Nine of the best films for 2011
Peter Bradshow
127 Hours
Watch from between your fingers, or hide under the seat: James Franco
plays a mountain climber with an awful decision to make when his arm
gets trapped under an enormous boulder. This true story, directed by
Danny Boyle, has had cinema audiences wincing, yelping, moaning and
rocking back and forth in distress.
Out on 5 January.
The King’s Speech
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Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld Hailee Steinfeld and Jeff
Bridges in a scene from the Cohen brothers’ remake of True
Grit. Photograph: Lorey Sebastian/AP
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Awards bait it may be, but this movie is carried off with terrific
panache. Colin Firth plays the unhappy George VI in 1930s Britain,
crucified with shame at his stammer; Geoffrey Rush is Leonard Logue, the
outspoken Australian speech therapist who is the only man who can help.
Helena Bonham Carter is Queen Elizabeth (to be known, decades later, as
the Queen Mother).
Out on 7 January.
Black Swan
There’s over the top, really over the top – and then there’s this.
Darren Aronofsky’s delirious movie-melodrama stars Natalie Portman,
giving the performance of her career as Nina, the young ballerina given
a crack at the lead role in Swan Lake, and suffering a breakdown in the
process. Aronofsky’s movie has a queasy, Polanskian shiver, with shades
of Repulsion and Rosemary’s Baby.
Out on 21 January.
The Portuguese Nun
A demanding, slow-moving arthouse film. Eugène Green’s stylised work
features a French actress, in Lisbon to shoot a movie, who becomes
intrigued by a kneeling nun. Like José Luis Guerin’s In the City of
Sylvia or Miguel Gomes’s Our Beloved Month of August, The Portuguese Nun
avoids the traditional filmic tempo in favour of something static and
contemplative.
Out on 21 January.
Rabbit Hole
Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart star in what audiences have found to
be a challenging, left-field drama about a couple whose young son is
killed in a car accident. Kidman plays Becca, a stay-at-home mum;
Eckhart is her husband Howie. They react to the tragedy in radically
different ways.
Out on 4 February.
True Grit
It takes nerve to remake Henry Hathaway’s legendary 1969 western,
starring the John “The Duke” Wayne – but Joel and Ethan Cohen have made
a characteristically insouciant attempt. This time, it’s Jeff Bridges
wearing the iconic eye-patch – really, no other casting was possible.
The Coens have become known for interspersing their more serious work
with lighter fare, and this could be one such – but anything by the
Coens is a must-see.
Out on 11 February.
Countdown to Zero
This could be the horror film of the year, or perhaps the decade.
Lucy Walker’s documentary reopens a taboo subject that many (wrongly)
think is now a non-issue: the threat of nuclear explosion from
terrorists, or from a “Strangelove” accident.
Walker has nailed down some A-list talking-head interviews, including
Mikhail Gorbachev and Tony Blair – who, remarkably, appears to
rediscover his youthful radicalism, and calls for a zero-nuke world.
Out on 11 March.
Le Quattro Volte
Since being unveiled last year at Cannes, this delightful film has
won hearts and minds everywhere it has been shown. Composed of long,
wordless shots, it’s set in Calabria, where an old shepherd lives.
Michelangelo Frammartino’s camera follows the area’s inhabitants, who
are mainly animals, which give some lively performances.
Out on 15 April.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Tomas Alfredson, director of the modern vampire classic Let the Right
One In, is an interesting choice to direct this dark tale. John Le
Carré’s spy drama – turned into a 1970s TV classic by the BBC, starring
Alec Guinness – is now revived with Gary Oldman in the role of George
Smiley, the enigmatic intelligence chief brought out of retirement to
root out a Soviet mole, and reopen some emotional wounds.
Out on 16 September.
Guardian
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