The Year of the Small Movie
If you like “small” films, 2020 was your year. Next week the 93rd Academy Awards will take place – with people present, no less – celebrating the movies of 2020, a strange year in so many ways that it seems fitting that the film industry wasn’t exempt. With theaters closed or sparsely attended in 2020, many movies were held back for release in 2021 or were released with little fanfare on streaming services. I missed seeing previews – often the biggest indicator for me on what to see – and instead had to trust that I was getting wind of good films despite abbreviated or non-existent theatrical runs. Ultimately, I watched twenty-two movies released in 2020, including all eight Best Picture nominees, and while many of them were really good, the mood and feel of many of them were – for lack of a better word – “small.” I was struck with a maddening desire to watch some honest-to-goodness plot-twisting Hollywood creations, words I never thought I’d utter.
In 2018 when I saw The Florida Project, I was blown away. I wrote then, “The Florida Project is one of those rare films that I gravitate toward – short on plot, long on characters and realistic slices of life.” And while that’s still true, it turns out that if you watch a dozen Florida Project-type films in a row, suddenly small slices of life don’t seem so novel anymore. In fact, they can seem downright infuriating.
In quick succession I watched Mank, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, One Night in Miami, The Forty-Year Old Version, Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Dig, Malcolm & Marie, Sound of Metal, Supernova, Nomadland, Minari, First Cow and The Father. Goodness. Some of those films are excellent – of these, I liked One Night in Miami and The Forty-Year Old Version best – but by the end of that run I was practically begging for a plot. A development. A murder. Something! Something more than two guys surreptitiously milking a cow! Too much of a good thing can in fact be too much of a good thing.
In the midst of all of these films, my wife and I also watched Promising Young Woman and Judas and the Black Messiah, and both of these nailed it. Excellent films, and for us, a breath of fresh air to kick off the dust of our plotless movie run. Sadly, Charlie Kaufman’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things and The Forty-Year Old Version garnered no Oscar nominations, and One Night In Miami was ignored for Best Picture and Director. That’s the way these awards shows always go.
But when reviewing this year’s films to last year’s, it seems like a lifetime ago when we were cheering on Parasite, Ford V Ferrari, Jojo Rabbit, 1917 and Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood (plus Uncut Gems and Knives Out), a better batch of films than this year’s, in my opinion. I’m holding out hope that the 94th Academy Awards will celebrate a terrific set of movies both small and large.