The 12 best films of 2022 so far
(Image credit: Alamy)
BBC Culture film critics Nicholas Barber and Caryn James pick their highlights of the year so far, including Top Gun: Maverick, Turning Red and Everything Everywhere All at Once.
Everything Everywhere All At Once
Delightfully bonkers on the surface, this inventive extravaganza from
the directing team called Daniels (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) has
a deep layer of family feeling and a well-earned emotional pull at the
end. Michelle Yeoh is ideal and comically straight-faced as Evelyn, a
harried laundromat owner with tax problems who enters a multiverse of alt-Evelyns.
Exploding with colour, at times the film is a phantasmagoria of
morphing identities and shifting universes – in one Evelyn does laundry,
in another she's a movie star – yet it always remains true to its
believably humane characters. It's the rare art film that can make
audiences cry, and also rake in a ton of money, nearly $60 million at the US box office so far. (CJ)
Top Gun: Maverick
Even those of us who weren't
fans of 1986's Top Gun had to admit that when Pete "Maverick"
Mitchell (Tom Cruise) returned to the US Navy's elite fighter-pilot
school, the resulting blockbuster was touching, thrilling and pretty much flawless.
So ... how do you make a successful sequel to a film that came out more
than 30 years ago? Simple, really. You bring back all of the elements
that people might remember from the original, but ensure that every
single one of those elements is 10 times better, whether it's a
slow-burning relationship or a supersonic aerobatic display. (NB)
Happening
The past is a template for the present
in Audrey Diwan's eloquent, heart-wrenching story of an ordinary
college student, Anne (touchingly played by Anamaria Vartolomei),
desperate to get an abortion in France in 1963. Knowing that motherhood
would destroy her future, Anne unhesitatingly seeks out illegal help, in
detailed scenes that expose the hypocrisy of the medical establishment
and the callousness of society at large. Diwan's measured approach
reflects the heroine's quiet determination, avoiding preachiness and
melodrama even as Anne races against time toward a suspenseful ending.
Artful and socially resonant, Happening is one of the most poignant and
moving films of the year. (CJ)
Turning Red
The animated feature film to beat at next year's Oscars, this joyous Pixar coming-of-age cartoon
introduces a 13-year-old Chinese-Canadian (voiced by Rosalie Chiang)
who transforms into a giant fluffy red panda whenever she is stressed.
Her fast-moving misadventures are rendered with all the expertise you
would expect from Pixar, but Turning Red is more personal than the
studio's other releases. From its multi-cultural urban setting to its
positivity about being a proudly nerdy teenage girl, everything in it
seems to come straight from the heart of its director and co-writer,
Domee Shi. It already feels like a classic. (NB)
Navalny
If Russia had never invaded Ukraine, this documentary about the Russian politician Alexei Navalny would
still stand as a gripping, intimate journey with one of Vladimir
Putin's most outspoken critics. The film follows him after he was
poisoned by a nerve agent in 2020, and received medical treatment in
Germany. Navalny himself often speaks directly to the camera – witty and
uncompromising as he urges the director, Daniel Roher, not to be
boring. In a stunning episode, he pretends to be a Russian government
official, and phones a real operative who describes exactly how the
Russians poisoned Navalny. Later, the cameras follow him back to Russia.
He was quickly put in prison, where he remains. Time has only made this
trenchant film more effective. (CJ)
The Duke
Kempton Bunton, played by Jim Broadbent on irresistible form, is a retired Newcastle taxi driver who confesses to stealing a Goya portrait of The Duke of Wellington from London's National Gallery in 1961. He climbed through one of the Gallery's toilet windows, he explains, because he was upset about the cost of television licence fees for pensioners. Based on true events, The Duke is a witty, well crafted, cosily nostalgic British comedy that nonetheless makes a few sharp political points about establishment snobbery. Sadly, it was the last feature film to be directed by the late Roger Michell (Notting Hill / Venus). (NB)
Men
The latest evidence that Alex Garland (Ex Machina, Annihilation) is one of the most audacious directors around, Men is a sly take on sexism and male privilege
that is by turns witty, horror-filled, supernatural and socially
astute. Jessie Buckley solidly grounds the drama as Harper, alone in a
country house as she recovers from a personal trauma, and Rory Kinnear
vibrantly plays multiple toxic males, from a schoolboy to a menacing
vicar. Seen entirely from Harper's point of view, the film toys with
genres but is also a thoughtful exploration of perception and reality,
of guilt and grief. (CJ)
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
It
may not be the year's best science-fiction extravaganza about alternate
realities – that honour goes to Everything Everywhere All At Once – but
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is deliriously entertaining in its own right. The weirdest and scariest of Marvel's blockbusters, it was directed by Sam Raimi,
who made both the Evil Dead and the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man trilogy,
and he fills the screen with his love of classic superhero comics and
horror movies. The film isn't just an exuberant celebration of pulp
fantasy, though. There are some poignant musings on family, faith and
sacrifice in among the flying zombies and green-furred minotaurs. (NB)
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The 12 best films of 2022 so far - BBC Culture
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