Current sensibilities demand more explicit warnings than the ratings system of old. We don’t merely need to be aware of sexually explicit material, extreme violence, and/or coarse language. There is a need for psychological readiness before we sit down in our cushy lounge chairs or settle into our comfy arm chairs and couches. We need to know that we will be OK before, during and after new releases unspool before our eyes.
Steely determination used to be the only armor I strapped on prior to a screening, and I found that I appreciated the challenge of having my emotional buttons pressed. The surprise of not knowing exactly how or why I might be wrung through the psychic ringer added to the experience. Back in the day, American History X dragged me kicking and screaming to a revolting edge as Edward Norton’s neo-Nazi character curb-stomped a Black man to death. How do you unsee something that — thanks to the dark and dangerous magic of moviemaking — you never truly saw in the first place? How do we relate to reviled characters like Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) in American Psycho or Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell) in A Clockwork Orange to the point that we identify with their situations and their horrendous actions?
We might not encounter films quite like American Psycho or A Clockwork Orange again, but there are films and even streaming shows intent on forcing us to confront what lurks in the dark and discomforting spaces we long to avoid.
Mother! (Darren Aronofsky)
The punctuation mark provides a clue that something is not quite right with Aronofsky’s 2017 release. On the surface, it’s a story about a couple (Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem) whose quiet home is under siege by a cavalcade of uninvited guests that never seems to end. Art and life collide, bend and fracture in surreal ways that test the limits of reality and creation itself. And, of course, there’s that pesky exclamation point that opens the door to a host of follow-up narratives — Midsommar, The Lighthouse, Hereditary — that dare to push into similar psychosexual territory, but don’t quite have the same degree of emphatic determination.
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Uncut Gems (Benny Safdie & Josh Safdie)
Imbued with the sense of a ticking clock counting down to doom for its protagonist Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler), a high-adrenaline New York jeweler with mounting debts that need to be paid post-haste, the Safdies create the ultimate frantic headlong race into a concrete wall (rather than merely crossing a finish line) and litter the course with a true gem of an appearance and performance from none other than Kevin Garnett, which eases the discomfort in surprising and confounding ways. I find that Sandler works best, playing wildly against the comedic type that audiences have come to know and enjoy, and here, he is operating on the highest (and thinnest) of wires without a net and somehow hopping along on one broken foot. And he’s constantly daring us to turn away.
Irreversible (Gaspar Noé)
Noé has never encountered an edge he was unwilling to race toward and jump off with an Olympic diver’s grace into the air before plummeting to the earth below. There’s an indestructible streak in him that he is able to transfer to the audiences willing to strap themselves to his back. Back in 2002, as a terribly new critic on the scene, I received a VHS screener of Irreversible toward the end of the year and hurriedly rushed home, inserted the tape into my player, pressed play, and within 20 minutes, shut the machine off. The narrative — a largely single-night of emotional punishment that unfurls in reverse-chronological order — tracks two best friends as they seemingly seek to avenge the brutal rape of a friend (Monica Bellucci) by a complete stranger — and features a violent act that rivals the curb-stomping scene in American History X.
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My psyche was battered and bruised in ways that no other film had ever punished me before, and I feared I might not ever return to finish the story. Yet, after attempting to fall asleep, I sat up at 3 a.m., wide awake, and pressed play again, picking up exactly where I left off and settled in this time as a willing accomplice to my own mental abuse. I’ve only watched it once and will never do so again, but it changed me, intriguingly, in the best way possible.
Green Room (Jeremy Saulnier)
Punk music dares listeners to bang their heads against a wall to a pile-driving beat and three mangled chords that most dead musical masters wouldn’t recognize if it meant they could return from the grave. But what happens when a punk band in the middle of nowhere waiting around for a random gig to start witnesses a murder by Neo-Nazis and then realize there’s no way out? Wall-banging is the only option. And when you have the great Patrick Stewart playing so far against type that he becomes unrecognizable, no wonder Green Room shatters the nerves of audiences (warning: trailer is explicit).
Breaking the Waves / Dancer in the Dark (Lars von Trier)
Danish filmmaker Von Trier co-founded Dogme 95, a filmmaking movement rooted in story, acting and themes (which for von Trier featured a laundry list of issues — existential, social, sexual and political — as well as subjects like mental health) and was intent on excluding the use of complex special effects or unnecessary technology. Breaking the Waves (warning: trailer is explicit) and Dancer in the Dark explored female sexuality taken to extreme lengths and, at times, found him beloved for his brave attempts to lay such concerns nakedly onscreen and just as often denounced for brutally challenging us in such perverse ways, sometimes during interviews (rather than with his narrative efforts). Who dares to sign up for a voyeuristic tour of debased souls that belong in some undeclared level of Dante’s Inferno?
The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer)
Slightly ahead of Birth on the creeping discomfort scale, Zone zeroes in on the banality of evil in ways mundane and profound. If Hitler and his bid to exterminate an entire people wasn’t horrific enough, Glazer — working from Martin Amis’ text — exposes the root in humanity that allows something so devastating to happen in the first place. We are not good or innocent and I understand that because this film held up the truest reflection of who we are. I used to think that 12 Years a Slave offered the rawest example of our basest instincts, but Zone one-upped Steve McQueen’s adaptation by a degree I can’t fathom.
The Bear (Christopher Storer)
Trying to understand and embrace the changes in television? Then look no further than this comedy/drama from Hulu focusing on a driven young chef (Jeremy Allen White) who comes back home to Chicago to take over the family sandwich shop after his older brother commits suicide. And yes, I said comedy/drama, but it weaves in and out of those lanes as if lanes themselves don’t exist, and the vehicle in question lacks both brakes and steering capabilities and an infinite traffic jam looms ahead. Each and every character in this workplace series thrives on chaos, but what about the audiences vegging out in front of their screens? Based on my wife, who I’m not sure has ever laughed (or even chuckled to herself) during a single moment of the first three seasons, it elevates grating to unimaginable levels, but for what it’s worth, she’s still watching with me.
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Kinds of Kindness / Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos)
Lanthimos turned his deliciously jaded eye and sensibilities on the Queen City and revealed a seedy underside in 2017’s The Killing of a Sacred Deer — and it’s worth noting that the film might have been one of his tamer examinations of the unsettling nature of humanity in isolated extremes. Since then, he’s found an unlikely muse and partner in crime in Emma Stone, but I’m starting to think that maybe she was always the unsettling one and has found a creative soulmate, which would explain their recent one-two knockout punch. Whether delving into a fully formed woman with the mind of a child or several characters in short installments (warning: trailer is explicit) dedicated to David Lynchian levels of absurdity, Stone and Lanthimos seem eager to see which of them will blink first in a most personal game of psychological chicken. These two films are the double-feature no one knew they needed that could send most audiences either scratching their eyes out or guarantee they will never set foot in a theater again.
