The Sundance Film Festival, which just wrapped up in Park City, Utah, is a one-stop shop for the year’s best movies. The buyers? Netflix, Amazon, and — oh yeah — Hollywood studios.
Here, our top picks from a mad, melancholy festival, long on fraudsters (oh, hello, Theranos, in The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley) and grief (see Gaza, The Farewell, Tigerland and Love Antosha, below), and short on celebration (though there’s enough to get you by in Blinded by the Light, also below).
The Souvenir
English director Joanna Hogg doesn’t get enough credit for Archipelago, a minor masterpiece of family dynamics starring a very young Tom Hiddleston. This story of a filmmaker’s early days in London — it’s quasi-autobiographical — stars Honor Swinton-Byrne, with an appearance from her mother (Tilda). It’s affecting and smart, and hopefully that still counts for something.
The Report and Official Secrets
Speaking truth to power was a clear theme in this year’s selections. In The Report, Adam Driver investigates how the U.S. committed human-rights abuses in the post-9/11 world (during both the Bush and Obama administrations). Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, Keira Knightley and a roll-call of British actors investigate what happened after a British intelligence analyst leaked an NSA memo that seemed to endorse the blackmail of members of the U.N. Security Council.
Gaza
Politics are the cause if not the immediate subject of this documentary. As you might expect, it’s filled with heartbreak — this was just one of several screenings with audible crying from the audience of usually-above-it-all film writers.
The Farewell
If you thought Awkwafina could only play it broad — very, very Crazy Rich Asians broad — see this tender story about a Chinese-American and her maybe-dying grandmother. You may have seen this sort of family drama before, but the layered consideration of the very real cultural differences between East and West are welcome.
Blinded by the Light
A Springsteen-centric coming-of-age story from the director of Bend It Like Beckham, this film earned a $15 million payout from New Line, the festival’s biggest take. If you love Bruce, funny movies about growing up, the immigrant experience, or life in general, put this at the top of your list.
Tigerland
Imagine a documentary in which one of the protagonists nearly gets eaten by a tiger midway through: That’s Tigerland, an upsetting, moving story of tigers and the people risking their lives to save them. Look for it March 30 on Discovery.
Cold Case Hammarskjöld
This doc, by Danish provocateur Mads Brügger is fascinating and disturbing, as it sketches out a connection between the 1961 death/possible assassination of U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld with a bizarre and shadowy South African paramilitary group — which also may have offered a platform for genocidists intent on infecting black people with the HIV virus. An asterisk comes with a New York Times report that a primary personality in the film was coached while questioning whether HIV could be used in that way.
Love, Antosha
You don’t have to be a fan of Anton Yelchin’s films to get something out of this celebratory, sorrowful documentary about the actor, who died in a freak accident at the age of 27. With stories shared by Yelchin’s parents, Chris Pine, Jennifer Lawrence, Kristen Stewart and more, the most surprising angle might be Yelchin’s full-hearted exploration of L.A.’s seamy, sexy underbelly — he was “a little dirt bird,” according to co-star Simon Pegg.
Knock Down the House
Director Rachel Lears followed four women candidates, all new to politics, in the run-up to the 2018 elections — and lucky for her, one of them was named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Anyone curious about the Congresswoman behind the tweets would do well to see the doc, which reveals an indefatigable, tireless activist who’s not above a couple affirmations before a crucial test.
The Brink
On the opposite side of the political spectrum, Steve Bannon is the subject of this fly-on-the-wall doc from Alison Klayman, who used a similar approach for Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry. It’s worth the price of admission for any number of scenes — like the far-right powwow with nationalist leaders from across Europe, or an extraordinary sit-down with The Guardian’s Paul Lewis, who makes clear the hard work of journalism.
Photo: Blinded by the Light/Bend It Films
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