As Laurence Coly, Guslagie Malanga is a figure of tragic dignity in the face of condemnation and incomprehension, though it’s Rama’s silent observation of her testimony that makes the film so devastating. Alice Diop’s film is like a knife slowly plunged into the heart, a pointed missive about immigration and alienation tucked away inside a legal drama. (It’s inadvertently turned critics into industry cheerleaders, which is not their job.) Nonetheless, when compiling their lists of the best movies of the year, our critics found some solace in the fact that even though 2022 wasn’t exactly a great year for movies, there were memorable, provocative, and even spectacular theatrical experiences to be had.Ī novelist named Rama (Kayije Kagame) attends the trial of a woman accused of killing her 15-month-old baby, intending to turn the story into a retelling of Madea, and instead finds a dark reflection of all her own relationships and fears. (Especially when the main casualties of the streaming meltdown wind up being the non-guilty parties: the filmmakers.) And having to worry about the box office as if the entire art form is on the line based on the returns for Bullet Train is less than ideal. Of course, no one feels entirely happy that so many studios’ go-for-broke investments in streaming are blowing up in their faces.
Maybe that ends up cheapening the experience of watching movies to the point where the work doesn’t seem as urgent or valuable? Hey, maybe there’s a downside to envisioning streaming platforms as tubes from which people consume undifferentiated content, whenever, so long as it’s new.
The future of theaters remains uncertain, but our critics are cautiously optimistic. Fans of Top Gun: Maverick, Everything Everywhere All At Once, and RRR happily embraced the insides of cineplexes after avoiding them since the pandemic (or, for some, even earlier). Fans of Prey, Disenchanted, and Glass Onion bemoaned the full theatrical releases that could have been. Netflix and several of its competitors took a financial hit in 2022 meanwhile, certain audiences expressed exhaustion with the idea of watching movies at home as the default option. This year, the iron grip that streaming has held on our culture seemed to have loosened a bit. Photo-Illustration: Photo Illustration: Rowena Lloyd and Susanna Hayward Photos: Courtesy of the Studios
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