WSJ - The Year's Best Movie : It's From Iran
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To be as upbeat as possible about a fairly dismal movie year, there were, in fact, enough good feature films to fill a 10-best list. Another dozen or so American indies or foreign-language imports provided pleasure and offered promise for the future, but a future in which smaller, nonstudio films will increasingly be crowded out of movie theaters—that's happening now—and confined to an online existence as streaming video, or the digital equivalent of literary novels.
Studio production, on the other hand, promised worse for the future, what with kids ever more devoted to games and social networks, grownups staying home, and entertainment executives befuddled by the challenge of winning any of them back. To appreciate the current state of the movie industry, imagine an automobile maker that markets attractive cars only during the last three months of the year, plus three holiday weekends during spring and summer, and, for the rest of the time, fills its showrooms with vehicles that are missing a door, a full complement of tires, a steering wheel or an engine. The entertainment conglomerates can still come up with an occasional spectacle that's worthy of the name, but most of the goods they're peddling these days are damaged or shoddy and audiences know it.
That said, here's my choice for the year's best film, followed by nine other fine ones in alphabetical order.
"A Separation": You may not have heard of it, because it doesn't come out until Dec. 30. After seeing Asghar Farhadi's film at Telluride, I called it a world-class masterpiece, and I'll expand on that extravagant praise next Friday. A surprise in many ways, it's Iran's official entry in the Oscars.
"The Artist": Michel Hazanavicius's mostly silent, entirely black-and-white romantic comedy is pleasing in many ways: as a love letter to the movies, a tribute to the power of silence, and a showcase for two actors, Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo, who've taken their retro roles seriously and played them eloquently.
"Bridesmaids": How did such a complex and exuberant comedy emerge intact from the studio meat grinder? One answer is the protective power of its producer, Judd Apatow, but sheer talent must have counted for something too. Audiences certainly thought it did. At a time when so many Hollywood comedies disappoint, this one was a heartening hit.
"Buck": Few of us city dwellers ever get to meet the sort of American portrayed in Cindy Meehl's documentary—a middle-age cowboy who gives horse-training clinics. Even in his own territory, though, Buck Brannaman is one of a kind, a man who has learned to give horses the love he lacked as a child.
"The Descendants": Alexander Payne fulfilled the promise of "Sideways" with this serious comedy, or comic drama, about family, land and a man coming to terms with his life in a contemporary Hawaii that doesn't look like the photos in tourist brochures. George Clooney and Shailene Woodley are perfect as an imperfect father and a wounded daughter.
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