Since I cannot create a true top 10 of 2012 list quite yet (it will be available after screening Zero Dark Thirty and The Impossible the first weekend of January), I figured I would create a list to bide the time. When looking at the year that was 2012 I noticed that there were some fantastic smaller films that I wanted to give notice to. While a couple of these films will make the yearend top 10 list, leaving any of them completely off the radar just felt wrong. There were a couple films that I wanted to include, but felt that they became too big to be considered (Moonrise Kingdom, The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Beasts of the Southern Wild, all of which are fantastic and would have been in the running). I looked at box office business to narrow down the true indies and decided that my cutoff point would be movies that made less than $10 million.Without further ado here is my list of top 5 films that couldn’t even make $5 million at the box office.
5) Take This Waltz
After watching Michelle Williams steal the show I posed a question to some friends: What was the last movie with Michelle Williams where you walked out and weren’t depressed? The only answer that was given: Dick. In the last 13 years Williams has found many ways to break our hearts and Take This Waltz may be one of her better efforts. The Sarah Polley film is another love triangle, this time with Luke Kirby and Seth Rogen. What is interesting about this one is it isn’t about picking a new love (Kirby) or an old one (Rogen). Instead, it’s about love vs. passion and neither side really wins in a true “grass is always greener” film. There is so much to say for Williams’ on screen marriage to Rogen and how perfect it seems, yet just as much to say for the idea of what could occur between her and Kirby. Throw in an alcoholic, against-character supporting turn from Sarah Silverman and you have one of the best indie films of the year.
4) Ruby Sparks
This was a film that I desperately wanted to see when it came out, yet always ended up putting off for other things. I had read how much critics loved it and it was incredibly intriguing to me, I just couldn’t bring myself to watch it. Then I saw it and I hated myself for waiting. The film’s star and writer Zoe Kazaan created what seemed to be the ideal scenario of a lonely writer (Paul Dano, Kazaan’s real-life boyfriend) who wrote the perfect girl for him. Then she came to life. Nobody believes such a thing could happen until at a dinner party Dano and his brother (Chris Messina) test it out by writing instructions for Kazaan to unknowingly speak in French. Dano makes the honorable decision to no longer write and change her, but instead to let her live her life with him. That all works until she begins to be independent of him and he returns to his lonely state. The plot sounds ludicrous but feels so real in context. I was stunned by how heartbroken and happy this film made me.
3) Sleepwalk With Me
Mike Birbiglia has a sleepwalking problem. He decided to create a comedy show out of it. That was successful and turned into a comedy album. That worked out alright so he turned it into a book. It sold enough copies that he created a one man show on Broadway. The show was successful so he wrote a screenplay, direct, star and essentially just make a movie out of it. That movie placed number three on this list and if that is worth anything, maybe he will get a miniseries on HBO next or something. The first time I watched Sleepwalk With Me it all felt very familiar because I had seen/read the previous iterations of the story. It was the second viewing that destroyed me. Poignantly funny and such a great commentary on human interactions, this film is everything I could have hoped for. Lauren Ambrose plays Birbiglia’s girlfriend to absolute perfection, even as Birbiglia is busy kicking a laundry basket and claiming it to be a jackal.
2) Celeste & Jesse Forever
Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg are close friends who got together to create a doomed marriage onscreen. Written by Jones, the movie begins with showing the couple as separated and going through their divorce proceedings. Despite this they act completely married and in love. It turns out they married their best friend, which was perfect for a while. It fell apart for all of the reasons relationships tend to fail, but that isn’t what is so intriguing. Instead, it’s the act of watching two people both wanting to reconcile, just never at the same time. There becomes a point when Chris Messina shows up as a potential love interest for Jones and asks the cliché (but it doesn’t matter because it works) question of “Do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy?” It gets to Jones’ Celeste as she realizes that she can’t have both. Watching two people who clearly love each other and just as clearly will never have each other fight is the most heartbreaking, yet justified thing I have seen on screen all year.
1) Safety Not Guaranteed
No surprise to those who know me, this is one of the films in the running for my top 10 of 2012 and there was no way it wouldn’t top the list of indie films. While the film combines some of my favorite things (Western Washington, Jake M. Johnson drunk go-karting, Aubrey Plaza’s no sense in nonsense vibe from her Parks and Recreation alter ego, a turtle, and of course Kristen Bell) it’s the storyline that keeps me coming back. I saw this film with multiple people and all had the same giddiness while walking out of the theater wanting to watch it again. The duration of the film you are trying to figure out if Mark Duplass’ character who put an ad in a newspaper looking for a companion to time travel is insane or just suffering from Asperger’s. In the end, it turns out it doesn’t really matter. What does matter is the effect he had on the people he knew. The film flirts with being hilarious (Lynn Shelton’s cameo especially), heart-warming, dramatic, and science-fictiony simultaneously and is just a marvel to watch again and again.
Honorable Mentions: Your Sister’s Sister and Compliance.
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