Four Great Films Start 2024

Having started the year moaning about what a disappointing year 2023 was for films, I feel the need to say how brilliantly well 2024 has started in terms of cinema-going. To recap, I felt that ‘The Fabelmans’, ‘Asteroid City’ and ‘Anatomy of a Fall’ were the really great films of 2023, and, in retrospect, I should now join the crowd and add ‘Oppenheimer’, to which, two months ago, I could only give an honourable mention.

2024, however, has been a completely different story. Early on, Dr Scott and I found ourselves more or less having to go to ‘One Life’, the film about the life of Sir Nicholas Winton starring Anthony Hopkins because nothing else was on. Much as I always enjoy these outings – which have now gone on for 40 years – I was more looking forward to our pre-film coffee and chat than I was to the movie, because, having seen the trailer so many times, I thought I knew exactly how it would be. As an aside, I do think the modern habit of having trailers that tell you the whole story of the film is to be deplored; they, and the increasingly ghastly adverts, many of which make no sense and some of which are completely ridiculous (cf any advert to do with railways, banks or the Armed Forces) make the pre-film ritual unnecessarily stressful. Anyway ‘One Life’ was excellent and I do hope that someone somewhere will give Sir Anthony an award for his nuanced and moving performance. I wept.

Then, my goodness, we saw ‘All Of Us Strangers’. I firstly have to say that it is quite extraordinary that Andrew Scott didn’t even get on the shortlist for the BAFTA Best Actor Award, and, after that, I must say next to nothing, because this extraordinary film isn’t one that is easy to talk about without invoking spoilers. I think that for most gay men aged over 50, which I very narrowly am, it must evoke some of the stomach-churning angst of coming out, while at the same time, the idea of a drunk and, well, flirtatious Paul Mescal arriving at your door late at night and asking if he can come in probably induces other reactions. Most importantly from my point of view, this was a movie which was actually about gay men : I was delighted to see that the Andrew Scott character refused to allow himself to be described as ‘queer’; solid evidence that the film’s director, Andrew Haigh, reads my blog, where I have been known to complain both about that terminology, and about the lack of actual gay characters in actual gay films,  as opposed to films in which the ‘gay’ characters are bisexual or just weird (‘Saltburn’!) Anyway, ‘All Of Us Strangers’ made me weep and weep.

Then we saw ‘The Holdovers’. Now this is a more conventional film which, in the hands of a less assured director than Alexander Payne, or a less brilliant cast, might have been much less rewarding and have descended rapidly into a swamp of not very good, very sweet goo. Its premise – a difficult student in a boarding school is forced to remain at the school over Christmas, in the company of an irascible, clever, bitter old bachelor teacher and a wise, bereaved middle aged cook – could become an exercise in the predictable destined for a future as a Christmas repeat forever and ever. In fact it was a beautiful film, set in a snowy winter in 1970, with a script and a look which transcend the sentimental, all being wonderfully conveyed by Paul Giamatti, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and – in an astonishing debut – Dominic Sessa. The Giamatti character was nothing like me, of course, since I’m cheerful, handsome, not as clever as him and have oodles of friends,. Still, it was about an old teacher so, pretty inevitably, I wept.

And then, most recently, and greatest of all, we saw ‘The Zone of Interest’, which is one of the most remarkable films I have ever seen, a film very different to any other. With its dense soundscape, Polaroid palette and lingering camera shots, it perhaps more resembles a work of video art in a contemporary gallery. It is an intensely shocking film, even more so that I had expected given its subject matter and it has resonated in my head since I’ve seen it, a bit like a hangover. It’s an intensely domestic film, set against the sheer horror of the Holocaust, and it causes the viewer to be repelled by the innocence of family life or the beauty of a gorgeously planted garden. Really everyone must see it and talk about it – I would love to watch it being discussed by a switched-on Sixth Year media class, or by some New Conservatives.

I haven’t even mentioned ‘May/December’ which last year would have shot to the top of my annual chart, and which is a fine film about a most unusual and controversial true life relationship with a great performance by Juliette Moore.

My goodness, if the rest of the year produces even the same number of great films as the first six weeks has, we will be blessed indeed.