Here we go with my self-proclaimed Best Movies of 2012.
My typical disclaimer: I rarely, very rarely, recommend Hollywood blockbusters. It happens even more rarely the older I get. So as much as I love big epic fantasy as a genre, those titles tend to be underrepresented on my list. Instead, I usually go with quieter films – fantasy or not – with a strong narrative pull, real emotionality, and that highly subjective quality of resonance.
Another disclaimer: you may ask yourself, where are the queer films? Well, I didn’t see many of them, and I have no idea if that’s a reflection of the lower output (or quality) of queer cinema in 2012 or a random quirk of my movie-going behavior this year. I’ve included one film with a gay supporting character in my Honorable Mentions. Feel free to tell me what I should have seen.
What I do have is a list of great films featuring young adult characters.
I braced myself to see this ultra-heavy movie about an emotionally disturbed boy who grows up to do horrific things, and his embattled mother’s attempts to stop him. WNTTAK showcased the best acting of the year IMHO, with Tilda Swinton as the helpless, deeply-scarred mom, and Ezra Miller as the relentlessly destructive son. To boot, the story comes with an ending that leaves things quite reasonably unfinished yet with just a sliver of hope. My favorite film of the year.
Life of Pi was an unabashedly sentimental film. But give me an unabashedly sentimental film with an underdog hero I can get behind, like shipwrecked Suraj Sharma in the title role, and I’m a happy camper.
I thought the story was ridiculously imaginative and totally believable, due to Ang Lee’s direction and the tremendous special effects. It works whether you believe a boy survives on a life raft with a wild tiger, or the alternative version of the story revealed at the end.
I used the film’s French poster because I like it better.
Chronicle is one of the few 2012 fantasy movies I loved. Three teenage boys discover a mysterious object in the woods that gives them telekinetic abilities. Hand-held filming and capable, unknown actors give the movie an authentic feel – the antithesis to typical Hollywood superhero-storytelling. The movie left me thinking: this is what would really happen if a teenage boy unlocked supernatural abilities.
Honorable Mentions
I can’t fully recommend Snow White and the Huntsman because too many things bugged me about the storyline. It felt to me there was a missed opportunity to develop Charlize Theron’s Evil Queen further, taking her beyond the misogynistic bent of the source material. And the Huntsman seemed like a throwaway character, existing solely to create the possibility of a happy heterosexual ending for Snow White (who was played excellently by Kristin Stewart).
But the film had outstanding artistry and great world-building, along with lots of good intentions, just narrowly missing the mark for me.
Films about troubled suburban white kids have come a long way. I grew up on John Hughes’ movies in the 1980’s, and though I loved their comic moments of adolescent calamity (rendered most successfully in Sixteen Candles, I think), they always felt too safe and sanitized.
Nowadays, filmmakers can delve much deeper into the hardest problems facing teens. Perks of Being a Wallflower, based on Stephen Chbosky’s 1999 novel, does a commendable job in this regard. There’s a touch of familiarity to the film’s band of quirky, alienated characters, but they are beautifully brought to life by terrific casting (Ezra Miller shows once again that he is expertly suited as a teen anti-hero). What I liked the most about the film was the subtlety with which the main character Charlie’s (Logan Lerman) psychic wounds are revealed.
The narrow missing of the mark for me on this one was a heavy-handed ending. The film does such a good job of slowly unveiling complex issues – childhood sexual abuse, the loneliness of gay adolescence, dating violence – it felt unfair to wrap everything up neatly in the promise of enduring teen friendships.
