The film industry is still getting back on its feet after so many pandemic disruptions, but plenty of good films have managed to make their way to screens both big and small this year. From period drama to contemporary techno thriller, these are the best movies I’ve seen in 2022, in alphabetical order—and with some links to where to watch them.
Benediction
Terence Davies’s lovely film about the British poet Siegfried Sassoon (Jack Lowden) tells a sad story. It’s about men ravaged, physically and mentally, by World War I, and about the pains and negotiations of gay life at a time when such matters were to be kept strictly discreet. The film murmurs with loss, feels tight with denied possibility. And yet it’s also quite funny, a fugue of catty gay wit expertly delivered by its young ensemble cast. (Calam Lynch is a particular standout as famous bon vivant Stephen Tennant.) Benediction is a nice companion piece to Alan Hollinghurst’s marvelous 2017 novel The Sparsholt Affair. Both works depict a time that we in the more accepting present assume must have been full of shame and furtive longing. But, Davies and Hollinghurst suggest, there was a lively, sustaining ecosystem flourishing just behind the closet door, full of passion and creativity and, yes, delicious bons mots.
Fresh
A sleek and satisfying debut feature from director Mimi Cave, Fresh imagines maybe the most awful situation someone could find themselves in. It somehow does so with mordant humor that balances out the clenching horror. Daisy Edgar-Jones, who broke out on TV in 2020’s Normal People, is a commanding lead, playing terror and fiery vengeance with equal verve. As the baddie who imprisons Edgar-Jones’s character for dreadful purposes, Sebastian Stan fluidly blends charm and menace. Fresh is certainly not for the squeamish, but it isn’t mired in tortuous body horror the way some other gruesome gorefests are. The film may get a tad overbearing in its social messaging toward the end, but for the most part, Cave keeps Fresh disarmingly light and kicky—despite the awfulness of the plot. And I do mean awful.
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande
A talky chamber piece that could easily have been a play, Sophie Hyde’s two-hander (written by Katy Brand) nonetheless feels cinematic. That’s owed in large part to Emma Thompson, who gives a glowing movie-star turn as a widow, Nancy, looking to explore her sexuality with a kind, devastatingly handsome sex worker, Leo (Daryl McCormack). Nancy is trying to make up for lost time, which gives Leo Grande its melancholy lilt. It’s a film as much about age and opportunity as it is about carnal desire. McCormack, an up-and-coming Irish talent, is one to keep an eye on—or, fine, both eyes. He has easy chemistry with Thompson, their chatting and bartering bouncing along as Hyde calmly watches from an intimate distance. Bizarrely, this Hulu film is not getting an Oscar qualifying run in theaters, which would surely set Thompson on the path to awards attention next winter. Oh, well. At least it’s readily available on June 17 for all to enjoy, before everyone goes off to seek pleasure of their own. There is, after all, no time like the present.
Happening
With American women’s reproductive rights hanging in precarious balance at the moment, Audrey Diwan’s film has a startling new relevance. But it would be vital no matter the era. Set in 1960s France, Happening follows a bright university student, Anne, trying to obtain an abortion. It becomes something of a suspense film as Anne is forced to navigate the realities of life in a time when the procedure was wholly illegal. Diwan’s film never stops to question its lead character’s morality, instead walking alongside Anne’s determination as she confronts a world so adamantly opposed to her autonomy. Nuanced where it could be didactic, restrained when it could be sensational, Happening is a political film that locates the specific humanity too often overlooked in favor of broad, impersonal argument.
Hit the Road
A grumpy dad with a broken leg, a nervous mother, a sullen adolescent son, and a precocious kid all set out on a road trip together. That may sound like the setup to a cloying Sundance movie, some kind of Little Miss Sunshine knockoff. But Hit the Road, from Iranian filmmaker Panah Panahi, gracefully transcends that cliché. Plucky family comedy is one aspect of the story, yes. But as the mission of the road trip becomes clearer, tragedy begins to loom on the horizon. This is something of a goodbye voyage, a fact that the family is reluctant to talk about lest it upset the youngest son, played with buoyant energy by Rayan Sarlak. (Pantea Panahiha, as the increasingly despondent mother, is another standout.) Hit the Road is a subtle critique of Iran’s repressive government, but less direct in its attack than are the films of Panahi’s countryman Asghar Farhadi. Hit the Road also teems with cinematic style, full of gorgeous camera work and blares of Iranian pop tunes. It’s an arresting debut for Panahi, who thoughtfully captures both mighty vistas and small interior moments.
Kimi
Ever a keen manipulator of genre, director Steven Soderbergh took the COVID movie form—minimal cast, few locations, a nervous and cramped comportment—and turned it into whizbang entertainment. Kimi imagines one woman’s isolation as a prelude to Rear Window–esque intrigue, the suspense ratcheting up as the titular character, played with gloom and mettle by Zoë Kravitz, works to uncover a murderous conspiracy. Taut and clever, Kimi makes smart commentary on technology, both its usefulness and its pervasive creep into everyday life. It’s a spare, efficient film that still feels more substantial than much of the popcorn stuff that has braved theatrical release since this whole mess began.
The Outfit
A literate little thriller like we rarely see these days, cowriter-director Graham Moore’s twisty gangster tale is great Saturday night fun. Mark Rylance plays Leonard, a former Savile Row suit cutter who has relocated to postwar Chicago, meticulously tending to his work while in the background mobsters use his shop as a place to drop secret communiqués. Of course, Leonard is eventually swept up in their nefarious dealings, in the process revealing himself to be more capable than any of these wise guys could have imagined. Rylance leans heavily on his idiosyncratic muttering, but holds it safely away from shtick. Moore keeps the film crackling along, characters entering and exiting the way they might in some great old West End murder mystery. If the COVID era has encouraged this kind of inventive scaling down, that, if nothing else, is a good thing.
Petite Maman
While Céline Sciamma’s film was technically eligible for the 2021 awards season, I’m listing it here because it wasn’t properly released in the U.S. until this spring. It’s a tiny wonder of a film, a 72-minute fable about a little girl in France who meets another little girl in the woods behind her grandmother’s house. The identity of that second child may be given away by the title, but Petite Maman is not really a movie that can be spoiled. It can certainly be felt—all its delicate insights on grief and time and filial bonds pack quite an emotional punch. Sweet and sorrowful, Petite Maman shows us yet another facet of Sciamma’s boggling range. It’s as feather-light and introspective as Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire is robust and declarative.
Vortex
Gaspar Noé is not a filmmaker known for subtlety. His films—Enter the Void, Climax, Love—make brash statements amid an often harrowing visual swirl. It’s fascinating, then, to see him work on a more modest scale with Vortex, a story of two elderly Parisians confronting the end of the things as they shuffle around their cluttered flat. The film isn’t lacking in style: Noé’s nervy conceit is to stage the whole film in split screen, a technique that could be mere irksome gimmick were it not for Noé’s deft deployment. Vortex is a shattering film, reminiscent of Michael Haneke’s similarly themed Amour in all its bluntness about senility and deterioration. But there is a care and compassion guiding the film that feels like a step forward for the director. This is not light summer viewing in the slightest—so maybe save Vortex for the fall, when its chilly look at where a lot of us are headed better fits the seasonal mood.
You Won’t Be Alone
Had Goran Stolevski’s exquisite film received a Cannes premiere and then run the fall-festival circuit, I suspect it would be one of the more talked-about international features of the year. Alas, it quietly debuted at a virtual Sundance and had an unremarkable early April release. Which is a shame, as You Won’t Be Alone is one of the great film achievements of the year, a haunting and gorgeous meditation on existence that pays gracious tribute to Terrence Malick. Set in rural Macedonia some 200 or so years ago, the film concerns a shape-shifting witch who roams the countryside trying on various human forms. (She unfortunately has to kill her subjects first.) What could be a bloody horror is instead, in Stolevski’s gentle but assured hands, a lyrical consideration of gender, sexuality, and interpersonal connection. It’s a stunning film that will hopefully enjoy cult status once it’s been seen by more people than its unceremonious release allowed.
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June 15, 2022 at 10:51PM
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The Best Movies of 2022, So Far - Vanity Fair
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