Stephen Prager
Layout Editor
Hollywood was firing on all cylinders in 2017. Not only was there an uncharacteristically consistent amount of quality among the big box-office champions (Marvel, DC, Star Wars), but 2017 also saw a staggering amount of variety in the films that impressed. Among 2017 Oscar contenders are a low-budget horror movie by a novice director, a coming-of-age tale that elegantly skirts the conventions of the young-adult genre, a disorienting war drama by a heavyweight director, and the most acclaimed DC Comics film in years. And on my list of the five best films of the year, that diversity is ever present:
5) Spider-Man: HomecomingThe immediately attractive thing about the latest installment in the Spider-Man canon is that its titular hero once again embodies the youthfulness and energy that best suits the character. Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield each have their own strengths as actors, but the role always suffered a bit under their watch because both actors naturally endow Peter Parker with an overly abundant amount of inborn charisma and competence. It could be a matter of taste, but there’s something much more fun, not to mention riotously funny, about watching Tom Holland portray a dorky 15-year-old Peter Parker learning how to wield immeasurable power he can only begin to comprehend. “With great power comes great responsibility” is the cornerstone line of the Spider-Man franchise, and Homecoming embodies that spirit by focusing on the growing pains of a young, starstruck Spider-Man learning to become truly heroic.
4) Dunkirk
In recent memory, it’s hard to recall a war film as intense and enveloping as Dunkirk, Christopher Nolan’s momentous World War II epic. It drops the viewer in center of pure panic and hysteria and forces them to make sense out of the various struggles that have befallen the British and French armies attempting to evacuate the doomed area. The pacing is lighting quick and the film bounces back and forth between several riveting plot lines that share a stunning unity in their filmography. The film is technically breathtaking to behold, with towering, thunderous explosions that erupt over the film’s grim color scheme of sea-foam green and murky grey. The individual characters are somewhat underdeveloped, with little distinct dialogue or growth, but that actually serves the overarching goals of the film quite nicely, allowing it to take on the miraculous event on the grand scale it deserves.
3) Darkest Hour
2017 was a great year for World War II epics, and Darkest Hour actually serves as a great companion piece for Dunkirk. While Dunkirk is probably the technically superior film, Darkest Hour is the more fleshed-out narrative, detailing the dilemma of Prime Minister Winston Churchill (portrayed magnificently by Gary Oldman) as a Nazi invasion stares Britain in the face and he is pressured from all sides to engage in negotiations with Adolf Hitler. Darkest Hour’s Churchill is headstrong and a bit of a boor, to the point where it borders on caricature. But what makes the portrayal resonant is that while Churchill’s fellow Tories seem more measured and calculated in their discussions of appeasement, Churchill, through all his bluster, always seems more prescient than his detractors. That, as well as the constantly pervasive sense of impending demise really sells the story as something with immense gravity. Darkest Hour fits nicely alongside the best biopics of other great historical figures like Lincoln and Selma, but also World War II films like The Imitation Game, and the aforementioned Dunkirk.
2) I, Tonya
A film that attempts to exonerate Tonya Harding has no right to be this good. But somehow, the film manages to make the disgraced figure skater not only sympathetic, but a tragic heroine of sorts. Harding is, of course, remembered for the attack carried out by her affiliates against her Olympic opponent Nancy Kerrigan, and known as a national villain. I, Tonya displays Harding, played with stunning authenticity by Margot Robbie (who makes a serious case for best actress here), and her side of the story through the framing device of mockumentary style interviews. The interviews, reportedly based on real accounts, display the explanations of Harding and her husband Jeff Gillooly, as well as a host of other players in the headline dominating Olympic scandal explaining themselves. Some are ridden with bitterness, some display twinges of regret, and others still don’t seem to grasp where it all went wrong. The interviews overlay a recounting of Harding’s entire life - a life in which parental and spousal abuse, poverty, and systemic classism on the part of the Olympic judges doomed her from the start. The verity of these accounts is obviously dubious, but the film treats this with a nod and a wink, as if the sensationalism of Harding’s accounts is meant to contain some meta-commentary on the slanted national tabloid coverage of the scandal. I, Tonya is more clever, dark, and achingly tragic than I ever would have expected going in.
1) Get Out
Jordan Peele’s directorial debut Get Out, which takes the number one spot, is a horror film in which the most terrifying feelings come not from the supernatural elements it presents, but from the way those elements are used to dissect something very real and disheartening. The discomfort in Get Out comes from the film’s penetrating, Twilight Zone-esque deconstruction of the subtle racism from those who profess themselves as allies against discrimination, but still benefit from it and contribute to it, perhaps without awareness. The film explores this using its protagonist, Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya), a young black man from New York who travels to meet his white girlfriend Rose Armitage’s parents at their secluded estate in the woods. When he arrives, the Armitages are uncomfortably cordial, fixating on Chris’s race in a way that is envious, yet overcompensating. As the weekend continues, the Armitages are revealed to have harvested the bodies of countless young, black people as vessels for their own minds - and Chris has no choice but to “get out”. The film is a superb thing to witness on every level. For the viewers who let the social commentary go over their heads, there is a thrilling, disquieting horror story with a solid dose of comedy. But for others, the film’s subtext presents opportunities to contemplate over intrinsic racism and how it can emerge even in the well-intentioned.
Honorable Mentions:
The Post
The Big Sick
Ladybird
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
The Shape of Water
