Image by Devon Breen from Pixabay Coming off of the hellish year that was 2020, there seemed to be some hope among many of us for putting it behind us and moving into 2021 with a renewed optimism for what was to come. And while some less-than-ideal things happened this year (including an attempted insurrection of the U.S. government), some great movies came out. As to whether the film industry has fully recovered from the lackluster box-office year that was 2020 remains to be seen (despite Spider-Man: No Way Home becoming the first film to make one billion dollars since 2019’s Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker).
Admittedly, I have yet to see many of what are considered to be the year’s best films including (but not limited to): Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza, and Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley. Still, I want to use this opportunity to shine a light on some of my favorite movies that I haven’t blogged about before. While some are familiar among most filmgoers (casual or otherwise), there may just be one of two on this list that you’ve never heard of that is worth checking out. That being said, here are my thoughts on some of my favorite films from 2021. The Dig Arguably the most serene film that I’ll write about today, Simon Stone’s The Dig dramatizes the people and events surrounding the archaeological excavation of an Anglo-Saxon ship and burial site known as Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, England. The site of the excavation, initially overseen by archaeologist Basil Brown (Ralph Fiennes), was on the land of widow Edith Pretty (Carey Mulligan) whose health declines throughout the course of the film. There are many reasons to appreciate The Dig. As a lover of history, it is a particular kind of thrill seeing actors display the kind of exhilaration surrounding such an astonishing discovery. But on top of that, the film injects some meaningfully dramatic moments during the course of such an undertaking. Specifically, you go on an ebb-and-flow kind of journey when watching the film seeing the struggles that Edith and Basil endure to retain some control over both the ownership of the dig site and the dig itself. But I think what works best about The Dig is that it’s not a movie primarily concerned with history. Rather, it is concerned with showing the audience how an event such as this affects the lives of the characters involved and, conversely, how these characters impact the dig itself. Without ever shoving this down our throats, the director and the cast (particularly Fiennes and Mulligan) work to invest the audience in these characters’ tribulations and triumphs as well as their relationships to each other. And while many of the cast serve their roles in the story well (I always enjoy Lily James), Mulligan demonstrates just how versatile she is as an actor. From her subtler and heartbreaking roles in films like Drive and Shame to her more eccentric roles in films like Promising Young Woman, she continues to captive my attention as a performer to pay attention to going forward. And in The Dig, she does not disappoint as she offers a take on both motherhood and polite persistence as a widow that completes the film’s emotional core making the whole unexpectedly melancholy. Even if quieter, calmer dramas aren’t typically your thing, The Dig is worth a watch on a Sunday afternoon. Especially if you’re into history or archaeology, you won’t regret checking this movie out. Minari I was hopeful that I would like Korean-American director Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari for one reason and one reason only: Steven Yeun. In case you didn’t read the first part of my blog about The Walking Dead, it’s one of my favorite shows and Yeun played who was easily one of my top-ten characters on the show, Glenn Rhee, for seven years. But since he’s been off the show, I was interested to see where his career went. He’s had some pretty compelling roles in Bong Joon-ho’s Okja and Lee Chang-dong’s Burning and thus I wanted to see what he did in this film. Fortunately, Yeun is only one thing to like in Minari. In the film, Chung reflected on his own childhood growing up the son of Korean immigrant parents on a farm in Arkansas as inspiration for the film. Yeun plays Jacob, the patriarch of the Yi family, alongside his wife Monica (Han Ye-ri) and their children David (Alan Kim) and Anne (Noel Kate Cho). Together, they form an immigrant family who move from California to rural Arkansas to start their own farm as they experience struggles, learn lessons, and come to understand what is most important in life. If that description comes off to you as overly sentimental and cheesy, that is because a movie like Minari very well could be that and still be enjoyable. But what is perhaps most enjoyable about the film is that it injects enough genuine drama, levity, and emotion to avoid becoming soaked in corniness. Much of that has to do with the likeability of the cast (particularly the standout performance from veteran South Korean actress Youn Yuh-jung as Monica’s mother Soon-ja), but also the evident heart that Chung put into the script. While the film does take some unexpected turns, Minari packs a solid emotional punch that alone makes it worth watching. Simply put, it is one of the better movies about family dynamics and cultural assimilation of the past decade and is worth your time if you’re willing to become fully immersed in this family’s travails trying to make it as farmers in the American South. Raya and the Last Dragon Several good animated films came out this year, from Netflix’s The Mitchells vs. the Machines to Pixar’s Luca. Yet I tend to be apprehensive before watching modern children’s animated flicks because I no longer watch these kinds of movies through the eyes of a child and thus am worried that the sensibilities of a movie such as this simply won’t work on my anymore. Luckily with Disney Animation’s Raya and the Last Dragon, my worries dissipated by the end of the runtime. There’s a lot of solid ingredients needed to pull off a movie as potentially convoluted and hallow as Raya and the Last Dragon. For one thing, you need a well-constructed story with exceptional characters that avoid the pitfalls of clichéd sentimentality or excessive likeability. In the case of this film’s writers, Qui Nguyen and Adele Lim, the story of young-but-fierce warrior princess Raya (Kelly Marie Tran) working alongside the goofy dragon Sisu (Awkwafina) to restore peace among the five tribes of her land of Kumandra is told gracefully so as to never confuse the audience to the point of them no longer being engaged with it. Regarding the characters, there is some great animation and voice casting on display here. Whereas Tran fits the role of Raya well as a headstrong but compassionate young woman, Awkwafina as Sisu is used to great effect as both comedic relief and in establishing a dichotomous chemistry with Tran’s character which makes the evolution of their relationship over the course of the film all the more rewarding. Aside from the two leads, however, some standout supporting voice actors are Gemma Chan as Raya’s rival Namaari (with a rather nuanced relationship with her antagonist) and Alan Tudyk as the charming giant armadillo-like creature Tuk Tuk. Simply put, if you’re looking for a well-made film with a stellar Asian-majority cast but want something lighter and more uplifting than Minari, you will not go wrong with Raya and the Last Dragon. But just as an animated film, it stands out as one of Disney’s better movies of the last fifteen or so years. In the Heights Being familiar and rather impressed with Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical work in Hamilton (I saw the stage show at the Kennedy Center back in 2018), I was excitedly curious about a film based on his breakout Broadway musical dealing with the Latino community of Washington Heights. Furthermore, this film’s director being Jon Chu was a good sign given how much I enjoyed his 2018 film Crazy Rich Asians. And despite the film’s unnecessarily long runtime, I thoroughly enjoyed In the Heights. As I’ve written about twice before, any good musical needs songs that do more than just catch your fancy or make you tap your foot. They need to effectively tell a story filled with heart and genuine humanity while also being entertaining. And those who are familiar with Miranda’s other work will by no means be surprised to know that he brings all of his mind-boggling talents to this project (and the musical on which it is based). Simply put, In the Heights excels at examining the various struggles and relationships of the characters that inhabit Miranda’s version of Washington Heights in New York City. Unlike some other movie musicals, In the Heights does not have one clear star to point to. However, the standouts for me were Anthony Ramos as the protagonist Usnavi and Melissa Barrera as his love interest Vanessa. Their chemistry, both when they’re in love and when they’re fighting, remains palpable throughout the movie. That being said, there isn’t really a weakest-link performance here. Out of all the songs, the introductory “In the Heights,” the ensemble “96,000,” and the cathartic “Alabanza” are the standouts for me. While some viewers of In the Heights may find this a less refined piece of work than Miranda’s later stylings like Hamilton or the next film I’ll be talking about, I found it to be refreshing in its stripped-down take on a pocket of the human experience unfamiliar to me yet relatable all the same. But if you’re just looking for a fun-filled movie musical, it works on that level for sure. tick, tick…BOOM! While I wanted to avoid shining a light on multiple Lin-Manuel Miranda projects, I simply couldn’t avoid discussing his feature directorial debut tick, tick…BOOM! Based on the autobiographical “rock monologue” of the same name by Jonathan Larson, the creator of the musical Rent, Miranda has adapted Larson’s artistic crisis surrounding his career prospects, feelings of rejection, and the tragic loss of some of his close friends into a thoroughly entertaining yet informative story for the big screen. Whereas In the Heights is Miranda’s celebration of community, heritage, culture, and place, his adaptation of tick, tick…BOOM! is an examination of one man experiencing an existential crisis as he nears his thirtieth birthday. Larson, played by the exceptionally charming and talented Andrew Garfield, is in a state of perpetual anxiety due to putting all of his blood, sweat, and tears into his sci-fi rock-musical passion project Superbia without any guarantee that it will pay off on Broadway. Miranda frames his take on Larson’s story by interrupting the past with the present intermittently: he uses Larson performing his “rock monologue” to propel his story forward. This film excels in a number of ways. Of course, the musical numbers are everything from funny to emotional to exhilarating. In my humble opinion, “Therapy,” “Real Life,” and “Louder Than Words” are the standouts which makes sense given who sings them. Aside from Garfield’s central performance as Larson (which may very well end up being Oscar-worthy in just a couple of months), Robin de Jesús stands out as Larson’s best friend with a less-than-idealistic take on the world and Vanessa Hudgens hold her own singing alongside Garfield (albeit she’s quite underutilized throughout much of the runtime). And even though she has few moments for her voice to shine, I thought Alexandra Shipp had great chemistry with Garfield as Larson’s girlfriend Susan. In another sense, tick, tick…BOOM! was very rewarding to watch as someone who was unfamiliar with Larson’s story or the minutiae of how artists like him (and countless others) strive for recognition in the world of theater. As someone who considers themselves familiar with the incredible, self-imposed stress of the creative process, I found Garfield’s portrayal of Larson to be powerfully empathetic and relatable which tends to be one of the keys to any film’s success. Watching him go through the seemingly never-ending obstacles just for a shot at a career on Broadway was both cathartic and great fodder for compelling music-infused drama. If you want a great ensemble musical with a broad cultural scope, than In the Heights is for you. However, if you’re more in the mood for a personal story with a breathtaking main performance from a great young actor, than tick, tick…BOOM! is the movie musical to watch. King Richard I am perhaps the farthest from a sports fan that you’ll find, but even I have heard the names Venus and Serena Williams before. All I knew about them before watching Reinaldo Marcus Green’s King Richard was that they are tennis stars. And, for some inexplicable reason, I was under the impression going into this film that it would be more from the Williams sisters’ perspectives. Perhaps I’m just that gullible. 😊 Luckily, King Richard is still a great sports movie despite focusing almost entirely on a single perspective: that of Venus and Serena’s incredibly driven and notoriously unlikeable father, Richard Williams. For the film is largely made great by Will Smith, the actor portraying Richard, who manages to humanize a figure that could easily come off to the audience as an anti-hero for treating many people around him as insignificant ants compared to his two tennis-playing daughters. Yet even in the scenes where Richard could feel utterly irredeemable, Smith never fails to remind us why Richard did what he did and that a parent’s love for their children can motivate them to do virtually anything and it would be understandable. While Will Smith is unquestionably the star of King Richard, he is surrounded by a great supporting cast. Within the Williams family, the actresses who portray Venus and Serena (Saniyya Sidney and Demi Singleton, respectively) have great chemistry together as well as with Smith himself. Despite not being the focus of the story, I also enjoyed the more understated nature of Aunjanue Ellis as Richard’s wife Brandy. Outside of the Williamses, undoubtedly the best supporting performance for my money is Jon Bernthal as Venus and Serena’s Florida tennis coach Rick Macci. Without knowing anything about the real man, Bernthal embodies such a unique character juxtaposed to Smith’s character; whereas Richard is headstrong to a fault, Macci appears to want the same for Venus and Serena but can barely contain his constant frustrations with Williams and thus has to take a more diplomatic approach to carve a path for the Williams sisters’ athletic success. What might just be the best quality of King Richard is the fact that it (mostly) avoids the traditional pitfalls of other sports movies. Notably, other movies in this particular genre tend to feel to me like they prioritize the action inherent in the athletics over creating sympathetic characters with relatable flaws whose commitment to their sport reflects an undeniable part of the human spirit. In that sense, King Richard embodies what makes some of the best sports movies like Miracle, The Wrestler, Warrior, and 42. If anything hurts King Richard, it’s the nearly two-and-a-half-hour runtime and the climactic tennis match that initially feels like the film’s relying on storytelling tropes that hurt other sports movies. But then the match goes against what one might expect, and the film proves my suspicions wrong and shows that it’s not only one of the best films from this year but also possibly one of the greatest sports films of this century. So, those are my thoughts on some of my favorite films of 2021. Of course, there are plenty of other good films from this year that are worth checking out: Shaka King’s Judas and the Black Messiah, Kevin Macdonald’s The Mauritanian, Navut Papushado’s Gunpowder Milkshake, Michael Sarnoski’s Pig, and James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad. Just to name a few. 😉 For my thoughts on some other 2021 films, click on any of the titles below:
What are some of your favorite films from this year? What movies are you most excited to come out next year? What opinions of mine do you find absolutely ridiculous? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, this has been… Yours Truly, Amateur Analyst
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Austin McManusI have no academic or professional background in film production or criticism; I simply love watching and talking about movies. Archives
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