Top 10 Films of 2005

 

by Ted Murphy

Even though the box-office suffered this year, for a variety of reasons, it actually wasn’t such a bad year as far as the quality of movies is concerned. Finding 10 films sometimes can be a chore but this year there were more than enough to fill several lists. I easily could have included worthy features like Forty Shades of Blue, Ira Sachs’ Sundance winner about the unlikely romantic triangle involving an ageing music mogul (Rip Torn), his bored Russian-born common-law wife (the exquisite Dina Korzun) and his adult son (Darren Burrows), Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins, which reinvingorated a flagging franchise and offered Christian Bale in yet another top-notch performance as Bruce Wayne/Batman, or Walk the Line, the Johnny Cash biopic written and directed by James Mangold that featured stellar work from leads Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon, among others. Narrowing it down, I finally selected the following as my choices for the top 10 films of 2005 with an addition 10 honorable mentions, any one of which could easily qualify for the list.

1. The Squid and the Whale

Taking its title from a diorama at Manhattan’s Museum of Natural History which depicts the titular creatures in pose that is both an embrace and a fight to the death, writer-director Noah Baumbach has crafted a devastating look at divorce from the child’s point of view. Loosely basing the characters on his family, Baumbach mines territory that might have been twee in the hands of a lesser filmmaker, and in the process wrote the best screenplay of the year. The stellar cast includes a terrific Jeff Daniels as the patriarch, a self-involved novelist, Laura Linney as his more bohemian wife, Jesse Eisenberg as the authorial stand-in, and Owen Kline as the youngest son.

2. Loggerheads

Writer-director Tim Kirkman created one of the most moving films of the year, also inspired by a true story. The complex film follows three stories that unfold in three different years. In 1999, an HIV-positive young man arrives in Kure Beach, North Carolina and takes an interest in the titular turtles, who arrive annually on the shores to lay their eggs. In 2000, a minister and his wife struggle with choices they made that drove their adopted son to leave home. In 2001, after a suicide attempt, a birth mother decides to seek out the son she gave up for adoption. The three stories eventually dovetail, but in unexpected and deeply moving ways. The stellar cast includes Bonnie Hunt as the woman seeking her child, Tess Harper and Chris Sarandon as the adoptive parents, and Kip Pardue as the young man.

3. The Constant Gardener

John le Carré’s novels haven’t always fared too well on the big screen. For every The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, there’s The Little Drummer Girl, for every The Tailor of Panama, there’s The Russia House. So approaching the latest film based on one of his complex novels, it was a relief to find it in the good hands of Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles, who made such a stunning debut with City of God. The Constant Gardener is a mystery set in Africa. Tessa (an excellent Rachel Weisz), the idealistic wife, of low-level diplomat Justin Quayle (the redoubtable Ralph Fiennes) dies in a car crash while traveling with an African doctor. There are rumors of a love affair and that she was involved in other sordid dealings. As Justin investigates her death, the film flashes back to their courtship and life in Africa while in the present, he comes to learn the truth that involves both a multinational pharmaceutical company and the British government. The film is a great thrill ride: a romance wrapped in an indictment of callousness and corruption. (It achieves the goal much better than the inferior Syriana)

4. 2046

Wong Kar-Wai is one of current world cinema’s artists. His films, shot wholly or in part by the superb cinematographer Christopher Doyle, have a lyrical and mesmerizing quality. 2046 builds on several of the director’s earlier films, including Days of Being Wild and In the Mood for Love. At its heart is the writer and ladies’ man Chow Mo Wan (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai) who was the main character in In the Mood for Love. This film is a meditation on memory and love, with Chow penning a science fiction tale of androids on a train to the future where one can recapture lost feelings. Enigmatic, visually stunning and powerfully acted – the females in the cast include a heart-breaking Zhang Ziyi, Faye Wong, Carina Lau and Gong Li – 2046 ranks as one Wong’s best films.

5. The Beat That My Heart Skipped

Remakes are a tricky thing; they rarely measure up positively against the original. Here’s that is not the case; this remake outstrips James Toback’s 1978 movie Fingers. Indeed, The Beat That My Heart Skipped (De battre mon coeur s’est arêté) improves on the first version in all areas. Whereas Toback’s turgid drama centered on a low-level gangster with a passion for music, this version, directed and co-written by Jacques Audiard focuses on a thug who once had a promising career as a pianist. Daring to pursue his long-held ambitions, Thomas (a superb Romain Duris) takes lessons with a Vietnamese expatriate (Linh Dan Pham) and finds himself drawn to the prospect of leaving his current life of crime behind. The Beat That My Heart Skipped is not only a superlative remake, it’s a terrific movie on its own merits and deserves to be seen.

6. Mysterious Skin

Gregg Araki was the bad boy of queer cinema in the 1990s with his kinetic and vibrant films ranging from The Living End to The Doom Generation to Splendor. After an absence of over five years, he returned to the big screen with Mysterious Skin, an adaptation of Scott Heim’s novel about the effects of pedophilia on two victims. Far from being an exploitative look at this troubling topic, the film handles its themes with tact and compassion, abetted by its two leading men, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Brady Corbet.

7. Match Point

For the last several years, Woody Allen has seemingly lost his way, at least in the eyes of critics and audiences. His last “good” film arguably was Sweet and Lowdown (1999). By shifting gears, he has crafted one of his best movies in a career that spans four decades and shows no signs of stopping. Match Point is Allen’s version of Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy (perhaps best known in its film incarnation as A Place in the Sun -- which coincidentally happens to be one of my top 5 all-time favorites.) A morality play set in London about an ambitious former tennis pro who marries well but falls for his brother-in-law’s fiancée, Allen’s tale is a dark tragedy flecked with bitter humor. The impeccable cast is headed by Jonathan Rhys Meyers as the anti-hero, Emily Mortimer as his loving wife, and Scarlett Johannsson (who seemingly can do no wrong on the big screen) as an American-born actress whose affair with Rhys Meyers can only lead to tragedy.

8. little man

For my money, the most moving nonfiction film in a year filled with a bevy of excellent documentaries was this story of a lesbian couple and their child born prematurely via a surrogate. The film is both an inspiration and a cautionary tale. Young Nicholas Conn-Baba was born 100 days before term and weighed only one pound. While his survival is questionable, his mother Nicole (who directed this powerful film) never gave up on him. Pushing the boundaries of medicine, Nicholas faces numerous challenges and each crisis takes its toll on the relationship between Nicole and her partner Gwen as well as on their older child, Gabrielle. This is ultimately a survival story and it is one of the most touching of this or any year. If you are dry-eyed by the end of this film, you clearly don’t have a heart or a soul.

9. Crash

Paul Haggis earned plaudits for his screenplay for last year’s Oscar winner Million Dollar Baby. With Crash, he came into his own as a director. Although the screenplay is flawed (many found the coincidences a bit unbelievable for a city the size of Los Angeles as well as the duality of the characters) but overlooking those minor flaws, he and co-writer Bobby Moresco have created an intriguing set of three-dimensional people who deal with issues ranging from racism to victimization to the abuse of power. With an all-star cast led by Don Cheadle, Sandra Bullock, Thandie Newton, Matt Dillon and Terrence Howard, Crash proved to be one of the most provocative and thought-provoking -- not too mention unforgettable -- films of the year.

10. Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

I’ve had a soft spot for Wallace, the eccentric inventor with a love of all things cheese voiced by veteran actor Peter Sallis, and Gromit, his silent but loyal dog, ever since the plasticine creatures made their debut in the Oscar-nominated short A Grand Day Out. Their first feature-length movie finds the pair running Anti-Pesto, a humane extermination company. Lauded by the locals for protecting the ever important vegetable crops, Wallace and Gromit face their most challenging foe after an experiment gone awry leaves an oversized rabbit wreaking havoc. A satire of the Hammer horror films, this movie is chockablock filled with sight gags (look quickly at the photos in the credit sequence), puns (watch the titles in Wallace’s library) and even romance as Wallace catches the eye of the local titled lady (voiced by Helena Bonham Carter) much to the dismay of her ne’er-do-well suitor (voiced by Ralph Fiennes). The amazing stop-motion animation is a marvel to consider, but even more so is the performance of Gromit, who can convey more silently than some actors can when they deliver dialogue. Simply put, this is a treat for children of all ages.

The 10 Honorable Mentions in alphabetical order are: Caché (Hidden), Michael Haneke’s timely examination of race relations in France and how events in childhood can inform on the people we become; The Dying Gaul, Craig Lucas’ auspicious directorial debut that adapts his stage play about a screenwriter who sells out with unexpected consequences; Good Night, and Good Luck., George Clooney’s sophomore feature which proved that what was true in the TV news business some fifty years ago has contemporary resonance; A History of Violence, David Cronenberg's superlative adaptation of a graphic novel about a man whose past comes back to haunt him, featuring stellar work from Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello, Ed Harris, William Hurt, and newcomer Ashton Holmes; Heights, Chris Terrio’s debut feature about a cross-section of Manhattanites whose lives intersect in odd and unexpected ways; Look at Me (Comme une image), Agnés Jaoui’s serio-comic examination of a young girl trying to get her famous father’s attention; The March of the Penguins, a delightful nature documentary about denizens of the South Pole; Murderball, a superb look at wheelchair rugby and the men who play it; 16 Years of Alcohol, a fascinating portrait of a man’s struggle with booze with a tour de force performance from Kevin McKidd; and Twist of Faith, Kirby Dick’s powerful nonfiction examination of the legacy of sexual abuse by a priest on a Midwestern firefighter who dared to speak up and seek retribution.