Best Overlooked Film Revisited: 2008
By Tom Houseman
March 19, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
My only problem with this list is that it doesn't push the envelope far enough in its idea of what makes a film Overlooked. Four of the 11 films on this list grossed more than $10 million—The Visitor was only a few hundred thousand off from that mark—and two of them would have been disqualified from being in this category had it been made a month later. Milk made over $30 million and won two major Academy Awards. It's hard to imagine that many of the people who check out this site haven't seen it. There were some truly fantastic films made in 2008 that got no attention from audiences, and I'm making it my job to ensure that people pay some attention. All of the films on this list made less than $5 million, and all ten combined for a paltry two Oscar nominations.
One of those Oscar nominations went to the first film on my list, Happy Go Lucky. Mike Leigh is known for making darkly realistic films like Secrets and Lies and Vera Drake, but most people forget that many of the films he made in the ‘70s and ‘80s were lighthearted comedies, admittedly with a touch of darkness in them. Happy Go Lucky is a throwback to those films; there is no story arc, the characters don't really change, and there isn't much conflict. All it aims to be is a funny, charming character study, and it is a delight to watch. Much of the credit must be given to the superb Sally Hawkins, who positively glows onscreen with positivity and gives this breezy film a surprising heft.
Things stay light and cheery at number nine with Son of Rambow an ode to the magic of movies and the innocence of childhood. Will Proudfoot is a young boy from a very religious family. He meets Joshua, a "bad boy," and after watching the movie First Blood, Will decides to make his own version of the film, with unintentionally hilarious results. Reminiscent of Danny Boyle's Millions, Rambow is a sweet and unassuming film about hope and passion. Bill Millner is outstanding as Will, completely owning the role and, unlike many child actors, never working for the laugh. He doesn't have to; his performance and the film earn so many that they have some to spare for the credits.
Childhood innocence and the power of storytelling take a turn for the horribly depressing in The Fall, number eight on my list. Director Tarsem Singh's followup to his psychological thriller The Cell tells the story of, Alexandria, a young girl who befriends a Hollywood stuntman in the hospital with a broken leg. The stuntman tells her a story of a group of warriors on a seemingly impossible quest, and we slide back and forth between the mythical story and the depressing reality of the man's life. Lee Pace, who starred in the cult TV hit Pushing Daisies, shows off his dramatic chops in a commanding performance, and Catinca Untaru's innocent Alexandria is a perfect foil for Pace's jaded character. But it is the visuals that make The Fall such a spectacular and memorable film. Simply put, it is a work of art.
Number seven is one of the most unique films on this list, and certainly the most outrageous. Saw 2 director Darren Lynn Bousman took his love of the macabre in a very different direction with Repo! The Genetic Opera, a sci-fi sung-through extravaganza with an eclectic cast that includes vampire slayer watcher Anthony Stewart Head, Traveling Pants sister Alexa Vega, and celebutante Paris Hilton. Set in a future in which a virus is causing a pandemic of organ failure, one company has the job of selling organs at outrageous prices. Head is the Repo Man, whose job it is to take back the organs of those who can't pay, but his job gets complicated when his daughter, whom he has kept locked in his house since her childhood, runs away. It's a crazy story, and the film is chock full of camp value that could draw comparisons to Rocky Horror, but Bousman does such a superb job of creating the world that this is actually a great film, in addition to being a joy to watch. As embarrassing as this is to say, the performance that steals the show is Hilton's, who essentially plays a caricature of herself (if that isn't redundant) and is wonderfully funny.. You have to see Repo! to believe it, so go see it now! Go!
Assuming that all of you have now watched Repo!, we can continue to number seven, a much darker horror film. Let the Right One In is a Swedish vampire film completely devoid of sparkling, I promise. Oscar is a young boy who is constantly bullied until he befriends Eli, a strange girl who is able to protect him. The two share a bond, but Oscar realizes Eli's curse, and he is unsure if his love for her can forge this divide. Proving that non-Americans always make the best horror films, Let the Right One In is a genre masterpiece on par with The Orphanage and Pan's Labyrinth. Lina Leanderson gives one of the best performances I've ever seen by a child actor as Eli, creating a terrifying figure who is at the same time extremely sympathetic.
Paranoid Park is pretty much the definition of an overlooked film. It topped the Cahier de Cinema top ten list for 2007 but got completely ignored by audiences in favor of Gus Van Sant's other film released in 2008, Milk. But Paranoid Park is a much more experimental and unique film than the Harvey Milk biopic, telling the story of a teenage skateboarder who gets in over his head when he accidentally gets involved in a murder. Van Sant is a master at creating films that are low budget and low key but extremely emotionally resonant, and Paranoid Park can be added to a list that includes Elephant, Gerry, and Last Days. Using exclusively amateur actors, Van Sant does a superb job of creating a tonal and emotional world in which the audience is enveloped, and the results are very powerful.
I mentioned in an earlier column that I could come up with only a handful of films as emotionally brutal as Hard Candy. One of those was 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, and one is my number four film, Funny Games (you'll have to check back next week to see what tops the list). Director Michael Haneke decided to make an almost exact remake of his film Funny Games, only with an American cast, and while I haven't seen the original I was blown away by his Americanized version. Naomi Watts and Tim Roth play an upper-class married couple on vacation with their kids, who become the toys in a disturbing psychological game played by two sociopaths. The film is difficult to watch, but deeply fascinating as it challenges all audience expectations. What really makes the film is the acting; Naomi Watts and Tim Roth give two of their best performances, and their chaos is matched by the level-headedness of Bradley Corbet and the always wonderful Michael Pitt. Forget Hostel, check out Funny Games.
Number three is Waltz with Bashir, one of the most interesting films I've ever seen, both in the story it is telling and the way it chooses to tell it. Ari Folman directed this documentary about himself trying to understand his past and the past of his country. Folman interviews men who were with him when he was in the Israeli army, trying to understand the impact that the missions they led had on their nation's history and their own psyche. He then hired a team of animators to depict both these conversations and the events they describe. That's right, Waltz with Bashir is an animated documentary, and the animation style creates a dreamlike state in the film that makes its impact even stronger.
A much more traditional documentary takes the number two spot, but it is easily the best documentary of the decade. Director Chris Bell's Bigger, Stronger, Faster* is not what I expected when I sat down to watch a documentary about steroids. It is an exploration of the American Dream and the premium our culture puts on being the best. It is about family and love. It is such a beautifully made film that it is almost heart wrenching. Bell puts a personal face on the steroid debate, telling the story of his two brothers, both aspiring professional wrestlers who take or have taken steroids. Giving equal weight to both sides of the debate, Bigger, Stronger, Faster* is a complex and incredibly well put together film that passes the test of a great documentary in that it is about so much more than its subject, but really tells us about ourselves.
And what's the best overlooked film of 2008? How about this: what's the best film of 2008? Another one: what's the best film of the decade? Roger Ebert and I would answer all three of those questions with the same title: Synecdoche, New York. It is a travesty that Charlie Kaufman's strangely-titled epic got ignored by audiences, but it is not surprising. Synecdoche is even more difficult to understand than it is to pronounce; an exploration of life, art, and how blurry the line between the two can be, Charlie Kaufman pulled out all of the stops for his directorial debut. Best known for his screenplays Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Kaufman has already established himself as the most unique cinematic voice of our generation, and with this film he makes it clear that he is also the most brilliant. Philip Seymour Hoffman stars as Caden Cottard, a theater director who decides to recreate New York City inside an abandoned warehouse in New York City. Cottard's relationships with the various women in his life take all sorts of strange turns as the film progresses and he loses a grip on reality. Hoffman is of course superb (when isn't he?), and he is well supported by a slew of outstanding actresses, most notably Samantha Morton and Michelle Williams, both of whom deserve Oscars for their work. Kaufman never spoon feeds the audience, and his work has a very literary quality, but it also features spectacular visuals. I could go on for pages about this film, but I'll stop now, and just tell you to do yourself a favor and watch Synecdoche, New York.
1. Synecdoche, New York
2. Bigger, Stronger, Faster*
3. Waltz with Bashir
4. Funny Games
5. Paranoid Park
6. Let the Right One In
7. Repo: The Genetic Opera
8. The Fall
9. Son of Rambow
10. Happy Go Lucky