One the one hand, it's deeply depressing that almost everything I said in my introductory paragraph to last years The Must See Films of 2016 article also applies handily to 2017, because it means that like 2016, 2017 has been an awful year for any number of reasons. One the other, it's also really convenient that I can change the year and have an introductory section to this article ready to go, so I'm going to do just that. You've gotta take the small victories where you can, after all.
2016 2017 may have been a shit year for a vast number of reasons, but the sheer number of high quality films released means that by and large, cinema wasn't one of them. Sure, there have been a few quite high-profile disappointments (I'm looking at you, Warner Bros), but on the whole there have been an awful lot of really great films released this year, to the point where this list became surprisingly hard to narrow down to a reasonable number.
But narrow it down I did. Below are a list of the films released this year in the UK that I would consider to be "Must See" movies - not necessarily the most "worthy" or the most important, just ones that I personally think any fan of cinema owes it to themselves to see.
So, in release date order;
La La Land
It's been almost a full year since I saw it, and I still find myself humming "City of Stars" and "A Lovely Night" from time to time. La La Land's lasting legacy might have been tainted somewhat by an unfair backlash and a now infamous Academy Awards cock-up, but that doesn't stop it from being a beautifully crafted and emotionally resonant film, one that handily puts to bed the idea that "they don't make 'em like they used to". Between 2015's excellent Whiplash and now this, writer/director Damien Chazelle has established himself as not just a director worth keeping an eye on, but one whose films I will always make the effort to see.
You can read my full review of La La Land here.
"I feel like I've just been assaulted". That's the first thing a friend of mine had to say after leaving the cinema following mother!, and it's also as accurate a description of director Darren Aronofsky's latest as you're likely to read. It's a cruel and upsetting movie that the vast majority of people simply aren't going to enjoy, but for some, it's also going to be nothing short of one of the most powerful cinematic experiences they're likely to have this year. If you already intend to see mother!, please, stop reading this review right now and simply go see it - it's definitely a film that benefits from knowing as little as possible about it in advance, and I'd hate to colour your opinion about what mother! is actually about before you've even seen it.
Yes, it's one of those kinds of films. It's also, I think, a masterpiece.
mother! follows a young woman (not one of the characters in mother! has a name until the credits) who is living with her older husband in his house, one that she has rebuilt following a terrible fire. After a stranger claiming to be a doctor shows up at their door, the husband invites him to stay with them, much to the chagrin of the young woman. Not long afterwards, the stranger's wife shows up and starts living with them too, and before long any semblance of normalcy has been broken as the house becomes over run with people.
