By Robert Bouffard
The 2019 movie year showed that sometimes it’s best to see everything the year has to offer before making an overall value judgment. Lots of people, myself included, had written the year off mostly as a dud by May. But now, here we are in January of 2020, and I think 2019 was the best year for movies of the 2010s.
From Avengers: Endgame, to Joker, US, Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood, The Lion King, and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, there were lots of movies that made big splashes, and got people talking and into theaters. Meanwhile, there were great movies to get Film Twitter excited — The Farewell, Little Women, Marriage Story, The Irishman, and Uncut Gems, to name a few. Whether you love popcorn movies, awards hopefuls, or a little of both, there were multiple quality releases for you this year.
Now, outside of film, the world continued to be a complicated place. America, specifically, became increasingly divided. Naturally, the movies that were released this year became reflections of current world events.
Out of the many significant themes to be explored at the movies in 2019, perhaps the most prolific was the importance of togetherness.
Unity was greatly on display all throughout the year. In fact, it was concluded with The Rise of Skywalker, whose main theme is a focus on people coming together to accomplish seemingly insurmountable obstacles. This movie practically ends with Poe saying, “It’s just people” in regard to a surge of backup against the evil in the galaxy. While this is basically copy and pasted from 2017’s Dunkirk, and more notably, Avengers: Endgame, it was cool to end the year with a microcosm of the most important message that had been seen at the movies.
Forgiveness, acceptance of the downtrodden, and coming together could be found left and right on the big screen. A few of my favorite examples of this were Waves, Midsommar, and The Peanut Butter Falcon. Waves produces the most raw and devastating, but hopeful and real emotions out of any movie this year. It goes a long way into discovering how to forgive people, and to be united in love as a result. Midsommar takes a deep and disturbing look at how simply having human support can drastically improve your life, while The Peanut Butter Falcon shows just how important investing in the life of a person who dearly needs that investment can be. I think these movies do perfectly what movies like Abominable, Pain & Glory, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, and Jojo Rabbit all try to do with varying degrees of success. But what I appreciated from these movies (and so many more that I could list) is their devotion and recognition of the value of our relationships with the people in our everyday lives.
Similarly, there was a small group of movies which I thought were able to help you see from the point of view of a person you wouldn’t have otherwise seen. Yes, the intention of almost every movie should be to make you feel some sort of empathy for the characters, but these few movies do so in a way that should be recognized, and even celebrated. To me, the best of these is the criminally underseen and underappreciated Hotel Mumbai. All too often these days, we hear of a tragic shooting, bombing, or some other kind of terrorist attack, and we send our thoughts to the people involved without really internalizing what this attack really meant. We’ll see a number on a screen to show how many people were killed or injured, and it won’t register that those are actual valuable human lives. At least, that’s how it can tend to be for me. But this movie puts you right in the shoes of a group of people in a building being attacked by terrorists. It makes you realize the actual fear and dread that these people are feeling as they are literally fighting for their lives. This movie is so powerful.
A few other movies to address this are Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile, The Two Popes, The Art of Self-Defense, and Luce. What Luce does differently from these other films, though, is to point out the political reasons a person may be treated differently.
This leads us to the next most prevalent theme of the year: anxiety and pushback against “the system.”
Some of my absolute favorite movies of the year (perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not) dive into this. Parasite, Knives Out, Little Women, and US each on some level attempt to expose injustice inherent in the system. Parasite presents escaping from the lowest level of poverty as an impossibility, while US and Knives Out show that those who we look at as a having a lesser status than ourselves are just as human and just as deserving of basic rights as we are, and vice versa. Conversely, Little Women shows that being born into a certain social status should not preclude you from these aforementioned rights. There is a whole laundry list of other films (including The Laundromat!) exposing the way people are wrongfully systematically oppressed, and the apparent lack of interest in doing anything to change it. These movies are both smart and widely accessible, which gives me as a viewer hope in their power. Everyone likes to think that they can make a difference in the world, and these filmmakers are doing their part in bringing real attention to hugely important issues. Even movies that I don’t think are as narratively successful, such as Just Mercy, Bombshell, and Joker do their part in bringing light to important issues.
The final largely popular theme was that of people grappling with their age and relationships.
Obviously there is Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood and The Irishman, in which two masters of cinema gave us their magnum opuses, both of which had rich metatextual narratives on the filmmakers’ own careers. But personal stories can often be the most wide reaching because I found them to be deeply moving and relatable. Meanwhile, Ad Astra and Marriage Story go a long way into exploring the effects of different kinds of relationships on the human psyche. In fact, in those two movies alone, relationships with parents, spouses, friends, family, and God are all explored. In a beautiful way, I saw myself and my own experiences in just these few films.
There were lots of great messages being seen at the movies in 2019, and these messages were being sent by lots of diverse voices, which is excellent. It is great and noticeable growth. This doesn’t need to be recognized by the Oscars or Golden Globes for it to be true (although it would be really nice if they were acknowledged more outwardly there). The fact of the matter is, the general public is really beginning to see more and more people get the chance to shine, and you can’t be anything but happy about this. In a world where people complain that only superhero movies and genre fare can make their way to the big screen, we have amazing, personal stories being told by lots of different kinds of people. These stories can be accessed from the comfort of our own homes or on the silver screen.
But what do all of these themes show us? What can we learn, or stand to gain personally and as a society from watching movies? Well, a lot, actually. Film is the perfect medium to send big and important messages. The theater gives you a captive audience to listen to your message and have empathy for the characters and themes you portray on the big screen. So these filmmakers have the kind of opportunity to spread messages that I don’t have just by writing this piece or by sending a Tweet. And when specific injustices in the world exist, lots of people recognize them and craft their own stories to demonstrate how they feel about these injustices.
The themes being portrayed in 2019 can all be boiled down fairly simply: Life is precious and we should value it. No matter who you are — whether you’re an astronaut floating through space looking for your long lost father, a woman in the 1860s trying to break free of the restrictions society has tried so hard to place on you, or a young sister who feels completely betrayed by an egregious act by your brother — your life has value. You deserve acceptance, forgiveness, love, hope, and basic human rights. And so does everyone else.
My Top 10 Favorites of 2019:
10. Uncut Gems
9. Ad Astra
8. Midsommar
7. Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood
6. Little Women
5. US
4. Hotel Mumbai
3. Knives Out
2. Parasite
1. Waves