Last night was List Closing Eve, and I did something I've never done before on this special day:
I re-watched the movie that I thought might be my favorite of the year, because I wasn't sure how it could possibly be.
And though I don't usually like to go into details about my list in this obligatory preamble, I think I've already ruined the surprise with my title and poster art.
I didn't think much of the ads for Ruby Sparks. In fact, it might have been the movie I was most cynical about seeing this year. In fact again, I may not have seen it at all except that I made a rushed pick from Redbox when getting a couple movies for my wife and me to see. She had spoken on a panel with someone involved with this movie, so I thought she would probably want to see it. She didn't. So I watched it alone, starting on Christmas night, falling asleep, and finishing it the next morning.
So this was only two weeks ago. Can't get much fresher than that in terms of a fresh perspective.
Yet how? How could this be my #1? I hadn't seen it on a single other critic's top ten list. I hadn't even heard it discussed as an honorable mention. You might say I spent the last two weeks trying to figure out a way for it not to be my #1. And my #2 temporarily crept in there for a few days, just to give myself an out -- just to give myself a choice that would in some way have the respect of other critics (though I didn't see that one on any top ten lists either).
But I kept coming back to Ruby Sparks, and I knew I needed to watch it again before I closed this list. Last night, I did.
Fifteen minutes in, I knew it was still my #1. Thirty minutes in, I liked it even better than the first time. Forty-five minutes in, the DVD had a glitch that I thought might kill the viewing -- and nothing seemed more important than making sure I could keep watching.
And I discovered what I probably knew ever since I finished it two weeks ago: It has the most layers of any movie I saw this year, and it is by far the most adaptable.
How adaptable? It's both a romantic comedy and a deconstruction of a romantic comedy. It's about how we wish we behaved in relationships, and how we actually behave. It's about the creative process, equally about the writing of novels and the writing of screenplays, and about how the writer is the God of the universe he or she creates. It's also about writing and re-writing drafts until you get to writing what you know, instead of what you think you know. It revels in stereotypes and also explodes them. It takes one of the most inescapable cinematic cliches to be identified in recent years, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, and turns it on its head. It's about genius and madness and mental illness. It's about the expectations we place on others and the realities of which they are actually capable. It's observant in both its grand strokes and its minor details, with even throwaway lines of dialogue carrying impossibly dense thematic relevance. It features probably my favorite ensemble acting group of the year (Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan, Chris Messina, Annette Bening, Antonio Banderas and Elliot Gould). It's both a cynical look at the emotional brutality we inflict on the ones we love, and an incredibly optimistic fable about our capacity to love them despite their faults. It's also really funny, though sometimes it is devastatingly painful. It's a fantasy, it's a metaphor, and it's achingly, wonderfully real.
But the best indication of how I feel about Ruby Sparks is that I started watching it at 10:15 on a night that followed three straight mornings of waking up before 5:30 a.m., twice because of being paged awake for work emergencies and once because of a sick son, yet I didn't for a moment feel like falling asleep. And, as inspired as Paul Dano's protagonist, I'm writing this now at 12:37 a.m., even though I will be awake in less than five hours to watch the Oscar nominations announced live on TV.
If that's not a #1 movie of the year, I don't know what is.
In fact, it's not only my #1 movie, it's my #1 by a long shot.
Here's the complete list, from first to worst:
- Ruby Sparks
- Your Sister’s Sister
- Silver Linings Playbook
- Wreck-It Ralph
- Argo
- Looper
- Lincoln
- Beasts of the Southern Wild
- Headhunters
- The Perks of Being a Wallflower
- The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
- Amour
- The Do-Deca-Pentathlon
- The Impossible
- Killing Them Softly
- Oslo, August 31st
- The Cabin in the Woods
- Monsieur Lazhar
- Jeff, Who Lives at Home
- Bernie
- Newlyweds
- Cloud Atlas
- Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
- The Hunger Games
- Wanderlust
- Magic Mike
- The Five-Year Engagement
- Life of Pi
- The Queen of Versailles
- Django Unchained
- Beyond the Black Rainbow
- Indie Game: The Movie
- Sound of My Voice
- Klown
- The Grey
- Flight
- 21 Jump Street
- Compliance
- Zero Dark Thirty
- Turn Me On, Dammit!
- A Cat in Paris
- Killer Joe
- Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
- Get the Gringo
- The Pirates! Band of Misfits
- Nobody Else But You
- Moonrise Kingdom
- The Avengers
- The Master
- Seven Psychopaths
- The Dictator
- The Kid With a Bike
- Silent House
- Arbitrage
- The Watch
- Sparkle
- The Secret World of Arrietty
- Sleepwalk With Me
- Skyfall
- Friends With Kids
- The Campaign
- The Odd Life of Timothy Green
- God Bless America
- Gerhard Richter Painting
- The Loved Ones
- Jiro Dreams of Sushi
- The Dark Knight Rises
- How to Survive a Plague
- Take This Waltz
- Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Witness Protection
- Prometheus
- The Paperboy
- Goon
- Men in Black 3
- Lockout
- John Carter
- Damsels in Distress
- The Loneliest Planet
- For a Good Time, Call …
- The Innkeepers
- Seeking a Friend for the End of the World
- Contraband
- Lawless
- The Tall Man
- Les Miserables
- Safety Not Guaranteed
- Vamps
- Rock of Ages
- Ted
- Casa de Mi Padre
- Mirror Mirror
- Rise of the Guardians
- One for the Money
- Brave
- Alps
- 2016: Obama’s America
- Dredd
- The Three Stooges
- Being Flynn
- This Means War
- The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
- Haywire
- Celeste and Jesse Forever
- The Deep Blue Sea
- Dark Shadows
- Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax
- Jack Reacher
- Alex Cross
- Hick
- Chronicle
- Red Hook Summer
- Total Recall
- Stolen
- The Raven
- Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie
- The Pact
- Piranha 3DD
- Gone
- Cosmopolis
Was sure I would see, but somehow didn't: Battleship, Savages, Snow White and the Huntsman
If you're looking at any patterns, I can see one right away: My top three movies are all about an impossible form of love. I guess the (twisted) romantic in me really came out in 2012.
As always, would love to hear your thoughts.
4 comments:
I have to admit that I was only vaguely aware of Ruby Sparks, and that's even with my pretty constant reading of the AV Club, where they're always on the lookout for all things Manic Pixie Dream Girl. This film totally would've fallen through the cracks for me if not for your raves here -- I think I'll give it a shot this evening.
Great list, as always. Reading this monster list in January (or February, once upon a time) is one of my favorite pop cultural events of the year.
Thanks Keeper. The only problem with me delivering these raves is that Ruby Sparks probably can't help but disappoint you if it doesn't meet the lofty expectations I've set for it. However, I do think it's useful to go in looking at the film as a metaphor and not taking it literally. I know a lot of people who took much of it at face value and were comparatively disappointed. Anyway, I'd love it if you circle back with your thoughts, good or bad. I'm convinced that as soon as more people see this movie, it'll have considerably more fans.
That was the second time my jaw dropped. When I saw the poster and knew what was coming.
I saw Ruby Sparks. I liked it. I might even say I liked it a whole lot. Didn't make a huge impression on me but, hey, whatever. I love that you made it your #1 and I love reading your argument for it, partly from the points you make and partly from just your general TONE in making them. That's totally the type of joy a #1 should instill in a person.
And so then I can also assume you did not have a problem with the third act of Your Sister's Sister?
You know Nick, if I hadn't seen YSS for the first time just over a week ago and had more time to sit with it (a phenomenon you mentioned on your own top ten list related to Zero Dark Thirty), I might see it drop down a bit. Even today I am wondering if I should have flip-flopped it with Silver Linings Playbook (and I know you would argue that I should have). But I had an incredibly positive emotional response to it on my first viewing, so much so that I temporarily had it installed at #1. I don't mind that it's a bit messy, maybe even a bit icky in the third act -- I think it has a perfect ending. And it's another one of those movies I gravitated toward this year that indicate how people are going to try to love each other despite how hard it can sometimes be -- you could say that Looper, Amour and The Perks of Being a Wallflower also contain examples of this (although with Looper it would be a mother-child relationship).
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