And now the real countdown begins. Here are my Top 50 films of 2021. All of these films received 4 stars (out of 5) or higher. It was very difficult to rank them, so on any given day the exact order might shift a bit. Interestingly enough films that revolved around grief as a them did very well in 2021. Upon early reflection I considered grief to be incredibly cinematic. It’s something we all go through at some point in our lives, and can relate to, but it manifests in people so differently. There are films from all over the world, first-time to seasons directors, narratives, a few documentaries, and lots of dramas.
#50 – Language Lessons, directed by Natalie Morales (USA) – A clever premise and a surprising twist turned LANGUAGE LESSONS, shot during the pandemic through videochat, an incredibly affecting and effective story. As a gift, Adam’s husband gives him weekly Spanish lessons online, taught immersively by Cariño, a native Spanish-speaker living in Costa Rica. Adam is uncertain how he’s going to fit these lessons into his daily routine, but when an event occurs that totally disrupts his life he finds something in Cariño he never would have expected. It really helps that Mark Duplass ad Natalie Morales are such engaging and charismatic performer, even through the rectangular box of a web chat. If the story takes a swerve or two toward the melodramatic, it is after all a depiction of life over a period of time, and we all have our ups and downs. This is also a great examination of grief and how its effects are often manifested in behaviors that don’t seem at all connected with the loss being face. ****
#49 – Eyimofe (This is My Desire), directed by Arie Esiri and Chuko Esiri (Nigeria) – This complex and humanistic narrative written and directed by twin Nigerian brothers, won Best First Feature at the 2020 Berlin Film Festival, and justifiably. The film, nearly split down the middle, follows the stories of two loosely connected individuals, trying desperately to leave Nigeria for Europe. Mofe is a handyman, how is treated poorly at work, but doesn’t care because he just got his passport and visa to leave the country. When a tragic accident upends his life both personally and financially, he finds his documents are not enough to allow for an easy escape. Rosa’s life seems superficially a step up, as the hairdresser occasionally has clients in posher locations, which is where she meets a wealthy American who takes a shine to her. Is Rosa using this man to get out of the country, like his friends suggest, or is she genuinely attracted to him. Her situation at home where she takes care of her pregnant younger sister complicates things even more, as the brothers quietly address additional inequities of gender on top of class in Rosa’s story. ****
#48 – Lapsis, directed by Noah Hutton (USA) – For his feature debut, writer/director Noah Hutton tackles the uncertainty of the economy and marries it to a vaguely science fiction premise set in a parallel present. Ray is doing his best to get by, and take care of his brother who is suffering from a new form of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Problem is, Ray’s not your industrious go-getter sort. He wants the easy way to make a quick buck. The newest trend and fastest growing industry is quantum cable, and it involves dozens of people hiking through remote areas, dragging carts of unspooling cable that they connect to large, cube-shaped quantum power sources in the wilderness. Through luck, maybe good, maybe bad, Ray inherits a medallion (think cab driver) of a past cabler who had logged lots of hours already, putting in place for the big money-making routes that also tax his out-of-shape physicality. On his first weekend out, he encounters suspicion and resentment when he shares his username, and he realizes that the previous medallion owner was well-known and rather infamous. When he shares his route with Anna for a time, he starts to uncover all sorts of politics and plots lurking just beneath the surface of this new industry, and he must decide upon which side he will stand. ****
#47 – The Trouble With Being Born, directed by Sandra Wollner (Austria/Germany) – This provocative film cause a bit of controversy during its festival release, and could cause some trigger warnings to go off with some viewers, but Wollner took great care to protect the lead actor, herself a minor, from anything inappropriate. Set in the future, the film starts with a father and daughter spending a leisurely summer afternoon by the pool. When a shocking event occurs, it is revealed that the daughter is in fact, not human, but an adroid. The two share an easy relationship, that is gradually revealed to be somewhat more than a typical father/daughter relationship. When the girl starts to have disjointed memories of earlier times, it spurs her to leaves her home, and the movie makes a radical shift. She is found on the road by a man driving by, and is brought to a new household to live with an elderly woman. There she is given a new identity to fill a loss the woman suffered decades ago. The adjustment does not go smoothly, and eventually breaks down with devastating results. Wollner explores many troubling themes in this film, including grief, gender identity, and taboo relationships, but none more directly as the ethical treatment of artificial intelligences.
#46 – No Future, directed by Andrew Irvine and Mark Smoot (USA) – What sounds like a sordid plot from the trashy soap opera is handled with intelligence and care, and bolstered by remarkable lead performances to become a portrait of the collective trauma that is running rampant through small towns across America due to drug addiction. Will is clearly uncomfortable hen an old friend shows up at his door. Will is a recovering addict, on the verge of hope that a drug-free life is within his grasp, so out of self-preservation, he rebuffs his old pal Chris who is still hooked on drugs. When Chris dies of an overdose that night in his bedroom, Will is wracked with guilt, and attends the funeral service where he reconnects with Chris’ mother, Claire. The pair’s mutual grief brings them together, and despite the fact that Will is on the verge of a commitment to move in with his girlfriend, he ends up involved in an affair with Claire. Addiction and guilt do not mix well, and when deception is added to the mix, there’s no way for this story to go except downhill. Fortunately, Irvine and Smoot have written a nuanced screenplay that avoids sensationalism, and the performances by Charlie Heaton and Catherine Keener are beautiful in their vulnerability and sensitivity. One scene in particular that shows Claire imagining that two young women are talking about her and her son at her place of work is a revelation, and a lovely moment to show the range that Keener is able to bring to a role that is so far beyond the smart, cynical character she so often is known for. ****
#61 – Beans, directed by Tracey Deer – Quebecois coming-of-age film set during the Oka Crisis, the turbulent Indigenous uprising that tore Quebec and Canada apart for 78 tense days in the summer of 1990. It was certainly a dark moment in Canadian history, and the archival footage director Deer weaves into the narrative film is incredibly effective to tell this horrifically fraught tale. The coming-of-age story, centering on a 12-year-old girl whose Mohawk name is difficult to pronounce, so everyone calls her Beans, is slightly less successful, although makes for a nice humanistic touchstone while the racial prejudice threatens to smother everything around it.
#60 – Cowboys, directed by Anna Kerrigan – There was something about this modern-day western that is also a domestic drama, and a social commentary about gender, that really worked for me. Writer/director Anna Kerrigan hits all the expected tropes then upends them a bit, making them all that more real, and effective. Recently separated from his wife, Troy (Steve Zahn), who is treated for an unspecified mental illness after spending a couple of years in prison, runs off with his trans son, Joe, heading through the Montana wilderness in hopes of crossing the border into Canada. His ex-wife (Jillian Bell) refused to acknowledge their son’s gender, which was causing Joe great amounts of confusion and discomfort. The local law, in the form of a Detective named Faith (Ann Dowd), leads the effort to track them down. When Troy’s medication is lost in the woods, everything grows more complicated.
#59 – Red Moon Tide, directed by Lois Patiño – The Galacian coast in Spain featured in RED MOON TIDE is wild and beautiful, and provides a dark and mythic backdrop for this unique film written and directed by Lois Patiño. This haunting tale is told with an unnerving combination of staged, static shots… on landscapes, groups of people, people alone, mostly still, like mannequins staged for some sort of macabre exhibition, and voiceover, presumably the inner monologues of the frozen townsfolk in tableaux. They are ruminating about a fisherman, Rubio, who is convinced a massive creature is lurking in the depths of the ocean, hunting the shores of the town, as he discovers more and more corpses at sea. He retrieves the corpses to bring the villagers back home, but now his ship has run aground and he himself is among the missing. Along with Rubio, it seems the spirits of the villagers have fled as well, leaving only their bodies… immobile, waiting… for what, we are not sure.
#58 – Perfumes, directed by Grégory Magne – There’s nothing all that unique about this French comedy, but it’s quite noteworthy, and enjoyable, because it really does everything right. Guillaume (Grégory Montel) is a chauffeur, whose recent traffic violations are making his boss reluctant to use him on jobs. Going through a divorce, Guillaume needs a steady income in order to get a larger home so he can share custody of his daughter, who he adores, so his boss lets him take a client who is known to be difficult. Anne Wallberg (Emmanuelle Devos) is a former celebrity in the perfume world. but she has fallen out of favor and now takes jobs set up by her agent that take advantage of her ‘nose,’ a discerning sense of scents, to mask the smell of a odor-belching factory, or replicate the smell of a fine leather handbag for atmosphere. Anne is soft-spoken, but arrogant and with high expectations, treating Guillaume more as a personal valet than a driver. Their evolving relationship forms the core of the film.
#57 – Fish & Men, directed by Adam Jones and Darby Duffin – Filmmakers do a great job weaving multiple narratives into a cohesive story about the fishing industry from ocean to plate. From Gloucester, MA to Norway, Japan, Montauk NY, Washington DC, Wellfleet, and Los Angeles, this documentary manages to cover a lot of ground and a lot of fascinating, related subjects.
#56 – I Was A Simple Man, directed by Christopher Makoto Yogi – One of the many great films exploring grief that I enjoyed last year, this film follows Masao on his gradual journey from life to death. Much of that journey takes place in the form of memory, but like UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES, Masao is also visited by his beloved wife who died years before and sits with him as he loses touch with his life. Masao led a life of isolation, so it’s also difficult for the family he is leaving behind who now find themselves called upon to help out as his body starts to shut down. While Masao and much of his family live on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, they live on opposite sides, and one son lives on the mainland. It falls upon one of his grandsons, Gavin, to take care of him during his final days. Gavin is perplexed by this situation as he never really knew Masao very well when he was alive, and his rural way of life differs greatly from big city life in Honolulu. Masao barely registers Gavin’s presence, lost as he is in his memories, and preparing for his journey.
#55 – Ayar, directed by Floyd Russ – This experimental film blends the real life stories of the actors involved, with a fictional narrative about three generations of immigrant women exploring complex mother/daughter relationships and the difficult choices that they face. Ayar wants to attend her daughter’s fifth birthday party. She gets a cake, a balloon, and heads over to her mother’s home where the party is underway. When she arrives, Ayar’s mother, Renata tells her family to take the girl inside, while she confronts her daughter, telling her to leave. It turns out that Ayar left her daughter in Renata’s care five years ago when she headed to Vegas with a man who wanted to make her a singing star. It’s a tense, emotional confrontation, made all the more charged because of the COVID-19 pandemic the characters are dealing with. Most interestingly, the film features brief sequences when the two lead actresses are interviewed about their own life experiences and how some version of their lives ended up becoming the basis for the film’s narrative. This melange of family drama, pandemic horror story, and behind-the-scenes making of a film documentary come together to create something unique and compelling.
#54 – The Perfect Candidate, directed by Haifaa Al-Mansour – Maryam recently bought a sporty, blue car (almost all of the other cars seen on the roads are white or silver) and she is seen driving it in mammy scenes. Yet she still faces many of the limitations of her gender in modern day Saudi Arabia. Although she is a doctor, she must endure the disgust of many older, male patients who refuse to have her touch them, or even look them in the eye, and would rather a man, even an unqualified man, treat them when injured. In the catalyst situation for the film, Maryam seeks to travel to a medical conference in Dubai to interview for a position at a more progressive hospital, only to be denied when her travel papers are not in order, and her father is unavailable to help renew them. In an attempt to get help from a relative in an administrative government position, Maryam signs up to run for Municipal Council in her town, an action that changes her life and opens her up to possibilities she never thought possible.
#53 – Keep An Eye Out, directed by Quentin Dupieux – Dupieux has such an offbeat way of telling a story, and this film doesn’t really reveal itself fully until the end, so I won’t give anything away. What starts as a police interrogation, with maybe one or two hints that it’s a little quirky, end up as a bizarre examination of story-telling, or exposition. I really don’t know what else to say about it, but it’s fun and well worth a look at just over an hour.
#52 – Summer of 85, directed by Francois Ozon – I wasn’t really expecting a lot from this coming-of-age, cum summer romance between two beautiful young men (barely) in a seaside resort town in France. It seemed fairly straight-forward, except we are immediately dropped into a flashback where we know something terrible has happened. It quickly became apparent that this film had a bit of a melodramatic, nearly camp undertone that underlay the over-the-top romanticism of one young man’s first love, and another’s capriciously tormenting actions that lead to devastating consequences. The passion swirling around the boats on the sea, or in the fishing shop where the two boys work with one of their mothers is sweeping, and something that hopefully we have all been caught up in at least once in our lives. It certainly seemed authentic from a teen point of view, and somehow it all worked for me. Not in a serious way, but in a fun, over-the-top way. 
#51 – Sweet Thing, directed by Alexandre Rockwell – A 14-year-old girl goes on the run with her younger brother and a new friend in this nicely balanced fantasy and hard-hitting slice of reality from Alexandre Rockwell, SWEET THING. Billie, named after the famous singer, takes care of her younger brother Nico, and her alcoholic father, who is caring a fairly functional sometimes, and horribly out of control at other times. Mom has taken off to spend time with a boorish boyfriend. Despite this, Billie is filled with caring, and she is the glue that keeps this family going, but it’s a burden to hard for anyone, much less a 14-year-old girl to bear, and when her dad is arrested and sent to rehab, and Billie and Nico must spend time with Mom and boyfriend at his beach house, that’s when things really take a turn for the even worse. Shot in gorgeous, grainy black & white the streets of New Bedford, MA never looked grimmer. Rockwell uses his family for the leads, with his two kids playing Billie and Nico, and their mother playing their movie Mom. As Billie, Lana Rockwell is a star in the making if she wants to pursue acting as a career. She is captivating on screen, with presence, warmth, and a gorgeous look.
My #1 book of the year comes from an author whose work I have followed pretty much since his debut short story collection, The Secret Lives of People in Love in 2007. That was actually the second of his works that I read, first discovering him thanks to my friends at HarperCollins with his follow-up collection, Love Begins in Winter published in 2009. I didn’t do a list of favorite books read in that year, but I suspect Love Begins in Winter would have at minimum been in my Top 10, with a good chance it would have ranked considerably higher. After publishing a trio of books of essays, Simon published his first novel in 2011, Everything Beautiful Began After which ranked #8 in my list of 
#1 – Night Came With Many Stars by Simon Van Booy (2021) – It’s always exciting when you’re a few chapters in and you start to realize that the book you’re reading is going to be a great one. Night Came With Many Stars the latest novel by Simon Van Booy, is one such book. A gifted writer, Simon’s books are all good, but there are a couple of his that rank among my favorites. His latest, a exquisite telling of four generations of a family living in Kentucky from the early 30’s to 2010, is an unexpected and delightful return to that echelon of beauty. Along with Patricia A. McKillip, Van Booy is one of the few authors whose use of language alone is enough to get me to read their work, regardless of subject. In this novel, the care and warmth in which Simon treats the members of this family is simply breath-taking, even as it is simple.