On "The Nominees" (Pt. 3 — "The Kevins")
Our official picks for the best movies of 2023 (that I had time to see and were given commercial releases in North America)
Here we are, at last: my personal favs. These are not objectively “the best,” and I don’t even feel hard-done by knowing that they are unlikely to “win” or that many of them were not even recognized. I just feel lucky they were made at all, in a cultural environment that so often does its best to create sameness and is often hostile towards original, provocative work. 2023 was actually a pretty decent year in Anglophone filmmaking. Even the movies I thought had problems were interesting to think about. As a wise person once told me, there’s no such thing as a bad movie.
If you haven’t read my rundown of the official nominees, you can read pt. 1 here and pt. 2 here.
Now, without further ado, the winners of The Kevins are…
Best Acting (Tie): The Cast of May December
This movie is nauseating, but in a fun way. Directly inspired by the true story of a woman who raped a twelve year old boy, then had two of his kids while in prison, and then married and lived with him for many years afterward, this detached melodrama features excellent performances across the board. Natalie Portman plays a vampiric actor doing research for a film adaptation of this barely fictionalized true crime story. Julianne Moore plays a manipulative predator living a life of total delusion with her tragically stunted child-husband. Moore plays an equally menacing and revolting person, and makes it thrilling. I loved tracking Portman mirror her as the film progressed. Charles Melton, as a confused child in an adult’s body, and Cory Michael Smith, playing Moore’s spiky adult son, are also excellent—you can really feel how messed up their lives are. In a movie that keeps its distance from its character’s emotions, that flirts with camp and horror and self-critique but ultimately needs to land as tragedy, a lot is asked of these actors and they more than meet the challenge.
Best Acting (Tie): Andrew Scott in All of Us Strangers
A lot of actors can suggest deep wells of sadness. Paul Mescal, who stars alongside Andrew Scott in Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers, is so consistently great at it (see: Normal People, Aftersun) that I worry about his general well-being as a person. Scott can play sad like the best of them, but part of what makes his performance in this movie so powerful is the way joy plays on the surface of his face. Having a great smile is common enough in movie stars, but Scott’s smile—as well as his facility with emotion generally—is on another level. This film has only four speaking parts (Claire Foy and Jamie Bell round out the cast), but Scott is at the centre of every scene. It’s a performance that carries this inventive little movie about loneliness and grief through some high concept moments that in less capable hands would play as goofy.
Best Editing: How To Blow Up A Pipeline
I wrote at length about this fantastic thriller here, which is what happens when you cross Ocean’s 11 with eco-terrorism. Nothing shows off editing better than suspense, and this film is a ride.
Best Cinematography, Makeup, and Visual Effects: Talk To Me
Not a movie I enjoyed exactly but when it comes to achieving the desired effect it’s a flawless victory. This is an incredibly scary and unpleasant Australian horror flick that made my life worse and worse as it went along. The ruthless, bleak ending left a pit in my stomach. I never want to enter its nightmarish world again. In other words, it took the idea of “horror”—something shocking, disgusting, terrifying—seriously. I particularly liked its fresh, 21st-century take on a seance-gone-awry story. While we watch teens commune with evil spirits in suburban basements, everyone has their phones out recording as if it’s just another dumb stunt for the ‘gram. It was something I’d never seen in a horror movie before, and somehow made all the possession scenes even spookier. I’ve enjoyed a lot of fancy horror movies in the last decade (Midsommar, The Witch, etc.), but none of them unsettled me nearly as much as this one (with the exception of It Follows). That these first-time filmmakers, who honed their craft on YouTube, made all this come alive on a very modest budget (4.5 million) is incredible.
Best Score, Director, Screenplay, and Picture (Tied): Killers of the Flower Moon and The Boy and the Heron
Two masterpieces by octogenarians, each a culmination of a highly distinguished career. One is an examination of colonial evil and our boundless capacity to harm those closest to us, the other a dreamlike act of self-reflection. Scorsese relied on his old roommate and long-time musical collaborator Robbie Robertson (of The Band) for Killers of the Flower Moon's score, while Miyazaki employed his composer of 40 years, Joe Hisaishi, for The Boy and the Heron. Each musician achieved perfect symbiosis with their film.
I never thought it made sense to separate best direction, writing, and picture, which is why I’m lumping them all together. You can read my thoughts on both movies here, but at the end of the day these are Major Works, dense with meaning, that I will definitely revisit.