“The Breaker Upperers”
Director: Madeline Sami and Jackie Van Beek
Cast: Madeleine Sami, Jackie van Beek, James Rolleston
Synopsis: Two women cynical in love, set up an agency to break couples up as a way to avoid letting go and moving on with their lives.
Verdict: “The Breaker Upperers” is not a Taika Waititi film, but it does have his pedigree all over it. He exec-produced the picture and the directors and stars of the movie are two of his collaborators. It’s played SXSW, several festivals, played theatrically in New Zealand and we caught it at the BFI London Film Festival. It sounds and looks like a huge, hilarious breakout for these talents. Akin to a British “Bridesmaids” in tone, “it feels just as much of a firecracker in the genre as “What We Do In The Shadows” was a few years back, and seems destined to be rewatched as many times,” our review said. Keep an eye on this one when it rolls onto our shores soon.
Our Review: B+ review from BFI London.
Release Date: Netflix has secured global rights for a February 15, 2019 release. – RP
“Happy New Year, Colin Burstead”
Director: Ben Wheatley
Cast: Neil Maskell, Sura Dohnke, Marvin Maskell, Sam Riley, Hayley Squires
Synopsis: Colin hires a lavish country manor for his extended family to celebrate New Year. Unfortunately for Colin, his position of power in the family is under serious threat from the arrival of his estranged brother David.
Verdict: U.K. helmer Ben Wheatley can, and will, do anything and everything and has proven himself to be one of the wildest, most unpredictable, and eccentric filmmakers out there jumping effortlessly from genre and tone to genre and tone and back again and blending them in any which way he wants. For his latest, ‘Colin Burstead,’ he deliberately crafts something more small-scale and intimate, a comedy-drama about family with his penchant for sly laughs and bruising emotions. It’s a dysfunctional family dramedy and simply put, it’s “perhaps Wheatley’s most totally satisfying film to date,” which should entice anyone even remotely interested in his inventive, sharp work.
Our Review: A- review from BFI London.
Release Date: TBD (No U.S. distribution yet), but it aired on BBC2 at the very end of 2018. – RP
“Diane”
Director: Kent Jones
Cast: Mary Kay Place, Jake Lacy, Estelle Parsons
Synopsis: Diane fills her days helping others and desperately attempting to bond with her drug-addicted son. As these pieces of her existence begin to fade, she finds herself confronting memories she’d sooner forget than face.
Verdict: You might be excused if you hate Kent Jones or feel massive envy in his presence given his prodigious talents; he runs the Film Society Of Lincoln Center in New York and programs the New York Film Film Festival, he is a world-respected film critic and writes for Film Comment (part of FSLC), and creates great documentaries crafted together with a co-director you may have heard of named Martin Scorsese. Yep, Jones has himself on the pulse of cinema in every single way. Lest you think he can fail at something, in 2018, he made his dramatic narrative debut at the Tribeca Film Festival with “Diane,” and yep, it’s remarkable too and gives a place for a terrific, overlooked character actress Mary Kay Place, who evidently delivers her best performance ever. Some folks just can’t do no wrong and “Diane,” described as “profoundly moving” feels like a potent drama that you simply can’t miss.
Our Review: A- review from Tribeca.
Release Date: IFC Films has acquired U.S. distribution for 2019, but a date remains TBD. – RP
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“Maya”
Director: Mia Hansen-Løve
Cast: Roman Kolinka, Aarshi Banerjee, Alex Descas
Synopsis: A 30-year-old man, a French war reporter who was taken to hostage in Syria, heads to India after months in captivity.
Verdict: Everything that filmmaker Mia Hansen-Løve makes is tender, thoughtfully and beautifully composed. “Maya” on the surface, given its plot sounds like something much more out of left field for the director, but it proves and promises to be made from the same kind of sympathetic and considered humanist quilt she keeps embroidering. It also sounds like it might not be her best, given some of the towering efforts it has to compete against (“Things To Come” with the incomparable Isabelle Huppert), but it’s also “full of the kind of tiny, keenly observed moments that make Løve such a special filmmaker,” according to our review from TIFF and we’re totally good with that.
Our Review: B- review from TIFF.
Release Date: TBD (No U.S. distribution yet). – RP
“Greta”
Director: Neil Jordan
Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Chloë Grace Moretz, Maika Monroe, Colm Feore
Synopsis: A young woman, trying to make her way in New York City, returns a handbag to an older woman named Greta. Things go awry when the young woman realizes that Greta isn’t exactly who she claims to be.
Verdict: The Neil Jordan film, “Greta,” features a show-stopping performance from its star Isabelle Huppert. And that alone should be worth the price of admission. Huppert doesn’t make many English-language films, but when she does, film fans know they’re in for a treat. Thankfully, in “Greta,” the legendary actress doesn’t disappoint with a performance that will captivate and delight. She’s menacing and chewing up every ounce of scenery and clearly enjoying every moment.
Our Review: B from Toronto International Film Festival.
Release Date: March 1 via Focus Features. – Charles Barfield
Honorable Mention:
Other 2019 movies we’ve already seen, but may not all quite fit under “best” banner include first and foremost, David Robert Mitchell’s “Under The Silver Lake” starring Andrew Garfield and Riley Keough, that suffered two 2018 release date delays before it was finally pushed into 2019. It’s a film we highly anticipated at Cannes last year and it’s ambitious as all get out, but kind of a mess, albeit a fascinating one (granted, what comes out on April 19 of this year will be a reportedly new edit). There’s also Asghar Farhadi’s Cannes opener “Everybody Knows” with Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem, S. Craig Zahler’s “Dragged Against Concrete” with Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn which we described as “provocative and troubling,” and a mixed effort and horror auteur Nicolas Pesce’s psychosexual drama/twisted comedy “Piercing” starring Mia Wasikowska and Christopher Abbott.
What else? The delicious Spanish psychodrama “Quien Te Cantara,” “Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy” starring Kristen Stewart and Laura Dern, Mads Mikkelsen in the minimalist survival tale “Arctic,” Mexican arthouse helmer Carlos Reygadas’ latest “Our Time,” “American Woman” with Sienna Miller, the “Standoff At Sparrow Creek” with James Badge Dale, “The Gulf,” Christian Petzold’s “Transit,” Greek filmmaker Nikos Labôt’s terrific “Her Job.”
There’s so much more; László Nemes’ follow-up to “Son Of Saul,” called “Sunset,” Michael Winterbottom’s “The Wedding Guest,” horror Western, “The Wind,” the farming doc, “The Biggest Little Farm,” delightful Icelandic portrait, “Woman At War,”Louis Garrel’s “A Faithful Man” starring his former supermodel wife Laetitia Casta and Lily-Rose Depp, Xavier Dolan’s “The Death & Life Of John F. Donovan” starring Kit Harrington, Natalie Portman and Jacob Tremblay, Max Minghella’s directorial debut “Teen Spirit,” starring Elle Fanning, kidnapping thriller, “The Factory,” the lesbian romance “Tell It To The Bees,” with Anna Paquin and Holliday Grainger, “Freaks” with Emile Hirsch and Bruce Dern, Italian drama, “Twin Flower.”
Additional 2019 movies we’ve seen include “State Like Sleep,” with Michael Shannon and Katherine Waterston, Sam Taylor-Johnson’s “A Million Little Pieces” starring her husband Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Paolo Sorrentino’s truncated version of his three-hour-plus “Loro,” Thomas Vinterberg’s submarine drama “Kursk” starring Matthias Schoenaerts and Lea Seydoux, “Hotel Mumbai” with Dev Patel, “Driven” with Jason Sudeikis and Lee Pace, Robert Mitchum documentary “Nice Girls Don’t Stay For Breakfast,” Peter Medak’s fascinating documentary, “The Ghost Of Peter Sellers,” about a failed comedy he shot in 1973 with the famed comedian that was never released, “Living The Light,” the doc portrait of the famed and recently departed Dutch cinematographer Robby Müller, the William Friedkin doc “Friedkin Uncut,” the musical “Been So Long” with “Chewing Gum” star Michaela Cole, “Red Joan” with Judi Dench, the Golden Bear winner, “Touch Me Not,” Lukas Dhont’s controversial Netflix movie “Girl,” and finally just downright bad, but something we’ve seen is “Richard Says Goodbye” starring Johnny Depp.
That’s all for now. Don’t forget to check out our list of the 100 Most Anticipated Films of 2019 and see you all year long during our coverage.
Click here for our complete coverage of the best and worst of 2018.
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