Never Rarely Sometimes Always
Despite its well-deserved acclaim, subtle abortion drama Never Rarely Sometimes Always isn’t exactly an easy film to sit through. Eliza Hittman’s story about two teen girls crossing state lines so that one can terminate a pregnancy is at times suffocatingly heavy, but it’s also remarkable in its ability to cultivate powerful moments. Sidney Flanigan’s performance as Autumn is a quiet revelation, especially in the emotionally raw scene that gives the film its title. With a sure directorial hand, Never Rarely Sometimes Always is perhaps best processed as a series of impressionistic, unforgettable images: a drugstore pregnancy test, a bruised stomach, and two pinky fingers desperately intertwined.
Never Rarely Sometimes Always is currently streaming on HBO and HBO Max.
Nomadland
In recent years, Chloé Zhao has proven herself one of the foremost directors of rural life, an artist who can translate the rarely-witnessed truths of America’s forgotten parts. Nomadland crystallizes this vision with the sprawling, humane saga of Fern (Frances McDormand), a widow who chooses to live an impermanent lifestyle of gig jobs and van living. McDormand shares much of her screen time with real-life nomads, whose wisdom, practicality, and heartbreak shine through on screen. Nomadland presents the winding road of life with verisimilitude and little commentary, but America’s capitalistic failures are apparent in every stitch of the story. Among its many treasures, Nomadland also features a beautiful score, wistful cinematography, and pockets of real humor and joy.
Nomadland ran an awards-qualifying theatrical engagement and will be released more widely on February 19, 2021.
Papicha
Mounia Meddour’s Algerian civil war-set coming-of-age film follows a group of tenacious young college women who buck public calls for religious traditionalism, stubbornly forging their own path despite the growing danger. Lyna Khoudri (who has landed a well-deserved role in Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch) makes a major impression here as Nedjma, an amateur fashion designer and the friend group’s fiery ringleader. With its themes of resistance in the face of oppression and feigned normalcy in the face of looming disaster, Papicha is horrifyingly fitting for an American audience in 2020, but it also offers a rarely seen, beautifully developed portrait of Algerian culture.
Papicha is currently available on VOD.
Sea Fever
Believe it or not, one of the timeliest films of the year is a maritime sci-fi/horror feature about a fishing boat stuck off the coast of Ireland. Neasa Hardiman’s Sea Fever is a biological horror flick that also happens to ask hard questions about the ethics of virus prevention and quarantine. When young scientist Siobhan (Hermione Corfield) takes a spot on a fishing boat to study local fauna, she gets more than she bargained for as the boat’s crew is soon exposed to a contagious biological substance. Obvious and uncanny COVID-19 parallels aside, Sea Fever is a wonderfully claustrophobic ocean-set thriller that’s chock-full of surprises, including an all-time-great ending.
Sea Fever is currently streaming on Hulu and Hoopla.
Shirley
Erotic, entrancing, and dripping with an eerie atmosphere, Shirley is one of the year’s most all-encompassing cinematic experiences. The film by Josephine Decker is based on a fictionalized version of famed horror writer Shirley Jackson’s life, but its period details are so devilishly accurate that you’d be forgiven for initially mistaking it for a true story. Elisabeth Moss stars as the moody, clever, and unpredictable author, while Odessa Young plays Rose, the young married student who takes a job in the Jackson household and soon becomes enraptured by her host. Logan Lerman and Michael Stuhlbarg complete the other half of the equation as Rose’s and Shirley’s husbands, and soon the four become entangled in a web of flirtation, intellectual exchange, paranoia, and perhaps even crime. Few films convey mood as strongly as Shirley, which revels in the heady intensity of its impassioned subject. Though it’s not actually based on one of her works, Shirley may just be the truest translation of Shirley Jackson’s writing ever put to screen.
Shirley is currently streaming on Hulu.
Want to watch even more 2020 films by women? Check these out: Regina King’s One Night in Miami…, Tayarisha Poe’s Selah and the Spades, Alice Wu’s The Half of It, Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman, The Fight, co-directed by Elyse Steinberg, Numa Perrier’s Jezebel, My Octopus Teacher, co-directed by Pippa Ehrlich, Jessica Forever, co-directed by Caroline Poggi, On the Record, co-directed by Amy Ziering, Rachel Lee Goldenberg’s Unpregnant, Clea DuVall’s Happiest Season, Natalie Erika James’ Relic, Autumn de Wilde’s Emma., and Karen Maine’s Yes, God, Yes.
Related Topics: 2020 Rewind
