Call it 'A Portrait of the Artist In the Midst of Being Canceled’. In Todd Field's psychological character study, Cate Blanchett is Lydia Tár, a genius-level composer, EGOT winner and insufferable narcissist whose icy demeanor hardly fractures as accusations of sexual impropriety threaten to shatter her career. Blanchett's Oscar-nominated performance has rightly earned the lion's share of plaudits, but the superb acting is buoyed by Field's subtly off-kilter visual style, lending the ‘ripped from the headlines’ narrative a hint of Kubrickian uncanniness.
The year is young but the films already have a vintage sheen to them. Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans has invited us to ride shotgun through the filmmaking great’s boyhood, the true-life drama Till showcased the virtuoso brilliance of Danielle Deadwyler, queer British gem Blue Jean introduced a bold new talent in Georgia Oakley, and French courtroom drama Saint Omer evoked just comparisons with Carl Theodor Dreyer.
And at the lighter end of the spectrum, Oscar-nominated animation Marcel The Shell With Shoes On has warmed our cockles, while Hirokazu Koreeda’s Broker turns out to be surprisingly life-affirming for a movie about trafficking babies. Donkey odyssey EO, meanwhile, has a hoof in both camps. Then there’s the meme-fest that is A.I. horror-comedy M3GAN, a sure-fire franchise starter that’s given us all a new creepy doll to fixate on.
For the purposes of this list, we’re sticking with films that came out in the UK during 2023, but whatever your taste, there’s already been plenty of winners worth a trip to your local kino. Cinema is healing, people.
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