The Best English films of 2021
So many English films didn't release in India, especially in the times we live in. So you have to wait for it come out in any of the streaming platforms. Many times, they just aren’t released on OTT as well.
Case in point - Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch or Paul Thomas Anderson's Licorice Pizza.
So anyway, here is the list of my top 5 English films of the
year, from the movies I got the opportunity to watch
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It is this bhelpuri that makes Last night at soho a
fantastic watch. In the hands of a lesser director this would have been all
over the place, but in Edgar wrights’ hands it fits perfectly.
A modern-day Hitchcock thriller with an Edgar wright tadka on top of it.
The story of a young girl who moves to London to study and become a fashion designer finds herself in a strange scenario as she realizes that she can transport to 1960’s London when she sleeps.
The movie starts off well but strays a bit in the middle, with some inconsistency here n there, however fantastic performances by the two leads – Julie Christie (the Jewish girl from Jo Jo Rabbit) and Ann Taylor Joy (whom you might remember from The Queen’s gambit) ensure that the movie never feels off.
Also, in typical wright style the movie also offers a twisted
take of Britain’s cinematic pop-culture of the past.
Its not perfect… but its highly watchable.
4. Free Guy
Ryan Reynolds powers this action comedy which is based
inside of a video game. The movie has his stamp all over.
The story about Guy, an NPC (Non-Player Character) in a wildly successful open world video game called “Free City.” Guy doesn’t know he is inside a video game. He thinks this is his world.
He wears the same outfit
every day, orders the same coffee, and goes to work at the same bank. A bank
which gets robbed multiple times a day by actual players from the dream world.
Everything is awesome for Guy until the day he meets Molotov Girl and
breaks his pattern.
A Truman Show meets Ready Player One meets the Matrix concoction – Free Guy ticks all the boxes of a very self-aware, pop-culture heavy, meta comedy.
This movie was a lot of fun.
3. The Power of the Dog
This Benedict Cumberbatch starrer that released sometime during the end of the year was really a unlike any western you have or will ever see.
A really dark slow burn revenge drama that on the surface feels nothing like it.
Its one of those films where the slow pace works to its the advantage putting us viewers into a false sense of comfort of knowing what is happening and then suddenly a rug is pulled under you and you wonder how n why this happened.
Benedict Cumberbatch is outstanding playing the brooding, angry rancher with dark secrets and anger issues.
The film could be called a portrait of how toxic masculinity
is a mask worn by insecure men
I predict an Oscar nomination for Benedict for this one.
Watch it with patience – its worth it.
Spiderman NWH was like a love letter for all the Spidey fans.
The movie was the 3rd instalment in the Spiderman HOME series and it
packed in everything that you, the fan wanted from this movie.
Spoiler alert
From the cameo of Daredevil to having both the previous spidermen Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield together in 1 screen, the movie had it all…
oh man when all 3 spidermen swing together for the first time - the theatre was roaring…
One had to be there to witness it
Its amazing the connection that marvel studios has with its
fans – they tease each other – try and outwit each other. Sometimes the studios
will give the fans the opposite of what they want – Mephisto anyone… and
sometimes they exceed their fans expectation like Endgame and this movie.
If you are a spiderman fan – you should have seen this
already.
1. Dune
Every now and then there comes a film which leaves you so
mesmerized, so awestruck that it stays with you long long after you watch it…Denis Villeneuve;s Dune is exactly that kind of film.
For every cinema lover who missed watching this in theatres – you have no idea what you missed.
This had to be seen in the largest screen possible & Its
not just the visuals – which are stunning by the way, it is also the amazing
sound design… Hans Zimmer, my god!
Dune is a fictional universe created by Frank Hebert in his 1965 classic sci-fi novel with a same name –
Think Game of Thrones but set in a distant future, at an interstellar level
a
sub-cosmic geo-political warfare if you may
Quite a mouthful isn’t it.
Dennis Villeneuve – is one of those filmmakers who I have
started to admire a lot. His films although grand in its exterior themes almost
always has a personal journey baked into the center of it.
Take any - Arrival , Blade Runner 2049 or Enemy.
His films are a perfect example of how you can achieve grandeur and scale – without sacrificing – character development and nuanced storytelling.
You can see there is soo much attention to detail and a concentrated effort not to overwhelm the viewer with dazzling over the top CGI – why does he take such painstaking effort to infuse realism in a big budget sci-fi movie like this. Because eventually when he does thrown in a giant CGI sandworm at you… you believe it… coz everything else around it is real.
Dune will transport you to a different world.
And how good is Timothee Chalamet...
So that’s it… those were my favorite English films of the
year… from the ones that I saw. What do you guys think ?
Which were your favorite movies of the year.
Let me know in the comments section….
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