“Inside Llewyn Davis“
The Coen brothers absurdly comic and dark movie about a struggling folk singer (Oscar Isaac) who can’t find success is about a lot of things. “Inside Llewyn Davis” is a movie about failure and the cruel fateful equation of when the stars of luck, preparation, and opportunity don’t align (in their film, Bob Dylan is teased at the end, Davis just was a little too early). It’s a movie about self-made failure too, and the fine line between self-destructiveness, asshole-ishness, artistic integrity, compromise, and the degrees of which those things need to be negotiated to hit on the lucky lottery number of success. And throughout that all, as Isaac’s determined and driven, but selfish and entitled singer/songwriter grapples with the idea of “making it” and watching that ideal slip through his fingers in a horrific slow-motion goodbye, you’ve blown it, kid, he faces soul-crushing despair about the opportunities that slowly disappear from him like a sad ghost, and the bad luck that’s seemingly there to greet him at every turn with a smile. It’s classic existential cruel fate comedy from the Coens and yes, there’s so much wretched, wonderfully comic despair too. – RP
“Ikiru”
So many of Akira Kurosawa’s films are epic in their scope (“Seven Samurai,” “Yojimbo”) that the director’s more ruminative works are somewhat easy to overlook. “Ikiru” is one of Kurosawa’s most monumental achievements. It’s also a glimpse of this master director at his most empathic. “Ikiru,” which roughly translates to “To Live,” is the story of Kanji, a lonely, terminally ill old man reckoning with the weight of his last remaining days. Kanji is unfulfilled by his soul-killing job. His wife has passed away, and he’s more or less estranged from his grown children. When Kanji is diagnosed with cancer, he begins to ponder what his life has meant up until this point, and how he will be remembered after he’s gone. “Ikiru” is more than just a movie about despair: it’s a sensitive look at how the specter of mortality can implore us to lead more examined lives, no matter what calamity we find ourselves faced with. – NL
“I’m Thinking Of Ending Things.”
At this risk of being overly redundant with our theme and list (and perhaps at the risk of making us slit our wrists), Charlie Kaufman’s “I’m Thinking Of Ending Things,” is especially bleak, even for Charlie Kaufman (I contend he’s better off with Spike Jonze balancing his tendencies with heart and humor, but that’s an essay for another day). It’s a dense and hypnotic film that’s pretty much the height of despair — what is the point of it all? it seems to say, What is the point of living and going on? Since all that is going to happen is that we’re going to get old and our hearts will break and our minds will turn into demented mush (as best represented by the aging parents played by Toni Collette and David Thewlis). It’s essentially a relationship road trip movie on the surface. Jessie Buckley is a woman that knows she should break up with Jesse Plemons, knows their relationship isn’t very meaningful or special, but goes on a trip to visit his parents on their wintry, desolate Midwestern farm. It’s an unsettling psychological horror of sorts that keeps evolving (though not at all in the traditional horror vein), that some have called masterful, dazzling, and brilliant (“weird and confounding” by The Playlist’s Tomris Laffly), and others, like Time magazine‘s Stephanie Zacharek, for example, “an excruciatingly tedious watch.” It’s a bit of a puzzle box mystery to decode that’s arguably really about memory and our deepest regrets, in regards to what we should and shouldn’t have done with our past loves. However, you see it, perplexing or brilliant, there is most certainty, a massive gulf of despondency, distress, and anguish running through it, so best of luck with that. – RP
“Images”
“McCabe & Mrs. Miller” aside, many of the films from Robert Altman’s early-1970s heyday are raucous, exuberant affairs: think the stoned Malibu languor of “The Long Goodbye,” or the seriocomic hustler’s grit of “California Split.” “Images,” the director’s bizarre, experimental attempt at a woman-coming-undone narrative, is very much an outlier in that regard. “Images” is as murky and moody as anything this director has ever made, and even if it’s not one of the great filmmaker’s more universally beloved efforts, it’s nevertheless a hell of a style piece. “Images” is primarily a film about exile, and what exile does to our sense of self. More to the point, it’s a film about not being able to trust one’s own mental instincts, and how the resulting sense of uncertainty can easily morph into all-consuming despair. In the era of sheltering-in-place, “Images” stands as a difficult but accomplished drama that’s very much worthy of multiple rewatches. – NL
“Interiors”
Before he was the #problematic auteur at the center of HBO Max’s recent “Allen V. Farrow,” Woody Allen made some pretty great movies. One of the less-discussed landmarks from Allen’s impressive ’70s run is “Interiors,” the writer/director’s first stab at a domestic melodrama following a string of high-minded screwball comedies. Allen allegedly regarded “Interiors” as a flop before its release in the summer of 1978, but the film stands as one of Allen’s more intriguing experiments from the period: certainly, elements of this film have aged better than, say, the romance at the center of “Manhattan.” “Interiors” is about stunted, self-obsessed adult children, and how familial bonds can tragically dissipate over time (a subject that Allen surely knows a thing or two about). As one of Allen’s more honest examinations of depression, “Interiors” is often astonishing. – NL
