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AARON MESH, January-April
MATTHEW SINGER, April-September
REBECCA JACOBSON, October-December
1. Silver Linings Playbook
Silver Linings Playbook is many things: ropey-dopey
romance, offbeat portrait of mental illness, sharp family drama,
scrappy ode to eccentricity. But director David O. Russell, aided by
magnificently honest (and honestly magnificent) performances from
Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, makes it all work. From its stars'
discussion of psychotropic drugs to its go-for-broke bizarro dance
scene, it's one of the funniest and most deeply affecting films in
years.
2. The Sessions
As a 38-year-old polio survivor who seeks to lose his
virginity, John Hawkes turns in one of 2012's most arresting
performances. The Sessions has received flak for pulling punches,
but in neither gawking at nor glorifying sex, director Ben Lewin gives
the power of physical intimacy its due.
3. Lincoln
In my short tenure, no film has frustrated me more than Lincoln.
But it wriggled its stately, chiaroscuro way into my mind and has
remained firmly lodged there since. Though waxy, it captures the most
mesmerizing political wheeling and dealing I've seen on screen, and
Daniel Day-Lewis' performance is something of genius.
WWeek 2015