James Cameron-Wilson Looks Back at the Year of 2021
In spite of everything, 2021 was a good year for the cinema. And it was a good year for diversity – up to a point. Until new box-office records were smashed in December – thanks to the belated release of Spider-Man: No Way Home – the top-grossing film of 2021 in the US was Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, the first Marvel film with an Asian director, an Asian star and a predominantly Asian cast. Following the phenomenal success of Black Panther in 2018, conventional walls have been toppling like dominoes. The only disappointment is that Chloé Zhao’s Eternals – top-billing the Anglo-Asian Gemma Chan – didn’t do better in the US, although it made more than No Time to Die there (the clear winner in the UK).
Then, last month, the London Film Critics’ Circle bestowed its substantial critical largesse on three films directed by women, its main nominations going to Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter and Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir Part II. Earlier in the year, Chloé Zhao became only the second woman to win an Oscar for best director (for Nomadland), while the London-born Emerald Fennell picked up another statuette for best screenplay for Promising Young Woman (an apt title, if ever there was one). The big surprise – even to its recipient – was the Oscar for best actor, which went to Anthony Hopkins and not Chadwick Boseman, the expected winner. Hopkins, who was undeniably brilliant as an engineer suffering from dementia, won his prize for The Father, an unexpected flop commercially. A not dissimilar, critically acclaimed film – Supernova, with Stanley Tucci as a writer with early on-set dementia – also failed to lure cinemagoers in the UK. This presumably was because both films would have appealed to an older audience, a demographic still feeling vulnerable in the face of the pandemic. So, in a sudden turn of the tide, the grey pound was snuffed out, while the 18-35 age range poured into the multiplex to escape the rigours of the day with high-end fantasy. Tellingly, Free Guy was an unexpected hit – in spite of no attachment to a known franchise – because it was only available in cinemas, and positive word-of-mouth spread like omicron.
My own favourites are tabled below – based on how they succeeded within their chosen genre – while I also proved inordinately fond of Monster, Swan Song, The Dig, Herself and West Side Story. While fondness may not be an adjective I would attach to the eloquently indignant, horrifically compelling Getting Away with Murder(s), the last named was certainly the best documentary of the year.
James Cameron-Wilson’s Favourites:
