SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 2020 BEST MOVIES
Founded in 1981 by Robert Redford, Sundance Institute is a nonprofit organization that provides and preserves the space for artists in film, theatre, and media to create and thrive. The Institute's signature Labs, granting, and mentorship programs, dedicated to developing new work, take place throughout the year in the U.S. and internationally
The Assistant
Release date: January 31
Director: Kitty Green (Casting JonBenet)
Cast: Julia Garner, Matthew Macfadyen, Kristine Froseeth
Why it's worth seeing:
Nothing much happens in The Assistant. A young woman (played by Ozark's Julia Garner) -- whose name is apparently Jane, although it's never said in the movie -- goes to work at the office of a high powered Hollywood executive before the crack of dawn. She performs menial tasks. She takes calls. When the day is over, long after the sun is set, she heads home. But Green has made a silent scream of a film, which is so quietly unsettling it becomes hard to shake. Of course, you're probably aware of some version of this story. Jane's unseen boss is quite evidently a stand-in for Harvey Weinsten, and over the course of her otherwise monotonous day, Jane starts to realize something is amiss. There's an earring on the carpet. A new, very pretty woman arrives from Idaho with no experience and is put up in a fancy hotel. A meeting with an actress extends late into the night. But this is not a story about triumph over the evil that men like Weinstein perpetrate. Instead, it is about the systems in place that have allowed his behavior to go on for so long. When Jane reaches out to a smarmy HR person played by Succession's Matthew Macfadyen, she quickly realizes that speaking out is futile. The Assistant is a tale of disillusionment, and Garner wears the exhaustion, stress, and pain of that on her face. Her performance is agonizing as is the movie that surrounds it. But that's the point.
Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets
Release date: TBD
Directors: Bill and Turner Ross
Why it's worth seeing:
The theme song from Cheers succinctly summed up the communal appeal of the local bar: "Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name." On the surface, this genre-bending documentary from brother filmmaking team Bill and Turner Ross is a straight-forward celebration of that concept, one that explores depths of feeling, patterns of behavior, and types of language you wouldn't see on a network sitcom. Chronicling the closing night of a Las Vegas dive called Roaring '20s in November 2016, in the the shadow of Donald Trump's election victory, Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets introduces a series of bartenders and barflys, observing them in verite style as they watch Jeopardy on TV, sing songs, and get in arguments. An Australian regular takes acid; a cake gets smashed. Just another night out. The set-up is simple and the hang-out vibe is a pleasure, but the story of how the the film was made, which goes mostly unacknowledged on screen, blurs the line between fiction and non-fiction in a way that gives the events a woozy texture. It's a sentiment most bar-goers can relate to: Why let the truth get in the way of a great story?
The 40-Year Old Version
Release date: TBD
Director: Rahda Blank
Cast: Rahda Blank, Reed Birney, Peter Y. Kim, Oswin Benjamin
Why it's worth seeing:
This semi-autobiographical movie follows Radha Blank, a playwright for whom a "30 under 30" honor now seems but a distant memory. When we meet her Radha is teaching a group of hilarious and unruly high school kids, constantly sipping on a diet drink, and trying to get a play about her Harlem neighborhood produced. After a particularly enraging incident with one of the obnoxious white gatekeepers of the New York theater establishment, Radha turns to her old hobby: Churning out rhymes. But her character's burgeoning desire to rap, is really just a gateway for Blank to craft a narrative about finding creative integrity in a world that wants to pigeonhole you. Frequently, The 40-Year-Old Version feels like a rejoinder to the type of movies that sometimes become hits at this festival: Ones that engage in poverty porn or use an oddball storyline to offer some trite inspiration.