"Thanks for calling General Porpoise, this is---"

"Do you have any doughnuts left?"

The abrupt question cuts into my ear without preamble.  It's a weekend morning and there's a line stretching out to the front door and beyond.  It's hard to say where it ends; except for that first week where people just queued up directly behind each other so that the line went directly into the road ("screw personal safety, no one is getting a chance to cut in front of me"), the line always cuts to the left down the block and past my field of vision. People are serious about the line here. On his first day to work, David was late simply because people in line would not let him get by -- it was like trying to get closer to the stage at a boy band concert engirdled by rabid fans.

I shuffle a few steps sideways to peer into the case.  "Yes, we still have almost a whole case of doughnuts, although there are more coming in a bit.  But it's crazy town here and they're going fast."

"Exactly how many do you have left?"

"Uh..."

"What's the exact number of each flavor you have left?"  The woman on the other side rephrases her question impatiently, as if the repetition makes it more sensical.

I take another glance into the case and do the math quickly, even if not exactly.  "Looks like around 20 Vanilla, 25 Lemon, 15 Chocolate and 15 each of the Jam and the Pistachio Rose.  But like I said, they're going fast and--"

There's a click and a dial tone before I finish the sentence.

I liked to think that the unceremonious hang-up has more to do with how urgently she felt the need to get to these doughnuts, and not necessarily a lack of manners.

General Porpoise, purveyor of fine coffee and doughnuts, was my home for two years. Whenever anyone asks me about it, I tell them honestly that the experience had very high highs and very low lows. I've often thought that everyone should work in the service industry for a few years, for many reasons. One, of course, is that it doesn't hurt to gain empathy for the person on the other side of the counter. Another, is that it doesn't hurt to gain empathy for the people you work with.

Incidentally, my high highs were all composed of the people I worked with and the customers I worked for. Some of my happiest working hours have been from behind that marble counter. I felt a genuine bliss on those crazy weekend mornings where the line was always a block long -- a kind of happiness doing work that I've never felt without a flute in my hand. Dozens of times, we had customers drop by before they left to compliment the flow of our teamwork. And more times than that, we had people who wanted to tell us how much they enjoyed being in that space and how welcome we made them feel even when it was busy. Back when General Porpoise, or GP, was still in construction, my manager told me that there are hundreds of cafes or pastry shops and there was never any reason just working in or creating a new one, except this: to create a space and a time and a face that made people's lives better.

I've always believed that in every exchange, no matter how small, you're either giving or taking from someone. People who work in service often feel that they're maligned or belittled. But really, you're in a position of such power when you're behind that counter, coming in contact with so many people every day. You can either add to someone's life, or do the exact opposite. Every interaction has the ability to complete change someone's day, for better or worse.

James, a customer who became a good friend whom my husband and I eventually asked to be our wedding officiant, once dubbed the weekend crew "The Fantastic Four". James and I personally assigned the roles for each of their members, more for our amusement than at anyone's behest.

Mr. Fantastic, of course, was Reed. The newest member of the cafe at the time, he was conscientious from the first day he came on board. He was a kind soul and one of the most perceptive people I've met, with a pulse point for every person that walked in whether it was a coworker or a tourist. He had the ability to bring smiles to stone-faced people who would practically glow when they got to greet him, and not just because of his goofy sense of humor. People who I assumed had just lost the ability to be happy sometime back when they discovered that Santa Claus wasn't real and the world had betrayed them would light up with a beam at the mere sound of his name. He was and is, to put it plainly, the epitome of what is good in the world. There were times when I called him "the face of the cafe" because he was the face that everyone remembered. Everyone was genuinely touched by his nature, and he made a positive difference in everyone's day. There were other times I called him a "cinnamon roll" because of how sweet he was. When I worked for him at a separate branch later, I was always impressed with how thoughtful he was in every single aspect, whether it involved human interaction or cafe layout.

Joshua could only be Johnny Storm. He was never as flamboyant as the Human Torch, but he could stop traffic every time he got a haircut. There was something about the swoop of his hair that made everyone swoon, even if he would have died before screaming "flame on!" for any reason. In fact, he looked like he wanted to crawl under the table the time we drew attention to him by singing happy birthday to him at Poquitos. Above all else though, he would bend over backwards to please. One time, someone called to ask if our doughnuts had holes in them and to argue that they shouldn't really be considered doughnuts if they didn't. Joshua, with all sincerity, said "well, it's not a traditional hole, but there is a tiny hole on the top of each doughnut which is where they pipe in the filling." Coming from nearly anyone else, this would have just been an acerbic comeback, but Joshua was 100% earnest. If he felt behind or not up to a task at all, he put his head down and worked until he was up to it. If you needed someone to back you up, or someone to listen while you told a story -- good or bad -- he was the one. No matter how he felt about a person or a situation, he always answered with an "of course" and an assurance that every choice you made as a customer was the right one. He was the kind of person that only grows with the more confidence you give him, and every ounce of that confidence was merited.  

TJ, by default, was the Thing, not because he was the type to yell "It's clobbering time!" before breaking down a wall like the Kool-Aid Man, but because he had an exuberance that could knock down cynicism. TJ, with the big beard and flannel, on his first day of work was explaining pour-overs and the mod bar to a customer. He was always so eager to expound on coffee that I swore he had some sort of sonic hearing that activated if you said the word "coffee" -- sometimes, across the room someone would be asking a question, and he would coming bounding over with his explanation, so happy to talk about tasting notes (herbaceous was a word I started using more because of him), what his favorite crop of the year was, or the best brew methods. For all his gruff beard and large presence, TJ had a heart of gold, often able to sense the shapes of feelings and emotions of the people around him before anything was put to words, and always wanting to alleviate them. He didn't have a selfish bone in his body, but always got genuine pleasure from praising others. Sometimes he'd sing "toastin' those seeds, just toastin' those seeds" which was apparently his anthem for days he roasted coffee for Elm. Other times I'd head bang to Drake or Alvvays at the cafe with him.

And me? I guess I was Sue Storm, Invisible Woman. That made a lot of sense to me, because although I'd been working at the cafe the longest, customers were always surprised to hear that I even worked at GP at all. I flew under the radar. But Sue Storm had some nifty forcefield powers too, and I like to think that I supported my teammates. Above all, I just wanted to take care of everyone, although I'm not sure how well I did in the end.

It was important to us that we served something exceptional - not just the coffee, which we hand-selected, dialed in, and tasted amongst ourselves every week and every day - but in interaction. No matter how busy it got, we always knew where every drink went. If a person wasn't at the end of the counter to pick up their drink, we brought it to them. We never let a drink sit there or had to shout it out. No matter how long the line got, we always focused on the person in front of us, however long that interaction was.

There are countless other people I had the honor of working with at GP, from Edith who had my heart from her first time behind the counter with her sparkly "What can I do for y'all?" to Damian and his "Oui Chef" to the two days I worked with Jared during SCA week that cemented my esteem of him. I have always considered myself incredibly blessed to have known all of these people. The temptation is to write pages on pages of all the amazing things I saw everyone do and to go into all the little intricacies of our job, because I was, and still am, immensely proud of all that we accomplished together. There were countless industry professionals that I had the privilege of sharing a space with, and countless wonderful customers who we were able to interact with.

I could tell you how our workflow worked, and I actually did write it out -- there was a science to each of the four weekend positions. But the nitty gritty isn't that important (although I think talking about bar flow is so fun, so please ask me about it sometime). But what's more significant about what made that job work, what made the line go quickly, and what made everyone so happy to be there whether it was behind or in front of the counter during that golden time -- was the fact that we worked for each other. We didn't work quickly because there was some sort of record or quota to match (although we did at one point have a manager who used to time our transactions with his phone's stopwatch). We worked quickly because we were constantly working for each other. When I was out of milk and crushing the empty gallon, Reed had the fridge door open and the next gallon of milk held out for me. When I saw Joshua over by the bar restocking napkins and checking on the water, I started refilling the next pitcher of water so he could take it back. If I got caught up in an extended conversation with a customer, TJ could slide into my spot to keep the line flowing. I could start grinding a big batch brew for drip coffee and get called away by a customer and come back to find that the process was already finished by someone else. We were aware of what was going on and we took care of each other. We were the sort of the team that could finish each other's sentences and sandwiches.

This is, I think, the epitome of small business. Not just in Seattle, but all around. The experience at GP was completely unique, but also not unique at all. All around us are small businesses that subsist because people care genuinely about what they produce, about each other, and about their customers. Be it coffee, be it clothes, plants, books, pasta, or hand rolls. There are whole worlds percolating with activity to produce the plate that goes in front of you, training to talk about your t-shirt or specific cut of tuna, and genuine passion to recommend a pile of books for that 12-year-old niece.

GP is, of course, part of Renee Erickson's culinary kingdom here in Seattle. In case you haven't heard, Renee is Seattle royalty. She's a James Beard winner, a celebrity that makes people around her gush (I heard about so many Renee encounters from random customers that it rivaled the number of customers who came in to crane their necks around and ask in hallowed tones: "Is she here today?") and swoon (if she ever threw out a handkerchief, droves of surrounding people would faint), and a hardcore advocate of better living for people, better living for the environment, and an unmistakably chic style that has people nodding sagely when they find out that this is another Renee establishment. And yet, the day that the toilet exploded and was gushing water, Renee Erickson was the one that was mopping it up so that the baristas behind the bar could keep helping the customers.

Our lives are enriched by these small businesses. Not because they make good food or coffee or ice cream. Or at least, not just. But because they provide jobs for us - jobs where we can genuinely care about what we create and for each other. But more than that, because these small businesses take care of us. I still walk into GP at Pioneer Square or Capitol Hill, not just because of the exceptional coffee there, but because of the beautiful human beings. At Bateau, Head Chef Taylor told me once that he serves his own dishes from time to time so he can interact with customers and see how they react to the food he's providing them. There are countless ways that these people take care of us, and a thousand unseen things they do to make sure that our days, and by extension, our lives can be better. These small kindnesses are not actually small at all. They feed our souls as well as our bodies.

I've heard service being explained as the perfect balance of presence and non-presence. When I worked in food service, it was important that each person feel taken care of...not just because of our pride as a company or because we were hardworking. We didn't do it for the lucrative money or so that we'd be praised. Sometimes I'd see a regular drive by the front of the cafe, looking for a parking spot and I'd have her drink ready on the counter when she walked in. On clamorous days, I'd keep an eye on the mouth of the person at the register while I stood at the espresso grinder ten feet away, so I could see whether the lips shaped the word "Americano" or "Latte", and I could get the drink started as soon as humanly possible. Some people would want to shoot the breeze, to talk about their latest project or to inquire further into what different espressos we were serving. Some people just wanted to take their drink, say hello, and go. Some people want to be coaxed out of their shell, and others just want their corner spot with a cappuccino and the paper. Whoever and whatever, we're in service because we see these people. It's important for people to be seen, to be cared for, in the way they want to be. Service, done correctly, is one of the most difficult things to do because it requires both technique and compassion. My favorite memories of restaurants, whether working in one or being served in one, are not just of the quality of the food but the quality of human kindness in them.

This is an ode to the people I had the privilege to work with, but also to these small businesses that are struggling right now. Last week, I was chatting with the wonderful Ash (from 6 feet away) at a GP and we talked both about how this Covid-19 situation is unprecedented and also how we're not handling it well at all. It's crazy out there, but we can find ways to be kind to each other.

Think about the small businesses that have nurtured you and try to help them -- support their businesses now (responsibly, while respecting distance and health concerns), buy gift cards, sign petitions, donate tickets/money to theaters and music schools. These are businesses that don't have low overhead or money stashed away to tide them over. If you're not in a position to help monetarily, that's okay too! Send good thoughts, send well wishes, but most of all be kind to each other. If you're thinking of someone, send them a message. We only grow richer by giving. And it has never been about whether we can fill someone else's cup, but that we pour from our own.

Wherever you are, be safe and be healthy! And as Reed would always say: thanks a latte.

Are we tired of Jane Austen yet? Apparently not. Her novels are still a fount of inspiration, and despite the timeworn tales of mismatched love and matched wits, her biting societal satire still feels fresh in Autumn de Wilde's latest adaptation Emma.

Although this is de Wilde's first feature film, she comes off a long stint as a photographer and music video director, and there's a little bit of that choreographic and artistic eye that comes through here, much to the strength of Austen's constricted setting. Colors pop in the scenery and wardrobe, making each frame as delectable as a sugary macaron. Servants move in tandem as if in a dance, but their promenading also emphasizes the sort of ease and aristocratic mechanism that Emma (Anya Taylor-Joy) takes for granted. She doesn't even look as she drops a bag to the side, knowing that a servant will be there to catch it. The opening scene has her navigate a lush greenhouse as she coyly but definitively orders a servant on which flowers to pick. It's in the early hours before there's much light, so of course there's another servant that follows her around with a lantern. It's the sort of privilege that comes as natural to her as breathing.

And that's one of the more refreshing aspects of this adaptation. de Wilde and Taylor-Joy don't shy away from Emma's privilege. She's rich, accomplished, and exceedingly entitled. And with that comes her arrogance, her pride, and her selfishness. Emma has the type of wealth that makes her blind to how much she depends on those "lesser" than her to function. She's decidedly not as likable as Austen's other heroines, and even Austen admitted of Emma that "I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like." Rather than lean on her charm or her wit, which she certainly has much of, this Emma is unarguably flawed.

Unlike other Austen heroines who have to contend with their lack of money or societal advantage, Emma is assured. She's not even interested in marriage...at least for herself. The film (and book) start with the conclusion of her matchmaking ending in a happy marriage. She is assured then that she has a skill for it, launching the capers that follow. Emma, of course, has neither the delicacy or the self-awareness to be a matchmaker. She is the type of person that doesn't care what people think of her because she's assured that everyone thinks well of her. She lets her friends make their own decisions only because she is certain she has influenced them toward the "right" decision. Furthermore, she is guided by her own ideas of class and character, as prejudiced as Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, and certainly as meddling in her friend's romantic entanglements as he is, no matter how well-meaning they both are.

Yet that is what makes Taylor-Joy, and perennially Austen's heroine, so compelling. Emma certainly has room to grow, and while it takes a shattering moment for her to become self-aware of her arrogance, she has always meant well. At times de Wilde plays out Emma. like high school politics, with its hierarchical society and Emma's mean-girl tendencies. No wonder one of the best-known Emma adaptations is 1995's Clueless. It's the perfect setting for Emma rolling her eyes at the people beneath her or giggling with someone else about how gauche a hairstyle is. She's a veritable Queen Bee, the head cheerleader that has people flocking around her. She's also naive and, well, clueless.

It's Emma's love for others that helps her to grow. And not just a romantic love (one that plays out in an extremely well-shot, scintillatingly-reserved dance scene), but a love for her father (played by a hilarious Bill Nighy), and for her best friend (Mia Goth plays Harriet Smith in the film). The tweak that de Wilde and screenwriter Eleanor Catton (the 2013 Man Booker Prize Winner for The Luminaries) have put in is the emphasis on the friendship between Emma and Harriet, which is a large impetus for Emma's growth.

Emma. is a joy to watch and charming to behold. de Wilde plumbs scenes for laughs, allowing us to feel what the servants are secretly thinking in the peripheries of their "betters", and setting up gags in the beginning that will play out for a greater payoffs by the end. It's a lovely ensemble cast, with Nighy playing up his character's hypochondriac tendencies to the hilt and a winning Taylor-Joy to lead. The costumes are lovely as well, and de Wilde does well to emphasize what was contemporary to the time rather than what is palatable to our modern fashion sense. There are sculpted hairstyles, stiffened collars, and extreme colors, but it's all accurate to the time period. de Wilde, who has shot for several fashion magazines, carefully chooses colors of the background and sets Emma's clothes in harmony or discord with them, depending on the scene.

Austen's heroines remain refreshingly contemporary, and Emma is no exception. Although she has faults and grows as a character, Emma is never forced to conform in order to snag a husband. Her growth is entirely distinctive and for her self. Each of Austen's heroines' matches must meet the women at their level. There's never a Sandra Dee moment á la Grease where the woman transforms everything about herself to be accepted, thank god. de Wilde has been faithful in every way to the original, while providing a woman for the present. Perhaps it can also teach us to open our eyes to the entitlement we're unaware of in our lives, in the name of the people we love.

Top Five. Read em and weep.

There's usually some connective tissue among the top five movies I pick for the year. Last year, they were all movies that moved me and made me think about the world differently or want to be a better person. This year, I think they're more movies about seeing beyond the surface in others and trying to understand less on personal terms and more on other's terms. Whether it's film, music, or literature...if we can engage in art that allows us to inhabit another's space -- that makes us somehow a stranger to ourselves -- then maybe we can try to understand each other a little better in this new decade. 

​5. Uncut Gems

Never have I so enjoyed a film I've been so unsettled by. The first fifteen minutes of Uncut Gems is just awful - it's an assault on your ears: a cacophony of synthesized soundtrack and yelled dialogue. And I can't remember the last time the discomfort of the theater audience was so visible to me - people were constantly shifting in their seats throughout the whole film. But something clicks for Uncut Gems after that first bit, and it becomes an adrenaline ride so potent that you want to sprint through the streets after the film comes to its explosive end. Adam Sandler's performance is a juggling and juggernautic act - you don't even like his character, but you can't help but be on the edge of your seat as you wonder holy hell...Is he actually going to pull it off? His life is a series of gambles and he thrives off the thrill of it -- he keeps chasing that high, and Uncut Gems makes us run with him. Powerful performances all around (Idina Menzel just kills), and just an unrelenting frenetic domino cascade that the Safdie brothers orchestrate perfectly. It's not a movie for everyone, but what a wild rollercoaster it is for those who can sit through it.

4. Booksmart

Okay, Booksmart had me from that first dance number Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) and Molly (Beanie Feldstein) bust out together. Dever and Feldstein are charismatic comedic gold. That lit pool scene by director Olivia Wilde was one of my favorites of the year, accenting the whole odyssey of a night the two girls have been traversing. Have we finally found a high school graduation buddy film that doesn't involve sexual assault (hello Superbad, Can't Hardly Wait, Sixteen Candles, and SO much more)? YES but despite how progressive Amy and Molly are, they're still two high-school girls that are in an amorphous and painful stage of their lives. Booksmart asks us to look beyond the facades of those around us, where people can belong to more than one Hogwarts house, or be able to be more than one thing. It's funny, winsome, and an entirely heartwarming friendship film.

3. Transit

Is there a living filmmaker that channels Hitchcock as well as Christian Petzold does? His Phoenix is pretty much a love letter to Vertigo, and Transit plays with love, identity, and mysterious women in a way that feels displaced from our current time. Transit itself is in a setting without a discernible year. It has no technological earmarks, and its oppressive overtones could work just as well in 1940s as well as now, which is perhaps the most alarming element. The characters are literally in transit, attempting to flee Europe but stuck in a sort of purgatory. But these characters are also nebulous, toying with the past even as they try to abandon it. It's Antonioni-esque in its ellipses, but thoroughly Petzold in that last gasp of a scene.

2. The Farewell

Whether you agree with the custom or not is not the point. What's important is Billie's (a terrific Awkwafina, sorrowful and muted in turns) displacement from it. The Farewell is about Billie's distance from a Chinese culture that she finds bewildering. She's shot in pellucid blues and always given so much space in the frame, we feel that isolation with her. The Farewell, above anything else, delicately handles the discord we can feel from the cultures we were raised by. It has conflicting views of the needs of the group over the individual and how much of America is actually an American Dream (and isn't that something we wonder ourselves?). These are struggles that every immigrant and second generational faces. It's a movie that's as heartbreaking as it is funny - the familial situations that unfold as the family tries to keep the grandmother from finding out that she has cancer are on that fine line that make you either weep or cry. We may all express our love in different ways, but sometimes the best way to love someone is to relinquish ideas of wrong or right, to consider their feelings, and to try to understand where they come from.

1. Parasite

Parasite is Bong Joon Ho at his very best. The film is just technically and narratively flawless. The level of detail in the set (they built the houses of the two families!), the lighting (the different in the quality of the light between the two!), metaphorically (the stairs! The stone! The water!), and even the sound design (the sound of the car going by in the beginning to signal the "heist" part of the movie beginning). There's not a single choice or detail that wasn't thought through. And it's Bong so of course it's going to be funny, satirically biting, and with camerawork as smooth as a baby's bottom. It's pretty much perfect as a sort of family hijinks movie until it hits the next act and then the film completely pulls the rug out from under you. The pacing is masterful. And yet, the best part of this? It's the utter pathos of the film. There is nothing more shattering than the realization for the family that no matter what they do, no matter what they scrabble at, there is simply no ascending the societal ladder. It's a devastating condemnation of our class disparity. Parasite isn't just my favorite of the year, I actually believe it just is the best film that 2019 produced.

Some honorable mentions:
Amazing Grace (I saw this on a tiny airplane screen -- please forgive me, Aretha -- and wow was it sublime), House of Hummingbird, Extreme Job, Hustlers (for J.Lo's performance alone. The Fiona Apple routine just slayed).

​10-6 of the year here.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire is director Céline Sciamma's latest, a ravishing period piece that takes place in 1770s France. Each scene has the texture and color of an oil painting, not unlike the ones that Marianne (Noémie Merlant) does by trade. The film opens with her tempestuous boat ride to an island where she has to secretly paint a wedding portrait of Héloïse (Adèle Haenel). Héloïse is a reluctant bride-to-be and is unaware that Marianne is a painter, believing her to merely be a walk companion, so Marianne has to drink in the sight of Héloïse by day and then toil away at her painting by night. However, as Juliet once said, "I'll look to like if looking liking move" and almost inevitably, an undeniable attraction grows between the two.

Cinematographer Claire Mathon touches each scene like a painter herself, evoking the work of Jean-Baptiste Corot, who was a 19th century painter used as a reference for the film. Portrait varies from sparse, candlelit interiors, to the sway of the isolated landscape that surrounds the manor, yet Mathon doesn't rely on the light to lead the camera. Instead, the women themselves appear effused with their own light, like a painted portrait. There are moments you can almost touch the images, like in Marianne's nubbled rust dress, or the unforgiving stiff whisper of Héloïse's green one.

Sciamma plays with the idea of artist and muse, emphasizing instead the collaboration and meeting of intelligence between Marianne and Héloïse. It's the same sort of collaborative work that's on the fore here in her film -- a piece of art that is strengthened by the clear intelligence and skill of the actresses. It's a film that also subverts the so-called gendered gaze -- Marianne's piece is empty without Héloïse's spirit filling it. The women are equals here - their first moves toward each other are of their own will, and each glance is a give and take between the both of them. It's crucial for the film to work for Merlant and Haenel to be equals as well, and they both give powerful performances. The camera loves Héloïse, almost as much as Ingmar Bergman's camera loved Liv Ullman in Persona. It wants to unravel the mysteries of her face as much as Marianne does.

It's surprising to find that Portrait won Best Screenplay at Cannes, not because it makes such poignant use of silences (in a scoreless film, yet), but also because of how straightforward the dialogue is. It's refreshing in that it seems rare to find a queer romance where the characters never feel any shame, guilt, or doubt about their feelings. Portrait is simply about two women who fall in love with each other. The absence of a score highlights the few times we do hear music in the film, and each of those times is a jolt to the system; an opening of a sense we were unaware of.

Portrait actually bears several similarities to 2017's Call Me By Your Name, namely in the reverence of a memory or a love that isn't necessarily meant to last. It asks audience members to not regret, but to remember instead. While Oliver of Call Me By Your Name dreams of the whistle of a train that will eventually separate him from his love, Marianne is similarly haunted by the future's apparition, reminding her of the present's mortality.

That apparition, amongst a few other images, come off a little strongly at times in Portrait. It's a film that would do better with some restraint in those areas. Even without the third or fourth reminder of Orpheus, we can draw so much from the image of Marianne pursuing Héloïse, becoming familiar with the sight of her back. Sciamma doesn't seem confident in letting us find our own way, instead making sure that we know what that Orpheus imagery means, or what exactly was going on in Marianne's mind when she confessed to Héloïse that she has experienced love, or whether Marianne is sad or not thinking back on her memories. There's so much reward possible in allowing the imagery and the story to open itself to us, rather than have it explicitly reiterated.

Héloïse asks in the trailer, "Do all lovers feel they're inventing something?" And perhaps what she feels or what Sciamma depicts is not the most original or revelatory experience, but one that is beautiful in its shared moment. It's an experience that makes us all equals. Sciamma's film draws on influences as varied as Mulholland Drive and the powerful dynamics of women in Ingrid Bergman's work, but it is beautifully contemporary and lithe. From Marianne and Héloïse's first exchange of looks, where the camera allows a fluid give and take of their regard, they're found to be almost emerging from each other. It's a scene about their gazes, and Sciamma invites us in to be a part of that interplay with our own gaze.

This is the latest that this list has ever come out (when 2019 is a distant memory and the Oscars have already happened). At the beginning of this year, I hit a bit of a low. Creatively, mentally, but that was also coupled with what I felt to be a somewhat lackluster year in movies. But I was reminded by others that whether a year is good or bad, there's still a top ten. Which I guess goes for life as well as films.

​Here are the tops for me:

10. Ash is the Purest White

Ash is the Purest White is Jia Zhangke's ode to the yesteryear of China, but also to the yesteryear of character Qiao (Zhao Tao). Split into three different parts and time periods of her life, it's also shot with three different types of media (DV, 35 mm, digital) to emphasize the passage of time and the alteration of color, mood, and context. But aside from the visual hues that hearken to  anything from John Woo to Tarkovsky, is the muted melancholy of Qiao, who is unable to reconcile herself with the transforming landscape around her or the evolving moral codes that she abides by. Ash might start out as a flashy underworld romance, but it centers around the loneliness that is potently and poignantly brought to the fore by Tao's performance, who commands the screen equally whether she's brandishing a gun or an unforgiving look.

​9. Nightingale

I loved Jennifer Kent's The Babadook​, but when I first heard of her follow-up The Nightingale, I didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot pole. Violence in films has become less and less tenable for me, and sexual violence is the worst offender. I never expected to watch it, but lo and behold it made it to my top ten of the year. Of course, there are some scenes I just couldn't watch -- there are some things you just can't unsee in your life and I wish I had been a little more emphatic about that when I recommended Bone Tomahawk years ago. So. Be warned that there are some extreme scenes involved, but Kent's handling of the material is what makes The Nightingale so powerful. It starts as a revenge flick for a woman, Clare, who has been terribly wronged, but it evolves into a story about the cruelties inflicted on the Tasmanian Aboriginals and the bond that Clare forges with one of them, tracker Billy. Kent captures the bewildering wilderness and isolation in tight shots that close in on Clare as she navigates the forest, as well as displaying the violence as a matter of historical accuracy rather than voyeurism. Nightingale certainly isn't for everyone, but it is more about the compassion we need in the face of injustice, and there's an aching beauty to Clare's rising song when she finally sings only for herself.

8. Jojo Rabbit

An earnest young boy in Hitler's youth army has Hitler as an imaginary friend. Oh, and that Hitler is played by director Taika Waititi. Jojo Rabbit is every bit as zany as you'd expect from a Waititi foray, but it's the hidden pockets of heartfelt poignancy that really get you. What can we do in the face of wrong? Of overwhelming hatred or fanaticism? This is Waititi's answer. And although at times, the film can drive into territory that makes us wonder if he's making too light of something so serious, you also come to realize that perhaps that's the only way we can respond. Veering close to the black humor of "it's so awful and funny because it's true" that was perfected by Death of Stalin and literature's The Master and Margarita, Jojo Rabbit instead doesn't shy from the emotions that make us human -- not just anger or pride, but love, empathy, and the ability to grow.

7. 1917

I expected 1917 to be a fairly solid movie, nothing more - it's a war movie in a sea of war movies and a one-take film in a sea of one-takes. But one of the reasons why this film is so high on the list is because of Roger Deakins. For much of the opening, 1917​ feels like Birdman meets ​They Shall Not Grow Old. It's impressive for its veracity and for the dynamic way the camera moves its characters through the action. You can't help but groan when Schofield accidentally shoves his hand into a rotting corpse or hold your breath when Blake leads Schofield through a crumbling bunker. But then something happens in the middle, and then the Thomas Newman score swells, and suddenly Schofield is running through the darkness, lights flaring, gunfire blasting and you realize that you have, once again, been slain by Deakins and that 1917 isn't a theme park ride, or a movie for entertainment, but is actually a beautiful film. Truffaut claims that there is no such thing as an anti-war film, but I think you can get pretty damn close. The hopelessness of their situation, the wanton loss -- both in immeasurable numbers and immeasurable singular sorrows -- is what 1917 tries to hit on. It's despair at the war, but also such a deep despair at what could have been -- how we'd trade all the heroics in the world for the chance to not need them.

6. One Cut of the Dead

1917 may have been the most impressive one-take film, but One Cut of the Dead has one of my favorites of the year. Technically released in Japan in 2017, One Cut finally made its way for distribution to the States last year. It was one of the last movies I saw of the year, and I kind of fell in love with it right away. It's hard to talk about this movie just enough so that people will want to see it, but not too much to spoil what makes it great. One Cut starts with a 37-minute one-take movie about a film crew shooting a zombie film while they're beset by actual zombies. It's a bizarre portion that leaves you scratching your head and wondering what the heck is going on. But the more you pay attention, the more you'll be rewarded by what follows. One Cut is an ode to low-budget filmmaking, the never-say-die efforts of a crew that will make something work come hell or high water, and also ends up being an endearing family drama too. Take aside an hour and half, sit back, and let some absolutely killer jokes and setups pay off. I promise you, it's 100% worth it.

Coming back, you realize that the faces here are almost familiar to you. And I don't just mean that the hopeful singer in the bar wears Chloe Sevigny's face, but also that the guy accompanying her on a mini-keyboard sounding gossamer tones could be that acquaintance from grad school you still follow on instagram. The crowd is full of vaguely familiar people, but nothing certain enough for you to speak up. And then you realize that you might be in a dream state, peopled with faces you haven't thought about in years or fleeting visages you only glanced at years ago.

It's a place where you visit cupcake vending machines at midnight, where homeless people are as docile as the quilts they cloak themselves with, where billboards litter the airspace so much that you recognize an accident lawyer just as easily as you can spot a movie star. You sit at a restaurant, surrounded by Mexicans and Koreans and the occasional gaijin, and the speakers blare an order number you can only respond to with finesse if you're conditioned to it.

But it's also a place of your youth. You've come to understand that those whiffs of nostalgia, like an ex-lover's cologne, those ones that are strong enough to create a pit in your stomach are only for the nights here because that was really the only part you liked about it. That feeling associated with the endless, liminal nights where the possibilities were infinite -- those summer nights where you drove around the city with the windows rolled down, sometimes with the unenduring soundtrack of our youth playing from the speakers -- that's actually what LA meant to you.

It meant those empty spaces at night that were haunted by the ghosts of the day's bustle and desire. Maybe it meant those playground swings that only cradled adult whims at night. It was an understanding of what Linklater was getting at with his odyssey of possibility, where his characters travel through the night, trying on different places and identities, all the while embracing who they really are. It was dancing in a grocery store parking lot inhabited only by light poles, traversing the fluorescent-washed aisles of the H-Mart when everyone else was gone, and those warm rooftop nights after a gig looking out at the city with people you'd never talk to again.

But you don't belong in this land of sun where broken hearts jockey for space with hopeful ones at every party. Not really. You come from a place of rain and occasional snow. Where the promise to hang out is left politely (and gratefully) at that. Where lyft drivers are so lonely they ellide into passenger's conversations. Where your distance isn't measured by which hands you've shaken but by which pop-culture-Dan-Brown-like books you haven't read. Where women look askance at you for not speaking up, rather than men not looking at you at all because you're not expected to be heard.

You've never been a night owl, so you couldn't really live in a place where the sun burns away your identity like the consumption of a lotus flower does. Even as you sit in a cafe, recognizing the ghost of a past self during a late night grind, you recognize that that person is ten years gone, for better or worse. More better than worse.

Because it was a good time and you're grateful that that invincibility isn't actually wrapped in some memory gone to seed like Rob Lowe's character in St. Elmo's Fire. You're grateful that the you of ten years ago that knew you couldn't stay here understood the present you. It's a town that worships the old while trying to usher it out, so you're grateful that the space of what you loved about it still exists even as it brings in soju pops and girls coasting down the street in rentable scooters with their long wavy hair and long denim jackets floating behind them.

You're grateful, too, because that invincibility is not tied to a place or a time but is actually tied to you. That the taste of that perfect burger, perfect taco, perfect hodduk from a food cart on cross-streets you can't remember, is a dreamer's high you'll never be able to chase down, but that's okay. Because the buzz of excitement, those summer nights where the shadows swallowed up any rejection of self, the feeling that what's unfolding before you is a bittersweet moment that can never be replicated -- that's an infinite that has never been tied to a place or time, but is actually tied to you.

Robert Eggers' sophomore film could be (and has been) sold as a black-and-white feature with Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson going head to head as lighthouse keepers. Judging from Eggers' ​The Witch, it's an almost sure bet that there will be some supernatural elements and some spectacularly spooky scenes. But other than that, audience members are given little else to go on before the film starts.

Dafoe and Pattinson play Thomas Wake and Ephraim Winslow, respectively, two nineteenth-century lighthouse keepers. Left alone for weeks on a mysterious island, resentments and hallucinations boil over in a cabin feveresque spiral. There's ample opportunity for Dafoe and Pattinson to chew the scenery, and Eggers roils us in every miserable bit of their sodden, cramped existences. The 1.19 aspect ratio makes the screen almost square, enhancing the claustrophobia we feel in their quarters and in their souls. When Winslow first climbs the stairs to their shared bedroom, he bonks his head on a ceiling, reminding us tactilely of that crampedness. The ratio with the harsh lighting hearkens The Lighthouse back to German silent film days.

The harsh lighting causes eerie shadows and sharp planes on the actors' faces, living as they do by the light of one burning bulb between them. It's likely the first movie you've seen with Pattinson where he won't look pasty. But the silent film vibes actually tend to remove us from the subject matter. Eggers has an eye for period detail, having even built and sewn all the clothes for The Witch. If he could, he'd probably jam Dafoe and Pattinson's hands into age-appropriate dirt to get the right look for the grime underneath their fingernails. Similar to The Witch, he pulls language and dialogue from the period, turning to nineteenth-century writers Herman Melville and Sarah Orne Jewett for inspiration. Although we can certainly appreciate his appreciation for veracity, the period-accurate language and heavy accents can be hard to decipher at times, and arguably take us more out of the film than into it.

The Lighthouse does the best when it's being uncompromisingly surreal. Eggers throws mythical allusions here and there, from sailor omens to Greek motifs. Wake and Winslow start to meld together in a weird way as they descend into kerosene-fumed madness and resentment. It's like a briny, machismo version of Persona, where two men are trapped with each other in the phallic symbol of the lighthouse. Wake is possessive of the lighthouse, calling it a "she" and not allowing Winslow take care of it. Some of The Lighthouse's prettiest scenes, free of grime and the weather lacerations are of the lighthouse itself and the power it exudes. Wake and Winslow's conversations mention other women from time to time, although Winslow certainly shows more than an implication of a sexual frustration outside of those mentions.

Eggers and cinematographer Jarin Blaschke used older Panavision lenses from the early twentieth century to achieve The Lighthouse's old-timey look. Although they used Kodak's Double-X film, they filtered it to create the orthochromatic look of old film, with a harsher contrast and grain. The Lighthouse is certainly awash in spectacular shots, ranging from the expertly framed to the bleak. But there's a remove from the film, much like watching an older silent film. Dafoe and Pattinson are excellent, snarling their way through their lines; Dafoe spews monologues as if Shakespeare were a peg-legged sea captain and Pattinson probably sweats and physically agonizes more here than all his other movies combined, but there's rarely a moment when you're not aware that they are Dafoe and Pattinson. There's a dream-like quality to much of the story with its surreal logic, but the repetitiveness wears and the film feels much longer than its runtime. It's an impressive film to look at, with numerous striking shots, but you're not left grasping much at the end. The Lighthouse is a film you end up wanting to like more than you actually do, but it's an admirable outing for Eggers all the same. However, it might be better to pass on its sailor slop and poorly cooked lobster to live deliciously and rewatch The Witch.

Director Bong Joon-ho returns to Korea for his latest, Palme d'Or-winning film Parasite and it's a masterpiece.  A departure from the wild escapades and expansive scope of his last two movies, Okja and Snowpiercer, Parasite is a more intimate affair.  A psychological thriller and scathing social satire, the story focuses on a poor Korean family that inveigles itself into the home of an upper-class, wealthy family and the events that ensue.  Bong directed and wrote the story, and there's a meticulousness to each frame that feels almost as if you're watching a play at times.  There's almost as much going on in the background as what's in focus, and the spacing is always carefully planned.  Parasite will invite multiple viewings to not only catch everything that happens on screen, but what the relationships of those physical and mental spaces mean.

Bong employs a 2.39 aspect ratio and the wideness of the screen is apparent from the opening shot of the Kim family's sub-basement apartment.  The Kim family crowds into every scene together, limbs squished together or tumbling from the frame.  Their closeness is mirrored by the cramped spaces of their home, all clutter and narrow hallways and junk spilling from rooms.  In sharp contrast, the rich Park family rarely shares space in a frame.  Their home, all modernist angles and simplicity has the sheen of a clean, wealthy facade -- the house is the former home of a well-known architect and it's both tastefully decorated and tastefully maintained.  There's scant opportunity for these two disparate classes to come in contact with each other, as Mrs. Park underlines with an offhand comment about how she can't even remember the last time she rode a subway.

One of the only intersections is the way that Ki-woo Kim (Woo-Sik Choi) first gets into the household -- introduced by a friend to be an English tutor to Da-hye Park.  He hasn't gone to university and he doesn't speak English very well, but it doesn't matter.  He comes from a family of hustlers and he's soon accepted with open arms and an open wallet by a trusting Mrs. Park (Yeo-Jung Jo), setting off a chain of events that Bong twists in careful and darkly madcap ways.

The style of their homes isn't the only difference between the houses.  Ki-woo has to ascend flights of stairs to leave his neighborhood, and even once past the front gate, the camera swings upward to emphasize his climb when he first visits the Park home.  Bong is a huge fan of director Ki-young Kim and his 1960 film The Housemaid, and nothing could spell that out more than the importance of stairs for him in the film.  Stairs have always been a sign of affluence for Koreans in homes, symbolizing their wealth and ability to afford a home with more than one floor.  Bong utilizes stairs visually but also features it in pivotal moments of the script, using it to show the struggles of the lower class to rise above their station to no avail.

Bong isn't shy to use metaphor, and when characters talk about how "metaphorical" an item is or how "serious" they're being, they're almost in parody of themselves.  The symbol of water and the gift of a rock are all interwoven into the story, but Bong's mastery is truly in Parasite's characters.  Despite villainous actions, he hasn't created any villains.  Each family quartet is sympathetic and fully realized.  Perhaps the Kims are seen to be the parasites at first, taking advantage of the rich Parks, but the Parks are no less so.  They feed on and utilize the Kims, dependent on them for their livelihood without even realizing how much they ignore and use the poorer to enable their status in life.  It's a story of impersonation, but not only of the members of the Kims as they try on the roles of the more fortunate, but also of the Parks.  They too pretend to take on characteristics of the lower class to get a kick out of it, whether in sexual roleplay or when eating commoner's noodles, albeit with sirloin steak added in.

Parasite balances dark humor with pathos as it races up to a second act and beyond.  Bong is stylish in narrative and visual flair, nudging the camera or our minds to go one way or the other.  Long-time collaborators actor Kang-ho Song and cinematographer Kyung-Pyo Hong add incredible nuance to the film.  The former is able to evince a building of emotions with a mere twitch of a muscle or hooded eyes, and Hong's use of light to contrast the two households is remarkable and subtle.  Hong has worked on some of the more well-known and beautiful films of the past years, including Burning, The Wailing, and Snowpiercer, and is yet able to create a new vocabulary to fit whatever film and whatever story he needs to service.  Parasite is both crisp and intimate, going from the dank subterranean depths of despair to the light-filled, sparse minimalist angles of the kind of wealth that doesn't need to talk about itself.

But the real wealth comes from the depths of Parasite's sympathy towards its characters.  The Parks may not be villains, but they don't understand the plight of the Kims, who struggle onwards and not without real effort or talent.  And despite their best intentions or desires, they're not able to rise above their station or change who they are.  Parasite speaks to the class disparity not only in Korea, but also in many other parts of the world.  And it speaks to the line that's drawn between them and the inability of change, although one may wish it was as simple as climbing a flight of stairs to emerge into a better position.

Contains spoilers and plot points for the following films: The Farewell and Midsommar

There's a brief point early in Lulu Wang's The Farewell where it's easy to imagine an alternate universe mash-up of this movie and Ocean's 8.  When Awkwafina, the dutiful granddaughter, assures her grandmother on the phone that she's wearing a hat to keep warm (she's not), she could easily be on the way to a park in Queens to work her next hustle.  The illusion is dispelled early on though, and it's Awkwafina's posture that does it.  In The Farewell, she moseys around with rounded shoulders and a permanent slump; this is not the swagger of a fingersmith who has the gall to lift Cate Blanchett's watch.  Billi (Awkwafina) is always dressed in a sort of inchoate sweatshirt fabric ensemble.  It immediately gives off the whiff of someone who both strives for comfort and who couldn't care less what impression she's giving because she has bigger worries on her mind.

And this is true -- Billi's grandmother, or Nai Nai (Shuzhen Zhao), has just been diagnosed with cancer and she doesn't have long to live.  What seems the wildest to Billi, however, is that Nai Nai is the only one who doesn't know.  Her extended family gathers in China to say goodbye under the guise of a family wedding, all the while keeping the secret under wraps.  In fact, they don't even want Billi to come, fearing that her lack of a poker face will give it all away.  It's not an unreasonable worry:  Billi's eyes brim over with mournfulness every time she looks at Nai Nai, as likely will the eyes of every audience member watching the movie.

It may sound like a crazy tradition to anyone unfamiliar with it, but it's apparently commonplace.  Doctors speak to relatives about diagnoses and keep the secret safe from the one with the disease.  The family comes from all over China, Japan, and the US to gather for the wedding/farewell, but Billi herself seems to have the most difficulty with the cover-up.  She urges her family members to reveal the truth, until she's set straight.  This is simply what is expected and it's not cruel or absurd:  Nai Nai herself hid the fact that her husband had cancer from him until near the end.  Chinese people have a saying: "it's not the cancer that kills them -- it's the fear."  The family takes on the burden of grief to protect the afflicted person.  In this, the group shares the pain of the knowledge for the individual.

The clash of cultural ideals is at the forefront of The Farewell, not just in its culture of grief but the overarching idea of the individual and its obligation to the group, or the reverse.  Billi's family is proud to have moved to America, but Billi herself is at sea.  Her wardrobe reflects her amorphous state -- she's too Chinese in America and not Chinese enough in China.  She mourns being uprooted at such a young age from China, unable to understand or recognize her homeland anymore.  Wang's handling of these emotional moments is patient and honest.  Her camera prefers unbroken takes of Billi's emotional monologues, while maintaining a safe physical distance.  The space in the frame allows us to constantly contextualize Billi, while emphasizing the actual distance she feels.

The Farewell careens between drama and the comedy of the lengths that the family goes to to keep the truth from Nai Nai, but Wang keeps it warm and genuine.  It's an ambitious feature:  the majority of the dialogue is in Mandarin, its hues are often pellucid blues, and most of it was shot in Wang's hometown.  Wang's concern is with authenticity, not what's marketable.  But even when the film reminds us that it is a film, like in a slo-mo scene near the end, it's more to signal the coming together, the sharing, of the family in that moment of what they have to do.

At one point in The Farewell, Billi remarks in disbelief that what they're doing is surely considered illegal in America.  This statement could probably be repeated a few times over in Ari Aster's Midsommar, another summer flick this year that dealt with culture clash and grief.

Reeling from a recent tragedy, Dani (Florence Pugh) ends up tagging along on her boyfriend Christian's (Jack Reynor) Swedish bro-trip.  The group visits and takes part in a famous mid-summer festival in a secluded, rural village that only happens every ninety years, which quickly takes horrific and bizarre turns.

Aster himself said that his follow-up to Hereditary was meant to be a break-up film, but it fails at making a compelling case as either that or a horror film.  Dani and Christian's relationship is pretty flimsy and mostly broken up to begin with.  Christian is an asshole from the start, and we're never certain what Dani's attraction to him is or was.  There's a bare expository phone call to a friend sketching it out (apparently involving a friend of Dani's that we never see or hear from again.  Does Dani even have any other friends?  It's unclear), but that's the extent of it.  Christian's behavior throughout borders on laughable, but the action that proves to be the final straw isn't completely in his hands.  He ends up so drugged up, we're not even sure how much agency he ultimately has.  It's clear that he wouldn't have needed much of a push, which makes this plot decision even more curious.  And there are those who might feel that what he did deserves the outcome: being paralyzed, stuffed into an actual bear suit, and burned alive...but that seems a bit harsh to me.

Midsommar​ makes a far more fascinating watch as a study on grief and ritual.  Almost all of the beats of the film are shown to us beforehand, either in mural or verbally.  Even the horrific opening scene is precluded by a picture of what is about to happen.  One member of Dani and Christian's group, Josh (William Jackson Harper), is actually studying the mid-summer festival as part of his thesis, and so remains the most unfazed at the first ritual that the group experiences.  The reactions to this ceremony, involving the two eldest members of the village, are fairly indicative.  Two British tourists are screaming at the sight, Josh's only admission the night before is something akin to "wait till you see it -- it'll ruin the experience if I tell you about it" as if he's talking about the ending of The Sixth Sense rather than a cult ceremony, Dani is shell-shocked, and Christian is doltishly aloof, assuring her later that he's certain that other cultures would consider American traditions with the elderly equally barbaric.  His response isn't really inclusive as much as it is dismissive of Dani's own feelings and trauma.

It's difficult to say if any of these is the correct response to a culture or tradition we're unfamiliar with.  Christian and Josh, after all, are only accepting as far as it benefits their own ends.  Dani is easily, by the film's last smile, the one who most assimilates into the pagan cult.  Appropriate because of the amount of grief she has already suffered by the time they arrive in the village.

But what does Midsommar say about grief or the tradition of the individual for the whole?  Certainly the individual is subservient to the community, as shown in their sacrificial and mating rituals.  And yet, the individual is not set apart from the community in their acts.  What is the most appealing to Dani is the sharing of their grief and action.  When Dani witnesses the betrayal of Christian, she breaks down and weeps, only to be joined by a group of women who weep and wail with her, sharing every bellow and sob.  When Pelle (Villhelm Blomgren), tells Dani that he knows how she feels, it is to make her feel less alone, and to assure her that he has also witnessed the death of his family in a horrific fire (which begs the question, of course, on exactly how many once-every-ninety-years rituals they participate in).  Not only that, he emphasizes how the community supported him and kept him from feeling lost.  The only way this makes sense is to realize that the village completely assumes responsibility for the pain they caused by sharing in it.  When the sacrifices burn at the end and cry out their pain, the whole village cries out in tandem with them, in a recognition and sharing of that grief.

Dani understands this.  Already she has taken part in a dancing ceremony, where she became one with the dance, causing her to completely understand the Swedish words thrown her way.  In her delirium, she finally understands what is being communicated because she becomes one with the people around her:  a part of the group.  It's not certain exactly how much her final decision is influenced by her feelings for Christian.  But as she weeps and wails along with everyone else, she is taking part in their culture of grief.  Her beatific smile at the end is the cherry on top.  She is no longer a part of a toxic relationship where she has to feel shame in sharing her pain; she is now a part of a community that wants to feel what she does.

I inevitably go through a film review and watching slump around the springtime.  It happens almost every year -- a combination of film fatigue and an excess of mediocre fare.  This year, the nail in the coffin may have been the latest Avengers movie (or maybe another superhero movie?  Or was it another Disney live action movie?)  So the next few reviews will be uncharacteristically late.  My apologies.

There's no better way to say it:  Olivia Wilde's directorial debut, Booksmart, is entirely winning and winsome, proving there's still some new luster to be had from an old graduation buddy comedy film.  Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) and Molly (Beanie Feldstein) have been friends forever and are about to graduate from high school.  They've buckled down and checked all the boxes to get into the best schools.  But on the eve of graduation, Molly finds that maybe they didn't actually check all the right boxes.  Their classmates are headed to the same prestigious futures, proving that they worked hard just as much as they played hard.  In a last-ditch effort to have it all, the two embark on an all-night quest to participate in the greatest party of all time.

Dever and Feldstein are gems, never flagging in their portrayal as supportive friends.  Nothing would make me happier than to see the two of them collaborate again in other roles like another Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly pair or Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.  Booksmart deftly navigates the usual "search of an epic party" trope, turning it instead into a friendship odyssey, complete with a mysterious oracle-like figure (a hilarious Billie Lourd) that keeps popping up to guide their journey, a lotus-eating drug scene, and scenes of such surpassing strangeness they only make sense in the context of a teen film. 

Yet despite these exotic scenes, the story and emotions are familiar.  It's a tumultuous time of our lives where we keenly feel emotions even when we rollercoaster from our highs to our lows in minutes.  It's also all-consuming, disorienting, and egocentric.  Wilde captures all of this perfectly, from the slo-mo scenes of Molly's disbelief in the school hallways, to the poignant beauty of the light-filled pool scenes that catches those effervescent moments we'll never capture again if we're not there to seize them, to the steadicam daze that follows when Amy leaves that pool.  It's a confident handling of material that belies the fact that this is Wilde's debut and the uncertainty of the subject matter.

Amy and Molly are each other's "person".  They are that person in your youth who knows you better than your parents do, maybe better than you yourself do.  But through the course of their night, they find out more about each other and their classmates: always proving that there is more to a person than meets the eye.  One person doesn't have to belong to simply one Hogwarts House; teenagers are more complex than that, despite what your average highschool flick will tell you.  Appropriately, Booksmart proves that the average highschool flick doesn't have to be average at all.  I'm thankful that smart, relevant movies are being made that belie mediocrity or the idea that we have to settle for anything less.  Booksmart is funny, affirming, and a delight on all fronts -- Wilde has knocked it out of the park and inaugurated a promising directing career.