Thursday, February 13, 2025

List: Nadine Whitney’s Top 10 Films of 2024

Note: Due to extreme gender bias in awards season this year I will only be choosing films directed by women or gender non-conforming people.

10. The People’s Joker – Vera Drew

Lawsuits, delayed releases, the inability to even mention the title of Vera Drew’s queer coming-of-age superhero/villain satire The People’s Joker meant the director was stymied at every point trying to get eyes on her amazing film.

Filled with caustic jokes, self-revelations, and the pain and joy of the trans experience, The People’s Joker is a brilliant and heartfelt meta-commentary about how trans kids often experience the world through fiction. Pair with Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow.

9. Babygirl – Halina Reijn

It took me two viewings to click with what writer/director Halina Reijn was doing. Underneath all the very horny goings on between Nicole Kidman’s high-flying corporate tycoon Romy, and her intern Samuel (Harris Dickinson) is an examination of the complexities of power, sexuality, and the need to be seen. A heavy dose of satire hits just near the end with Sophie Wilde’s up and coming business talent Esme saying the success of women is the recognition of their willingness to be ‘radically truthful’ and ‘fearlessly express their desires.’

Excellent support from Antonio Banderas as Jacob, Romy’s husband of nineteen years, Esther Rose McGregor as their daughter Isabel, a big glass of milk, and one particular needle drop by INXS which could verge on bad taste if one remembers how Michael Hutchence died. 

Part of the Nicole Kidman getting her Christmas kink on cinematic universe with Eyes Wide Shut. “Good girl.” Pair with Joanna Arnow’s The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed.

8. Hoard – Luna Carmoon

If you haven’t heard of Hoard don’t be embarrassed as it got limited releases if any outside Britain or film festivals. Starring Sarah Lightfoot-Leon, Joseph Quinn, and Hayley Squires, Hoard is about the ongoing effect of trauma, motherhood, mental health, and collected ‘catalogues of love.’

Squires plays Cynthia, the loving but unbalanced mother to little Maria whose house is a topsy turvey jumble of piles of junk Cynthia calls their treasure and nursery rhymes. A tragedy sees Maria removed from her mother and placed into permanent foster care with Michelle. Years later and now a teenager, Maria is ‘feral’ in her own way. A visitor from Michelle’s past, former foster kid Michael, and a package Maria wasn’t expecting ignites a spiral into needing the sense memory of Cynthia to keep her safe. Michael is much older than Maria and feeds her obsession for filth, self-harm, and animalistic behavior.

An unforgettable debut partly inspired by Carmoon’s own grandmother. Hoard isn’t for the easily repulsed but it is rewarding. Pair with Andrea Arnold’s Bird and Sacha Polak’s Silver Haze.

7. Fancy Dance – Erica Tremblay

Another victim of poor release strategy. Fancy Dance didn’t have a distributor until Tremblay’s regular collaborator, Lily Gladstone, hit the spotlight. It then had a small run in some cinemas in the States and hit Apple+ getting sadly buried.

A story about the love an aunt has for her niece and the widespread issue of missing Native American women. Lily Gladstone plays Jax – a smart and rebellious woman living on the Seneca-Cayuga reservation who takes care of her thirteen-year-old niece, Roki (Isabel DeRoy-Olson) while trying to solve the disappearance of her sister who is Roki’s mother. Roki holds out hope that her mother will be back in time to perform the mother and daughter fancy dance at an upcoming powwow. 

Jax has a criminal record, so welfare decide to send Roki to live with her white grandfather and his new wife. Jax and Roki hit the road on a journey to the powwow which reveals Jax’s sharp edges and warm heart. Meanwhile almost nothing is being done to solve Tawi’s disappearance as the two law enforcement agencies clash. 

An indictment of the systemic issues Native American face and a beautiful story of bonding and heritage. Pair with Rez Ball directed by Sydney Freeland and Rachel Morrison’s The Fire Inside.

6. Vermiglio – Maura Delpero

Set in 1944 in a small Italian alpine community and using the framework of Vivaldi’s ‘The Four Seasons’ – Vermiglio is a gentle and devastating story of motherhood, freedom, and the changing face of Italy. 

Three sisters form the core of the story. The luminous Lucia. The rebellious Ada. The intelligent Flavia. The sisters share a bed and know some of each other’s secrets. When Lucia marries Pietro, a deserter from the army and a Sicilian, the intimate world they share is blown apart. Cesare the family patriarch becomes lost and shamed in the community after a scandal is revealed and each young woman faces a set of challenges to define their place and personalities. 

Gloriously filmed with rich symbolism, and at times incredibly funny, Vermiglio is lovingly intimate and providing a universal message about coming-of-age, and the expectations placed on women. One family unit represents a larger community on the brink of a new kind of Italy post World War Two. Pair with Klaudia Reynickle’s Reinas (Queens) or Lila Avilés’ Tótem.

5. All We Imagine as Light – Payal Kapadia

South Asian cinema is having a moment – and it’s driven by the often-overlooked stories of women’s lives. Payal Kapadia’s tale of three women of different generations navigating life in Mumbai where they are liminal dwellers in a city that both needs and rejects them, is exquisite. 

Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and Anu (Divya Prabha) are Malayali nurses sharing a small apartment. Prabha receives a rice cooker from who she assumes to be her absent husband in Germany and attempts to understand the meaning. Is it an apology for not contacting her, him reaching out to re-ignite the relationship, or a parting gift? Anu is deeply in love with a young Muslim man but cannot be seen in public with him and is desperate to find a place where they can be intimate. Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam) is a cook at the hospital where they work and due to unscrupulous developers is about to lose the only home she has known for many years because they refuse to accept the paperwork for the property claiming it as hers through her now deceased husband.

Such ‘small sorrows’ are gradually unveiled. There must be millions of similar stories being whispered in the blue-hued city. The weight of tradition bearing down upon the inhabitants of Mumbai which is modernising itself on the surface but maintains multigenerational class, religious, and gender divisions.

Once outside Mumbai in the beach side town where Parvaty grew up, each woman finds a moment of peace and acceptance. Lovers realise they are part of an eternal narrative. Prahba is given her chance to ‘speak’ with her husband. Each of the women’s hearts unfurl in a sisterhood of earned trust and shared language. All We Imagine as Light is unmissable.

Pair with South Asian films Girls Will Be Girls by Shuchi Talati, Santosh by Sandhya Suri, and the Iranian film My Favourite Cake by Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha. 

4. Ghostlight – Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson

No-one can deny the healing quality of art after watching Ghostlight scripted and co-directed by Kelly O’Sullivan. Starring the Kupferer-Mallen family and Dolly De Leon. Keith Kupferer plays Dan, an emotionally unavailable and angry construction worker who after a terrible family tragedy finds himself in an amateur theatrical group performing Romeo and Juliet. Katherine Mallen Kupferer is Daisy, his equally angry and wounded daughter. Tara Mallen is his wife Sharon who is desperately trying to keep the family from imploding.

Dolly De Leon as ‘never was’ actor Rita recognizes something in Dan and pushes him into the production which opens up a way for him to start expressing his feelings and communicate with Daisy who becomes involved in the production at a latter stage in the film. Daisy’s journey is as important as Dan’s and her brittle pain is also given space to exist and be recognized. 

A transformative experience and a wonderful character study of people caught in grief, regret, guilt, and anger finding the flicker of the spotlight warming them. 

3. Good One – India Donaldson

India Donaldson’s debut feature Good One has earned comparisons to Kelly Reichardt. Imagine being teenage woman stuck with the protagonists of Old Joy as middle-aged men and realising they’re not just bickering, getting drunk, and playing one up on each other: they genuinely don’t notice or respect you either. 

Sam (Lily Collias) is used to going hiking with her dad, Chris (James Le Gros). Sam is getting close to college age and Chris’ new infant child with his second wife means that this year’s trip to the Catskills might be their last for a while. The trip was supposed to have four people, but Matt’s (Danny McCarthy) son has dropped out and refuses to speak to him. Sam gets an almost anthropological view of extended middle-aged male anomie sitting in the back seat of Chris’ car that becomes progressively worse as the trip goes on. When Matt’s behavior towards Sam crosses a line, the lack of response from either of the men shocks her and makes her realize all the small incidents building up on the trip weren’t accidental – these men are self-involved misogynists. Pair with Annie Baker’s Janet Planet

2. Love Lies Bleeding – Rose Glass

A pulsating queer crime thriller set in New Mexico in the realm of sleazy bars, gun ranges, body building culture, and steroid fueled excess. Rose Glass’ Love Lies Bleeding is a cosmic horror and pulp neo-noir with the ‘be gay do crime’ ethos. 

Starring Kristen Stewart as Lou who stays around the purgatorial small town to care for her sister Bethany (Jena Malone) whose violent husband is one swing away from killing her. The ‘femme fatale’ who wanders into town is amateur bodybuilder Jackie (Katy O’Brian) who stops in Albuquerque on her way to a competition in Las Vegas. The two develop an obsessive relationship with each other filled with sex and violence which becomes explosive when Jackie kills someone thinking it is what Lou wants (and unconsciously it is). 

What Jackie doesn’t realize is that she’s awoken the wrath of Lou Sr., (Ed Harris) Lou’s malignant and criminal father. She’s also awoken Lou’s past which is far from savory.

Stylish, frightening, mythical, and extremely vicious, Love Lies Bleeding is slick with blood and other bodily fluids. Tormented and tender, Rose Glass bends the world into impossible shapes and the result is monstrously magnificent. Pair with Toll (Pedágio) by Brazilian director Carolina Markowicz.

1. The Substance – Coralie Fargeat

There isn’t much to be said about French director Coralie Fargeat’s scathing body horror and entertainment industry satire The Substance that hasn’t been said before. It’s outrageous, abject, violent, and truly sad. One time Oscar winner and now “ageing” daytime television aerobics instructor Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) gets fired on her fiftieth birthday by the odious network executive Harvey (Dennis Quaid). 

Having little sense of who she is without the spotlight, when a mysterious offer is delivered for her to try ‘The Substance’ an experimental cell cloning technique to create a “Younger, more beautiful, more perfect” version of herself, Elisabeth takes it.

The result is the ‘birth’ of Sue (Margaret Qualley) from her back. Sue and Elisabeth are supposed to share this new existence as the disembodied voice insists “Remember You Are One” – but it isn’t long until Elisabeth and Sue are in a pitched battle for supremacy. 

The tragedy of the story is Elisabeth is the matrix from whom Sue is born. Instead of Sue becoming a ‘more perfect’ version of Elisabeth she becomes a distilled version of her ambition and need for the power that beauty and attention bring her.

Fargeat intended the film to be a comment on ageism and the pressures put on women to never age and to remain ‘perfect and pliable’ in the service of the male gaze – and she isn’t subtle about any of it. However, there are layers within layers resting in the Matryoshka doll film. Remember, take care of yourself! 


Honorable mentions: Mati Diop’s Dahomey. Emily Kassie and Julian Brave Noisecat’s Sugarcane. Itō Shiori’s Black Box Diaries. Caitlyn Cronenberg’s Humane. Annick Blanc’s Hunting Daze. Sally Aitken’s Every Little Thing.

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