The 20 Best Movies Of 2017 That We've Already Seen - Page 4 of 4

Their Finest Hour and A HalfDirected by Lone Sherfig“Their Finest”
Director: Lone Scherfig (“An Education”)
Cast: Gemma Arterton, Sam Claflin, Bill Nighy, Helen McCrory, Jake Lacy
Synopsis: A young British woman is enlisted to help script a propaganda film about Dunkirk during the Second World War.
Verdict: From a distance, “Their Finest” looks like it could be the kind of stodgy, “Best Exotic Marigold”-ish fare that’s easy to overlook. But as we discovered at Toronto, it’s something of a a gem that sees director Lone Scherfig return to the heights of “An Education” and proves to be a real love letter to cinema. With, as Noel Murray described, “the zippy pace and upbeat spirit of a backstage comedy, with jokes built around the mechanics of the movie business,” it’s a crowd-pleaser with a melancholy coming from the way that nearly all the cast and crew of the film-within-a-film is “[h]aunted by the dead bodies they’ve seen in the streets and by the loved ones that they’ve already lost.” With typically great work from Nighy as a fading actor, and revelatory turns from Arterton and Claflin, it leaves “nary a dry eye in the theaters.”
Our ReviewA- from Noel at TIFF
Release Date: March 24th

tramps

“Tramps”
Director: Adam Leon (“Gimme The Loot”)
Cast: Callum Turner, Grace Van Patten, Mike Birbiglia, Louis Cancelmi
Synopsis: A young aspiring chef and a young woman are brought together to deliver a briefcase for some low-level criminals.
Verdict: Too few people saw Adam Leon’s charming, energetic debut “Gimme The Loot,” but hopefully his follow-up “Tramps” won’t suffer the same fate — glowing reviews from TIFF, and a pick-up from Netflix, suggest that it shouldn’t have to. A sort-of “Before Sunrise”-ish one-long-night movie, with rising stars Callum Turner (“Green Room,” “Assassin’s Creed”) and Grace Van Patten (who stars in Noah Baumbach’s newest) headlining, it’s a film whose “multiple charms are so sly, the performances so perfectly unflashy, you’ll likely be surprised at how affecting it becomes in its final stages,” according to our festival review. With two leads finding an unusual chemistry “that leaves you beaming in a realness that feels sweet, without a false note in it,” and “a soundtrack that actually seems like it was lifted from the streets and bodegas of New York City,” this could be one of the indie sleepers of the year.
Our ReviewB+ from Kevin at TIFF
Release Date: Netflix have the rights. They haven’t set a date yet, but expect it sooner rather than later.

unitedkingdom_02

“A United Kingdom”
Director: Amma Asante (“Belle”)
Cast: David Oyelowo, Rosamund Pike, Jack Davenport, Vusi Kunene, Terry Pheto
Synopsis: The true story of the romance between Sereste Khama, the heir to the African nation of Bechuanaland (now Botswana), and British woman Ruth Williams, a marriage that saw opposition from both their home nations and forced them each into exile.
Verdict: Despite being underrated and/or ignored by much of the film press, Amma Asante’s “Belle” quietly proved to be one of the biggest indie hits of 2014, and putting its director very much on the map. Her follow-up is also a period romantic drama dealing with race and identity, and while it’s not quite as strong, it’s still very engaging and often moving. After an opening that’s, according to our review, “a bit of a slog,” it more than recovers, with Asante again showing “a real gift for getting into the political context of her stories while never neglecting the personal,” with the story building towards a climax that is “gripping, rewarding and eventually moving.” With Oyelowo as “tremendous” as ever, and Pike “doing the best work of her career,” it’s a very grown-up crowd-pleaser that should build on its success in the U.K, where it opened in November, in the U.S.
Our Review: A B from Oli at the BFI London Film Festival
Release Date: February 10th, just in time for Valentine’s Day

The Untamed

“The Untamed”
Director: Amat Escalante (“Heli”)
Cast: Simone Bucio, Ruth Ramos, Jesús Meza, Eden Villavicencio
Synopsis: A young woman seeks a new sex partner for the bizarre creature she’s been coupled with.
Verdict: Having supplied some of the more horrific images in recent history with his Cannes Best Director-winning breakthrough “Heli” (two words: Burning. Genitalia.), Amat Escalante somehow manages to go even further by focusing his follow-up on, as Jess put it, a “ginormous horny alien sex octopus.” Reminiscent of Lars Von Trier and Andrzej Zulawski, it’s “a kind of cautionary fable about both the healing power of sex and the harming power of sexual hypocrisy,” and it feels like a real step forward for the director, taking his formalist style into uncharted territory. It doesn’t entirely satisfy, but “the film has too odd a premise to expect a wholly satisfying result, and where it does go is so peculiar and provocative.” Also, it has a ginormous horny alien sex octopus, which you can’t say of most other movies in 2017 (unless “Cars 3” is going in some very unexpected directions).
Our Review: Jess gave it a B+ in Venice
Release Date: No U.S. distribution yet as far as we’re aware, but hopefully someone steps up soon.

werewolf_tiff-2016“Werewolf”
Director: Ashley McKenzie
Cast: Bhreagh MacNeil, Andrew Gillis
Synopsis: Drama about a young Nova Scotia couple addicted to methadone.
Verdict: Genre fans drawn in by the title might be let down by “Werewolf,” but it sounds like few others will be: This Canadian film, the first from director Ashley McKenzie, was one of the standout debuts at TIFF this year. Drawing comparisons to “Heaven Knows What,” it’s a film of real “uniqueness and freshness,” according to our review, thanks to the “heartbreaking simplicity of its story and visuals.” With an “undeniable sweetness” in places that might belie its premise, it’s a tough film in some respects, but one with “small victories” where “hope is not lost.” And for all the lack of genre elements, it’s still “one of the scariest to ever include ‘Werewolf’ in the title.” One to look out for.
Our Review: B+ from Christopher Schobert at TIFF
Release Date: No firm news on distribution yet: hopefully there’ll be some soon.

And there’s a whole host of other films that we might have included here, of course. Among them are Terence Davies’ latest “A Quiet Passion;” Alice Lowe’s pregnancy-horror-comedy “Prevenge;” Moroccan drama “Mimosas;” Alain Guiraudie’s follow-up to “Stranger By The Lake,” “Staying Vertical;” Bruno Dumont’s “Slack Bay;” Hirokazu Kore-eda’s “After The Storm;” Irish comedy “The Young Offenders;” TIFF breakouts “In The Radiant City,” “Lady Macbeth” and “Little Wing;” and AFI Fest highlights “Kati Kati” and “Home.”

From Venice, there’s also the grim “Hounds Of Love,” Guy Pearce and Dakota Fanning in “Brimstone,” Ana Lily Amirpour’s slightly disappointing “The Bad Batch,” while Un Certain Regard prize-winner “The Happiest Day In The Life Of Olli Mäki” is another one to look out for. Sundance indie “Sleight” is getting an unusually big release in the fall, while Cannes Best Actress winner “Ma Rosa,” Lav Diaz’s Venice Golden Lion winner “The Woman Who Left” and Berlin comedy “Saint-Amour” are all highlights of the festival circuit. Anything else you’re looking forward to that you saw on the festival circuit? Weigh in below.