2024 film round up - Romance, Coming of Age, family drama
This is just a big bucket of some films I have enjoyed over 2024 where I haven't already published my jottings. I did try categorising them, and have ended up with just two big buckets but even then I had so many arguments with myself because so often they could fit in more than one group so take the categories with a pinch of salt. This grouping is romance, relationships. coming of age and family drama. There are some other films I saw this year I have already written about here, here and here, plus some more recent musings on films in the drama and action bucket here
Joyride: Well it has Olivia Coleman in it - do I need to say anything else? Coleman plays a single mother planning to give away her baby to someone more deserving, but then meets a runaway 12 year old (Charlie Reid), forms an unlikely friendship and runs away with him. Predictable and clunky in places, and so a strange choice for an actor who can pretty much pick any role she likes I imagine. But the film is absolutely redeemed by my girl-crush national treasure who acts her socks off and gradually shows us a painful history underneath the bravado.
My Old Ass: This has Aubrey Plaza in it, so I was happy to give it a go, and for the first half hour or so I was enjoying where this was going. But about that point I worked out what was going to be the denoument, and the rest was a fairly standard sentimental bitter sweet romance which ditched many of the laughs from the first bit. I did stick with it, and it was sweet enough as long as I didn't turn on my brain too much. If they had kept the vibe of the first half hour, going this could have been great.
Where’d you go Bernadette. Stars Kate Blanchett as visionary architect who has lost her way and Billy Crudup as her husband, and with Kristen Whig as annoying neighbour. A small and delicately drawn Richard Linkater film about rediscovering the spark whatever that may be. Gorgeous scenery and cinematography when we get to Antarctica and packed full of great actors in little more than bit parts. Lovely.
His Three Daughters: A great cast here of Carrie Coon, Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen as three sisters who move back to their dying father's Manhattan apartment to spend time with him before and as he dies. The sisters are all very different and at each other's throats, seemingly wilful in their misunderstandings of each other, but we gradually get to know them all over the hours spent in and around the apartment. As the slow ending of their father's life unfurls, full of tedium, crisis, health workers coming and going, a new fragile equilibrium is established. I really loved this, dialogue heavy and snappy with a beautiful turn of phrase, mixed in with long pauses. I was very briefly somewhat confused at the ending before I got what was going on, but it was both sad and lovely.
The Squid and the Whale: Part of Noah Baumbach's back catalogue I had never watched and so I caught it on streaming on a dark autumn evening this year. Set in Brooklyn in the 1980s, this is the story of a painful divorce between Bernard (Jeff Bridges), a pretentious and overbearing novelist and Joan (Laura Linney) who is newly successful, eclipsing her husband. A young Jesse Eisenberg plays their embittered and angry son. A sort of precursor to Marriage Story, funny, honest and painful in the way that Woody Allen was in his heyday. All of the characters are monsters in their own way, but we are also delicately shown their insecurities and pain, even though there is no redemption to be found here. I really enjoyed this black and raw comedy. Sadly though I didn't see the squid and the whale exhibit this film references when I visited the American Museum of Natural History in New York this year - can I justify another visit to repair this omission?
The Kings of Summer: This is over a decade old now, but I only watched it this year because Prime was about to dump it from its playlist... I see it has now cropped up on Netflix instead. A comedy drama coming of age story about three teenage boys running away from home and living in the woods for the summer. It's funny in the realities of trying to live off-grid, and sweet and sharp in the portrayal of the angst of being young and powerless. An excellent grumpy performance by Nick Offerman, and funny, sweet and quirky turns by the three young leads. Light but satisfying.
Will and Harper: Another one of those films very difficult to categorise, this is a documentary by Will Ferrell with his long standing friend Harper who only recently came out as a trans woman. They take a road trip across the US to spend time together renewing their friendship now that Harper is no longer hiding, and on the way they discover a lot about the US attitude towards trans people in particular and difference in general, which turned out to be a mix of warm acceptance but sometimes quite scary intolerance.
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