Marielle Heller — “Diary Of A Teenage Girl”
It’s important for a filmmaker to fall in love with their material, and few could doubt that that’s what Marielle Heller did. The then-actress read Phoebe Glockner’s graphic novel “Diary Of A Teenage Girl,” adored it, and pursued the author for a year until she gave Heller the stage rights to the material, for which she wrote and performed in an acclaimed off-Broadway one-woman show. This launched a writing career for Heller, with a number of TV pilots, but she wasn’t done with ‘Diary’ character Minnie: she debuted her feature film version at Sundance this year to wild and deserved acclaim. It’s one of the most confident and finely wrought directorial debuts we’ve seen in years —it’s smart, sensitive, raw and stylish. Most importantly, it has a voice, with Heller proving better at communicating complex female characters and teen sexuality in an accessible way than anyone who’s tackled this subject in years, and being genuinely cinematic in the process. Quite rightly, it’s getting Heller a lot of attention: she was approached for “Wonder Woman” when Michelle MacLaren dropped out, and will next direct Natalie Portman in Ruth Bader Ginsberg biopic “On The Basis Of Sex.”
Melanie Laurent — “Breathe”
Some breakouts are thunderclaps, while others occur more gently. Actress-turned-helmer Laurent’s 2011 feature directorial debut, the underseen “The Adopted,” didn’t manage to even secure distribution stateside, but her 2014 sophomore title “Breathe” was selected for the International Critics Week in Cannes 2014, gained extremely positive, even rapturous notices there, and since then has rolled out gradually, getting a U.S. release this past September. At no point has it felt like a tsunami of buzz, but the film has impressed everyone who’s seen it, telling the story of an obsessive friendship turned quasi love affair between two young female friends that turns darker and more tragic as jealousy takes hold. Coming to Cannes with such a film the year after “Blue is the Warmest Color” made such an unprecedented splash with its lesbian love story was perhaps part of the reason the film was slow to be embraced, but it’s a comparison that isn’t really fair: Laurent’s film is darker and more unsettling, a tone she conveys masterfully without ever compromising the authenticity of the performances (both of which, from Josephine Japy and Lou de Laage, are superb). Seeing as Laurent is currently on screens in Angelina Jolie‘s “By The Sea” and has her next film, a documentary called “Demain,” due out in France in December, 2015 was a big year for the hugely talented Laurent.
David Robert Mitchell — “It Follows”
If you’d asked us what project David Robert Mitchell would follow up his striking coming-of-age film “The Myth Of The American Sleepover” with, we probably would have said another striking personal teen movie, or maybe some mainstream comedy that diluted his style. We wouldn’t have said ‘high concept horror that proved to be both a critical hit and a crossover box office success,’ but that’s exactly what “It Follows,” the helmer’s second feature, turned out to be. ‘Sleepover’ is a charming, finely wrought, pleasingly loose teen pic in the Linklater vein, but what’s most satisfying about “It Follows,” for all its clever hook and genuine scares, is that it feels of a piece with its predecessor, examining the awkwardness and confusion of growing up in a not-quite-’80s, not-quite-now suburban setting. That it does so with some genuinely unnerving moments and one of the most original movie monsters in years is a remarkable trick, confirming what a talent Mitchell is. There’s plenty of sequel talk, but next up is a step away from genre territory via “Ella Walks The Beach,” along with noir TV series “Mr. Postman.”
Crystal Moselle — “The Wolfpack”
It might have missed out on the Oscar shortlist this week, but few documentaries captured the public’s imagination this year like “The Wolfpack,” which means big things for its filmmaker Crystal Moselle. Coming from the commercial world, she had a chance encounter with six teenage siblings in 2010 dressed in “Reservoir Dogs” garb. She discovered that the children had been essentially raised entirely within an apartment on the Lower East Side, homeschooled by their mother and prevented from leaving by their father. Almost entirely new to the outside world but introduced to it principally by movies they know by heart, the brothers were documented by Moselle over the course of several years, and though the story promises “Room”-style bleakness, Moselle treats it with the lightest of touches. This makes the film not just a story of the triumph of the human spirit over adversity and control, but also a charming love letter to cinema, one far more moving than similarly themed Sundance rival “Me & Earl & The Dying Girl.” Moselle’s got a great eye both for a shot and for a story, and we’re excited to see what happens when she’s next behind the camera.
Reed Morano — “Meadowland”
Not content with being one of our favorite working cinematographers, Reed Morano (who shot films and TV shows including “Kill Your Darlings,” “The Skeleton Twins” and “Looking”) moved into directing this year, and more or less aced it. Premiering at Tribeca before opening this October, “Meadowland” assembled a killer cast —Olivia Wilde, Luke Wilson, Elisabeth Moss, John Leguizamo, Kevin Corrigan, Juno Temple, Kid Cudi— for the wrenching story of a married couple struggling to adjust a year after the unsolved disappearance of their child. Knowing Morano’s work, it’s no huge revelation that the film was visually striking, full of memorable images and smart, intuitive framing, but the helmer proves to be both a deft handler of sustained tone and a great director of actors: both Wilde and Wilson do work that’s among their best ever. It won the approval of Martin Scorsese, who came on to executive produce the movie (and hired her as DP to shoot much of his upcoming HBO “Vinyl” series), and looks to have launched the polymathic Morano to bigger things: she’ll next direct Ellen Page in military drama “Lioness.”
