Plath has been hired to help with the Christmas rush. She has intellectual aspirations and is trying to convince her father to let her apply to University. Meanwhile, she needs to learn to become a halfway-decent salesgirl. Julia Ormond plays the store’s intimidating manager, a refugee from Europe who dispenses fashion wit and wisdom. It’s unabashedly nostalgic, with low stakes and charming actors. Everything works out, everyone comes around, and a beautiful dress goes on sale in the nick of time. IMDB * REVIEW * TRAILER
Sarah Polley Returns
Women Talking (2022)
Directed by Sarah Polley
Written by Sarah Polley, based on the novel by Miriam Toews
1 hour 44 minutes; in select theaters Dec 23
A title card at the beginning of Sarah Polley’s scorching indictment of patriarchal power announces that the film you are about to watch is about “female imagination.” What follows is a long, intergenerational discussion among women in a cloistered religious enclave who have been victim to years of egregious, repeated sexual assault. They need to decide if they should remain in their community or start over somewhere else. It’s a serious, rigorous, conversation that sometimes feels more like a play than a movie, but it’s not dour, and there are moments of levity and grace. Polley is clearly using the film to think through the #metoo era, and though I have mixed feelings about women’s creative energies being put toward projects that are very on-the-nose about “Women’s Issues,” this one was undeniably powerful. I saw it at the Montclair Film Festival and it proved to be cathartic for the audience, with people audibly crying, laughing, and at the end, applauding. IMDB * REVIEW * TRAILER
Have you read the book Women Talking? I love Miriam Toews’ books…looking forward to seeing the film version of this one!