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The films of the year

adminDecember 27, 2023

0 0 19 minutes read

Another quick year, made better by the movies…

Make 2024 extra special by catching any of these standouts that you may have missed.

In no particular order:

TÁR

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John Byrne says: The film world revolves around hyperbole and sycophancy, but ultimately its survival and prosperity depend on the ability of those involved to come up with the goods. And TÁR delivers on every front, and several levels, with Cate Blanchett peerless in her performance as Lydia Tár. This is director Todd Field’s first film since 2006’s Little Children, and you can see that he’s used whatever frustrations and disappointments he’s endured during the intervening years as inspiration. TÁR is essentially a look at the relationships a famous and very successful female conductor – the eponymous Lydia Tár – has both in her personal and professional lives, at a critical time in her career. After taking a shine to a young cellist, various aspects of Lydia’s life gradually, hauntingly, collide. Director (and writer) Field plays with the viewer throughout, offering various perspectives of Lydia before we follow her through this pivotal period in her life. A mesmerising experience.

Killers of the Flower Moon

Alan Corr says: Martin Scorsese’s very handsome movie about a very ugly chapter in American history begins with a Native American dance and ends with a sense that real justice is all too often an elusive thing. Not unlike There Will Be Blood, this is a birth of a nation tale told on a grand scale that captures an era between the vanishing old west and the dawn of what would be a very American century. And as with other epic westerns like Little Big Man and Dances with Wolves, the grasping opportunists lack any of the decency and humanity of the Native Americans. Killers of the Flower Moon is brilliantly acted – Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, and Robert De Niro at the forefront – and visually stunning. And while the three-and-a-half-hour running time is not nearly as energy-sapping as The Irishman and the ungainly Gangs of New York, the last hour is played out – but nobody can deny the ambition and passion up on the screen.

Flora and Son

Audrey Donohue says: If John Carney found a winning formula with musical films Once and Sing Street, it’s safe to say that he’s used it again – to perfection – with his latest offering. This Eve Hewson and Orén Kinlan-starring movie about a tempestuous mother-child relationship is utterly charming, heartwarming, and a funny coda to Carney’s Dublin music trilogy. Hewson is stunning here in the lead role and oozes star quality in every scene. She manages to spark electric chemistry with each of the three male leads in this film – her ex-husband, played by Jack Reynor; newcomer Kinlan as her son; and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as her guitar teacher, Jeff. A frustrated speech Hewson makes about the sheer responsibility and loneliness of parenthood will certainly resonate with many viewers, but she also gets to showcase her strong singing voice, which many U2 fans will be thrilled to hear. This is a simple story well told. The ending, sadly, comes far too early.

So This Is Christmas

Sarah McIntyre says: So This Is Christmas, acclaimed Irish filmmaker Ken Wardrop‘s new documentary, lands like a punch to the gut. This is far from a jolly jaunt through the “most wonderful time of the year”. In fact, while those words appear across the screen in the opening scenes, they take on a tongue-in-cheek meaning in retrospect. This must-watch creative documentary, heartbreaking and heartwarming in equal measure, follows five ordinary Irish people – Shane, Annette, Loretta, Jason, and Mary – as they navigate the often-overwhelming festive period. The gulf between the giddy expectations around Christmas and the frequently deflating reality is explored by Wardrop with tenderness and empathy. Themes of loneliness, grief, financial difficulties, and mental health struggles pervade, and each person’s story is handled with utter sensitivity and care. So This Is Christmas will inspire you to find joy in the everyday, and to hold those closest to you a little tighter this festive season. A gift to treasure.

Lies We Tell

Bren Murphy says: Don’t be fooled by the stuffy period setting, this is a gripping Irish thriller. An orphaned 19th-century teen (Agnes O’Casey) does battle with her scheming uncle (David Wilmot) as director Lisa Mulcahy and screenwriter Elisabeth Gooch pull Irish gothic writer Sheridan Le Fanu out from the shadow of Bram Stoker. Based on Le Fanu’s 1864 novel Uncle Silas, Lies We Tell plays like a slow-moving home invasion horror; it may take some time to settle into this world of aristocratic reserve and flowery language, but once you do, it’s a rewarding experience. This is a showcase of some truly fantastic acting from Agnes O’Casey and David Wilmot and thankfully Lisa Mulcahy’s confident direction is content to stand back and let them play. A thoroughly compelling and beautifully performed film that’s not afraid to have fun with the odd twist or two.

The Night of the 12th

Harry Guerin says: A must-see that stops you in your tracks and then rattles around in your mind for days afterwards, The Night of the 12th brings us to the southeastern French city of Grenoble to follow the investigation into the murder of 21-year-old Clara Royer (Lula Cotton-Frapier). As Captain Vivès (Bastien Bouillon), his partner Marceau (Bouli Lanners), and their fellow detectives conduct the interviews, we witness the psychological toll of the case and also confront the questions it asks of them – and us. An iron-grip film from minute one, writer-director Dominik Moll’s unbearably tense procedural is punctuated by outbursts of anger and moments of achingly sad candour, belonging in the same exalted company as The Wire, The Night Of, Wind River, and any crime/mystery classic you care to mention. Rarely has the forensic principle “every contact leaves a trace” been so brilliantly realised on the screen – or delivered with such urgency.

Leave the World Behind

Sarah McIntyre says: Leave the World Behind, director Sam Esmail’s bleak and chilling new apocalyptic thriller, may make you want to build a bunker. This polished, stylish film, adapted from Rumaan Alam’s acclaimed 2020 novel of the same name, sees the Mr Robot creator reunite with his Homecoming and Gaslit star Julia Roberts for a gripping tale of societal breakdown. If the world was coming to an end, is this what it would look like? With Esmail a master at the leisurely build of dread and incredible performances across the board – Mahershala Ali, Ethan Hawke, Myha’la, Farrah Mackenzie, Charlie Evans, and Kevin Bacon join Roberts – this is a disaster movie with a difference. It keeps you guessing throughout, aided by a terrifically off-kilter score that creates an acute sense of foreboding. Leave the World Behind is a tough watch at times, skirting uncomfortably close to what the end of civilisation might look like. Cat-nip for the Doomsday Preppers.

Reality

Harry Guerin says: Here’s another film that will hook you straight away. Indeed, you may well set a new personal best for holding your breath while watching it. Equally fascinating and frightening, Reality chronicles the real-life events that took place on 3 June 2017. That afternoon, Reality Winner, a 25-year-old translator with the US’ National Security Agency, was stopped by FBI agents as she pulled into her driveway in Augusta, Georgia. What follows uses the actual transcript from Winner’s questioning and takes place largely in one empty room. The tension in writer-director Tina Satter’s debut feature is overwhelming; The White Lotus and Euphoria star Sydney Sweeney is brilliant in the lead role; and Josh Hamilton and Marchánt Davis as the two FBI agents make for the best of end-game adversaries. This true-story thriller clocks in at just 82 minutes – you’ll be worn out as the end credits roll.

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour

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Audrey Donohue says: It seems like at the moment, it’s Taylor Swift’s world and we’re all living in it. This movie, taken from her six‑night run at the SoFi Stadium in California in August, is an absolute blast, setting a new standard for concert films, and indeed, live performance in general. The gig is a masterclass in Swift’s songwriting, dancing, singing, stage presence, and instrumental abilities, covering the ten eras of her career to date. Forty of her 45-song tour setlist make the cut for this film, the highest-grossing concert feature of all time at $250m – and counting. After watching, even the biggest Swift critic would have to agree that she is hugely talented. Now, the 34-year-old can add “filling movie theatres” to the extensive list of areas she has dominated, which already spans music charts, streaming platforms, and stadiums. The only question that remains is – what’s next?

Till

Alan Corr says: “Be small down there.” That’s the widowed Mamie Mobley-Till’s advice to her only son, 14-year-old Emmett, as he prepares to head from his home in Chicago to visit his cousins in the town of Money in Mississippi in the late summer of 1955. Mamie (the radiant Danielle Deadwyler) knows only too well how very different things are below the Mason-Dixon Line, and Emmett (the excellent Jalyn Hall) is a lively and happy-go-lucky young man who may let his naivety fall foul of the suspicious white population. Mamie has a very bad feeling about this visit and when Emmett innocently flirts with a white woman in a shop in Money, her fears come true. Seventy-eight years later, the story of Emmett Till still haunts the small town of Money and remains yet another focal point in the ongoing global reckoning on race. Director Chinonye Chukwu’s film is a powerful testimony both to the enduring power of a mother’s love and a sharp reminder that injustice is ongoing everywhere.

The Fabelmans

Harry Guerin says: If you’re after a misty-eyed, heart-is-full movie, then this is just the ticket. A celebration of family, films, and finding your own way, The Fabelmans is the most personal story of Steven Spielberg’s 53-year career. It is also among his best. Following his ups and downs from a four-year-old’s fateful night out (to see The Greatest Show on Earth, naturally) to the priceless advice he received as he took his first steps in the business, this from-little-acorns-grow charmer is inspiring no matter what your age. In a brilliant breakout performance, Gabriel LaBelle portrays the master as a young man – renamed Sammy Fabelman here. Indeed, LaBelle is so perfectly cast and so convincing that it feels like Spielberg has built a time machine and gone back to star as himself. Don’t let the two-and-a-half-hour duration put you off – this is time you won’t want to get back. What a joy to think more of Spielberg at the end of The Fabelmans than you did at the start. Now, that’s the magic of the movies.

Passages

Bren Murphy says: There’s a moment in Ira Sachs’ latest modern Parisian love story in which the freewheeling Tomas (Fran Rogowski) excitedly informs his softly spoken husband, Martin (Ben Whishaw), that he had sex with a woman, Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos), the previous night. The scene breaks several expectations the viewer may have; Martin isn’t furious at this betrayal, merely unimpressed and disinterested. Nor are we subjected to questions like, “Wait, so you’re not gay?” or “What was it like? Different?” And that’s when you realise, we’re past all that. Well, these characters are anyway. Passages‘ three leads sizzle on screen, compellingly attractive and human characters with desires and instincts that constantly contradict logic. The result is an unpredictable film about frustrating but fascinating people that’s very much made for adults. Adults who will soon be compelled to move to Paris – the city has never looked more appealing.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Alan Corr says: Marvelphobics assemble! The only MCU movie we can actually get with swings back into action and once again we are plunged into the kaleidoscopic, kinetic, and multi-dimensional worlds of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s ingenious take on Spider-Man. You’ve heard of the reboot. Well, this dazzling and eye-popping sequel to 2018’s triumphant Into the Spider-Verse spins more webs within webs and does nothing less than bring a beloved but jaded character back to life with a volt of pure electricity. Reanimation has rarely looked so good. With more than 240 characters across six dimensions, the film’s three directors – Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K Tho – try to wrangle the competing and conflicted multiverses into some kind of narrative order. They don’t always succeed, but good chemistry, a witty script, non-stop visual gags, and charismatic performances from Shameik Moore, Hailee Steinfeld, and Jason Schwartzman keep the sensory overload centred. Kind of. Sink back and enjoy. You’ll need eight eyes to take it all in.

Saltburn

Sarah McIntyre says: “Saltburn, writer/director Emerald Fennell’s second feature following her razor-sharp Oscar-winning debut Promising Young Woman, is an intoxicating, intense, and exhilarating ride through the upper echelons of British high society, underpinned by bravura performances from the delightfully well-chosen cast. The reliably excellent, unstoppably magnetic Barry Keoghan, last seen on the big screen in his Oscar-nominated role in Martin McDonagh’s pitch-black comedy The Banshees of Inisherin, is given his first leading role here. It’s fair to say he doesn’t hold back – joined by the likes of Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike, Alison Oliver, Archie Madekwe, Carey Mulligan, and Richard E Grant. The nostalgic mid-Noughties soundtrack, featuring the likes of The Killers, MGMT, and The xx, adds to the chaotic fun of this deliciously dark and deranged Gothic thriller, which isn’t afraid to lean into its remarkable weirdness.

Wonka

Audrey Donohue says: A prequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Wonka looks at the young and eccentric chocolatier’s backstory and first foray into the chocolate world. Here, Timothée Chalamet’s interpretation of the famous chocolate maker is fresh and endearing – not nearly as over-the-top as trailers for the film suggested – and it never feels like an impression of Gene Wilder. With Hugh Grant a total comedy hit as an Oompa Loompa, this is a delightful and delectable film – full of heart and charm and brilliantly funny, with silly beats throughout. Striking a comforting balance between heartwarming and humour, Wonka will undoubtedly draw strong comparisons with the much-loved Paddington movies, with that franchise’s writer and director, Paul King, also at the helm here. This, combined with a heavy sprinkle of Harry Potter-inspired magic as well as the emotional punch of A Christmas Carol, completes the magic formula. If you’re looking for the perfect Christmas family film – this is it.

Past Lives

Harry Guerin says: A little movie with the biggest of hearts, Past Lives heralds the arrival of playwright turned director Celine Song as a filmmaker with the brightest of futures. It’s the most charming of debuts, and if you miss it, your screen life will be the poorer. Based on Song’s own experiences and travelling across decades, Past Lives tells the story of Nora (Greta Lee), her husband Arthur (John Magaro), and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) – Nora’s childhood friend from South Korea who reappears in her New York life. Lovers of Brief Encounter, The Remains of the Day, and Before Sunrise will again be in the best of company here as this universal tale works its magic. You’ll see yourself in the drama – sometimes as one character, sometimes as all three – with the upheaval of the pandemic ensuring that the emotional intimacy is all the more powerful. You’ll be left with a lot to think about, both happy and sad. The days are long, the years are short. Past Lives gently urges us to make the most of both.

Evil Dead Rise

Bren Murphy says: With all the expressions of national cinematic pride in 2023, it would be remiss not to throw some bualadh bos in the direction of Lee Cronin. After just one very impressive feature film (The Hole in the Ground), the Dublin director was handpicked by Evil Dead creator Sam Raimi to take the reins of the beloved franchise. Great call – Raimi’s faith saw Cronin deliver the year’s best horror film. With lots of dark humour, shocking gore, and violence, Evil Dead Rise is not as wacky as Evil Dead 2, but also not as sardonic and grim as the 2013 reboot. Tonally, it sits nicely in the middle. And while it’s scary, it surprisingly has very few jump scares, which is refreshing. Even more unexpected, however, it has a lot of heart. Cronin’s cast are a likeable bunch and while this is indeed a rollercoaster thrill ride, you still feel bad for the people trapped on it. Slick, stylish, funny, and genuinely emotional, with a third-act surprise that’s just the right level of bonkers. Hail to the king!

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One

Alan Corr says: Is it a bird, is it a plane…? No, it’s an A-list movie star riding a motorbike off a craggy mountaintop in the Austrian Alps and parachuting onto the Orient Express. Talk about risky business… Tom Cruise’s finest M:I movie yet (Part One), is a hugely entertaining caper, with the 61-year-old defying age and gravity as hero Ethan Hunt once again uses tech and cunning to save the world. The globetrotting takes him from a shootout in a sandstorm in the Arabian desert to a frenetic chase in an airport, and best of all, a car chase in Rome, during which Cruise and co-star Hayley Atwell find themselves handcuffed together as they try to outrun the Italian police in a canary-yellow Fiat 500. And maybe we’re back in Italian Job territory with that truly spectacular closing sequence set on the speeding Orient Express. All of this is done with convincing realism; there is no sickly lacquer of CGI here. Not so impossible after all, this is the best action movie in years. Choose to accept.

The Deepest Breath

Harry Guerin says: “Live for today, for you never know what’s coming down the line.” Widescreen wisdom from The Deepest Breath, a gem of a documentary from Kildare writer-director Laura McGann that takes the viewer into the world of freediving – diving on a single breath. The film tells the story of Alessia Zecchini, an Italian freediving champion seeking to break the world record; and Irishman Stephen Keenan, a renowned safety diver – the watchful eye ready to rescue during any freedive. Using superb archive footage, McGann explores pushing the body to its absolute limit and the search for meaning in head and heart. In Keenan and Zecchini we meet the most extraordinary of outliers, and the viewers’ bond with them is watertight from early on in this profoundly moving experience. The Deepest Breath will leave you full of admiration and gratitude – and also asking whether you are making the most of your own precious time. Watch it, wonder, and recommend it to someone else.

LOLA

Alan Corr says: Irish director Andrew Legge’s elegant and inventive debut feature subverts the found-footage genre to play around with the timeline of 20th-century history and pose some tantalising metaphysical and philosophical questions. It is a triumph of low-budget filmmaking that cleverly turns its lack of resources into an advantage while telling a gripping human story. A grainy title card informs us that a strange cache of film reels from the 1940s has been found in an abandoned old country house on the southern coast of England. These are the home movies of Thomasina and Martha Hanbury (Emma Appleton and Stefanie Martini) – unconventional sisters who found a way to intercept television and radio broadcasts from the future. LOLA is one of the most distinctive and stylish-looking films you’ll see, full of retro-futurism, recalling the work of Fritz Lang and maybe even Michael Anderson’s 1956 version of George Orwell’s 1984. A haunting out-of-body experience.

Pearl

Harry Guerin says: If you’re looking for blood-red horror and pitch-black humour, then fill your boots – or in this case, dungarees – here. This prequel to the much-admired 2022 slasher X is turbocharged by a gloriously bonkers performance by Mia Goth – a top hat-wearing, liquid morphine-guzzling, monologue-unleashing triumph. Set in 1918, the film finds Goth’s titular antihero with stars in her eyes. She wants to be a dancer but is stuck on the family farm with her puritanical mother and syphilis-ravaged father. The pressure cooker that is Pearl’s mind has been on the stove for way too long and is just about ready to explode… From an opening that juxtaposes jaunty malevolence with the orchestral sweep and vivid palette of Classic Hollywood, Pearl sets out its stall as a movie for those who crave weirdness on the edge of town – and then some. Sure enough, director Ti West and star and co-writer Goth are true to their word and give the audience their money’s worth in scene after scene as Southern Gothic succumbs to savagery, in style.

Babylon

Bren Murphy says: To truly love something, you have to embrace everything about it, warts and all. Director Damien Chazelle loves Hollywood and he’s painfully aware that the town’s film industry was built on exploitation and greed… as well as magic and dreams. And that’s what the Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt-starring Babylon is about. It could be compared to Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas and The Wolf of Wall Street or Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights – films about excess with biblical running times that you largely don’t notice because they rarely slow down and brilliantly maintain a level of entertainment from sequence to sequence. And Babylon is longer than any of those examples. It’s cynical but magical, grim but beautiful, a sometimes-disturbing celebration of a beloved American institution that a lot of people hate. Fascinating, heart-breaking, and laugh-out-loud, Babylon is not for everyone (look at the other reviews and the US box office), but those who’ll love it, will truly love, warts and all. Indulgence can be a good thing.

Oppenheimer

Harry Guerin says: As awards season builds, Cillian Murphy already has one accolade in the bag: from five minutes into Oppenheimer, you can’t imagine anyone else playing the theoretical physicist. Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J Sherwin, this ‘biographical thriller’ from writer-director Christopher Nolan – his sixth project with Murphy after The Dark Knight Trilogy, Inception, and Dunkirk – justifies its three-hour duration from the 1920s to the 1960s. Indeed, for a film so dialogue-heavy and with only one set piece two hours in, that being the atomic bomb test in the New Mexico desert in July 1945, Oppenheimer moves remarkably fast and is tense from start to finish. It’s Nolan and Murphy’s best work to date, together and individually – a film that won’t leave you feeling any safer about life as we know it but one we all should watch.

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adminDecember 27, 2023

0 0 19 minutes read