Top 20 Films of 2022 (Part 2: 10 - 1)
10: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Phase 4 of The MCU has been getting a lot of criticism lately for being undercooked and rushed, it’s a thought process that, while I somewhat agree with, hadn’t really affected my enjoyment of the films until this year where even the films I did enjoy were making less and less of an impact. After 11 years of always having a Marvel movie in my Top 10 I wondered if maybe there was something to the complaints. Then Wakanda Forever dropped and reminded me why I wasn’t burnt out by Marvel yet. Arguably the hardest MCU film to get right due to the tragic death of Chadwick Boseman, the film not only handles his passing with grace and delicacy, but actively use the death of T’Challa to focus its attention towards grief and anger and the poisonous effects of both. It is far and away the most serious the MCU has been in a long time, maybe ever, tackling border conflicts and self-preservation alongside the anger placed in the hearts of Shuri who takes centre stage with nary an issue, Ramonda who gives a fucking S-Tier performance for the entirety of the MCU and newcomer Namor who is as chilling as he is charismatic. It’s might feel more grown up than other films in the Marvel Canon, but it isn’t afraid to tackle grown up topics.
9: Prey
Compared to its Alien counterpart, The Predator franchise has always felt like it’s never really known what to do with itself, it’s basis as simply machismo sci-fi action has never really allowed it the same level of lore evaluation and with each sequel it’s always felt like a case of diminishing returns. Then along comes Prey who gives the franchise the jolt it needs with one very simple concept; Historical Predators. I’m still genuinely shocked that it works this well, the Native American setting gives the film so much fun stuff to work with, in particular the Comanche Warriors and their bad-assery. Main character Naru is a fantastic addition to the franchise, bringing both resourcefulness and realistic terror to a well-developed character and her journey of hunting her way up the food chain mirroring the Predators was a level of thematic weight I was not expecting. Prey delivers both an antithesis to the machismo of the original film whilst also giving us the machismo of the original film and the blending of both to create something new is exactly what I want to see in this franchise going forward.
8: Pearl
There’s a lot to love about Pearl, from its 30s inspired Technicolor wonder, to its improvement on the original X by way of it’s examination of the central villain. But it’s standout reason for making it onto this list is Mia Goth’s performance as Pearl, which – until the next film on this list – I was ready to claim as the best performance of the year. Where X was a grindhouse feature reminiscent of Texas Chainsaw, Pearl is absolutely a character study by way of Carrie or more recently Saint Maud, and WHAT a character, Goth inhabits this broken, lonely, mentally unstable woman who dreams of having more but is stuck suffocating under mediocrity and her inability to process that is as heartbreaking as it is horrifying. The near eight minute monologue near the end is a fucking powerhouse of acting, making you sympathise with Pearl whilst also being shit fucking scared of her, balancing both sides near perfectly. West crafts a phenomenal film around Goth’s performance, utilising the vibrancy of Hollywood’s golden age to contrast against Pearl’s dark desires, but it’s Goth who elevates this film into something truly special and I cannot wait to see what she brings to MaxXxine.
7: Tar
If anyone was going to beat Goth to the best performance award then of course it was gonna be Cate Blanchett. Her team-up with Todd Field almost ten years after his last film is a match made in controversial heaven and I am all here for it. Taking the timely topic of sexual abuse in the workplace and placing us in the perspective of the abuser might sound like a strange and potentially awkward idea, but Blanchett fucking owns the role, showing Lydia Tar to be charming, intelligent and witty but also cold, manipulative and calculating, this harsh examination of power is a fantastic look into how abusers take control, and how easily their carefully controlled lives fall apart when confronted by their own misdeeds. All the while Field is giving us an almost paranormal aesthetic through the ghosts of Lydia’s past, building an unnerving and sometimes frantic tension through old-school beliefs fighting new-found ideals. It’s one of the best films in the careers of both Blanchett and Field and a stunningly intriguing portrayal of one of 2022’s best villains.
6: The Menu
There’s a point in The Menu where a character is put on the spot and told to showcase their apparent expertise, it is one of the hardest I’ve laughed all year whilst also being a moment that put me on edge because I genuinely believed someone was going to die. That is the tone of The Menu and it is something special, equal parts hysterically funny and bone-chillingly harrowing, it’s deconstruction of the elitist pricks of the 1% and of the food snobs in particular is one of the best scripts all year, showcasing just how painful it is to serve pretentious food you can’t stand to pretentious people you can’t stand. Anya Taylor-Joy continues her rise as one of the industry’s best young actresses with a layered and headstrong performances, contrasting as the straight-man nicely to Nicholas Hoult’s pathethetic, pretentious and pants-wettingly funny asshat but it’s veteran Ralph Fiennes as the film’s villain, and arguably the best villain of the year, Chef Slowik who steals this film with someone who can utterly terrify you with one sentence then have you understand and rally behind him with the next. It may or may not be classed as a horror movie, but it’s definitely the funniest horror movie of the year.
5: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
I’ve not had the chance to revisit the original Knives Out but it’s a film I remember enjoying, maybe not completely loving but I liked it quite a bit. Hearing Netflix paid to have more Knives Out films made me curious if this was the right idea, after all it’s easy to make one genre-twisting mystery, but two? Turns out I was a fool because not only does Glass Onion live up to its predecessor, it arguably surpasses it, delivering a murder mystery that’s not even about the murder we think it is. It takes what could’ve easily been a silly twist and actively uses it in the second half to recontextualise the first half, building it what might just be the most cathartic ending of the year. Much like the first, the cast is absolutely stacked with Craig’s return as Blanc being just as enjoyable as the first and Norton’s tech-bro douchebag hitting way too close to home in just how smarmy he was, but it’s Janelle Monae’s Andi Brand who takes what is a very subdued performance at first and builds into something incredible, but to tell you how would be cheating, trust me it’s worth checking out for yourself.
4: Aftersun
Biggest surprise of the year has to go to Aftersun, I kept seeing ads for this on YouTube and it seemed like my kinda thing, slow-burning drama, character based instead of plot-based. So on a whim I check it out and I walked away with one of the most heart-moving and heart-breaking family stories I’ve seen since Short Term 12. It is a fantastic examination of depression, showcasing it in all its smiling glory, what starts as a family holiday between a father too young to be a dad and a daughter too old to fall for her father’s playfulness slowly morphs into a dreaded feeling that something utterly soul-crushing is just around the corner, leading to a crescendo with the absolute best use of Under Pressure I’ve ever seen. It’s anchored by two phenomenal leads, Mescal absolute deserves the Oscar attention for how he portrays the different layers of Callum, his awkward balance between being a father and acting like a big brother and how easily he slips between laughing wildly and being utterly wrecked the next while newcomer Corio stands her ground with him, presenting Sophie as someone who clearly knows more than she should for her age, but is still too young to fully understand it all. It might be too soft, too slow or too melancholic for some, but for those willing to give it a chance, it is a beautiful and tender piece of memory, mental health and dancing.
3: The Banshees Of Inisherin
From the most depressing drama film of the year, to the most depression comedy. The team behind In Bruges craft another winner although one that’s more emotionally mature, touching upon topics of loneliness, abuse, self-reflection and self-mutilation. Again, still a comedy. Honestly the fact that it is a comedy is probably how it works so well, a story this absurd and this tragic could only work if you had something to laugh at and between the harsh story of two old friends growing apart and some truly rough moments of watching kindness erode into festering cruelty, there are some ridiculous moments to laugh at and contrast against the darker tones of the rest of the film. A strong cast also help, Gleeson perfects the stubborn old bastard who refuses to see the error in his ways, Keoghan takes the fucked-in-the-head comic relief character and turns him into the most tragic character of the film and Condon braves the madness as the film’s straight-man, driven to near collapse by the abject horror of it all. But it’s Farrell who impresses the most, delivering what might just be his career-best performance as a simple man driver into a complicated situation and his puppy-dog innocence being slowly grounded away into bitterness. Again, still a comedy, and a fecking good one at that.
2: The Batman
There’s a little pretentious part of me that is happy The Batman didn’t take the top spot for the year, because if I had to put a comic-book movie as my best film of the year for the forth time in five years, I might just have to admit that I’m a fucking normie after all. Even despite that, it’s fair to say The Batman is fucking incredible and rivals The Dark Knight for the best film of the caped crusader. Everything that shouldn’t work about this film is flipped onto its head as a positive, the near three hour run-time allows for a Fincher style detective mystery to unfold naturally, pretty-boy Robert Pattinson gives Bruce a younger, less refined and more emotionally damaged character who still hasn’t quite learnt what it means to be Bruce Wayne and Batman at the same time, the grimy aesthetic gives Gotham a slimy, seedy underbelly that churns your stomach just to watch and allows Batman’s violent tendencies to question if he even is the right choice to help this city. Even a villain as silly and one-note as Riddler is given a terrifying uplift, played to menacing perfection by Paul Dano, touching upon his showmanship in a modern-day age that works far better than I ever expected. And all of it brought together by Matt Reeves who crafts a tone befitting both the grounded realism of Nolan’s Trilogy and the stylised flair of the animated series, a nearly impossible balancing act that’s pull out perfectly here. Call it hyperbole all you want, The Batman lives up to the hype and then some.
1: Everything, Everywhere All At Once
There’s a moment within Everything, Everywhere where main character Evelyn makes a reference to a movie but gets the reference wrong and it’s played off as a goofy joke. That goofy joke comes back around to become an entire side-plot within the film and it was at that point I knew that this film was going to be something special. The amount of creativity and imagination on display here is astounding, the use of the multiverse and how that works within Evelyn’s arc blows whatever Marvel’s plans are for their new Saga out of the water with some hilarious, disturbing and impossible to imagine scenarios brought front and centre, from hot-dog hands to butt-plug Kung-Fu. And yet at the centre of it all there is an emotional core focusing on this broken family trying to hold themselves together and often failing, Evelyn has become too cynical after one too many failed plans, her husband Waymond’s constant optimism is starting to wane and her daughter Joy is feeling suffocated by the pressure’s of generational trauma and depression. Together the three of them give this film a strong centre, each adding to the family dynamic – Ke Huy Quan is particularly impressive for how easily he takes to the screen after a 30 year absence – and allowing the film to touch upon the central themes of emotional availability, presumed failures and suicidal regret, which then allows the manic and crazed style of the multiversal insanity to examine the bigger subjects of nihilism, existentialism and absurdity. It’s a film that does it all but balances it perfectly, never letting the insanity distract from the emotional core or vice-versa, it’s a film that has 15 individual stand-out moments and all of them hit just as perfect as the last and it’s a film that easily and handily wins the crown for Best Film of 2022.