BEST MOVIE: Minari
There were a handful of strong, respectfully received films at this year’s Sundance Film Festival: Eliza Hittman’s quietly devastating Never Rarely Sometimes Always, the exquisitely acted The Father, the audacious and divisive Promising Young Woman and Black Bear, or the manic rom-com Palm Springs, which sold for $17,500,000.69 (a Sundance record by 69 cents). But it’s Lee Isaac Chung’s semi-autobiographical Minari, about a Korean immigrant family struggling to realize the American dream in Reagan-era Arkansas, that catapulted itself to the forefront of Park City buzz. It’s the kind of film movie lovers flock to the festival to experience, something that feels truly special and transformative. Starring Steven Yeun as a father who moves his family to the South so that he can start a farm and quit the taxing, low-paying work at a chicken hatchery, Minari is largely told through the eyes of 7-year-old David (an all-time great child performance from Alan Kim), as he watches his family navigate the tension between their American and Korean identities as he forms one himself. It’s a delicate story about determination and the precariousness of love and duty, told with humor and a heartfelt dignity. — Kevin Fallon
BEST DOCUMENTARY: Dick Johnson Is Dead
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Not to be confused with last year’s Sundance entry The Death of Dick Long, this heartstring-tugging documentary is the latest from filmmaker Kirsten Johnson, who shot the Oscar-winning Citizenfour and helmed Cameraperson, a tribute to her career behind the camera. Like the latter, she’s turned the camera onto herself here—or rather her father, the titular Dick Johnson, a wonder of a man whose abiding love for his daughter colors every frame. The two have agreed to embark on a special tribute to Dick as he slowly loses himself to dementia: a magical-realist fantasia awash in hilarious stunt-“deaths,” visions of heaven, and a premature funeral. It’s a wonder to behold—a celebration of a lovely man and the joys of living. — Marlow Stern
BEST ACTRESS: Elisabeth Moss, Shirley
Though Taylour Paige delivers a confident, winning turn as the in-over-her-head stripper in the Florida nightmare Zola (based on the viral internet thread), it’s the inimitable Elisabeth Moss—who gave the very best film performance of 2019 in Her Smell—who shines once more. Her Shirley Jackson, the late, great horror-mystery writer, is a font of genius and hostility; a troll of the highest order who preys on your wildest insecurities. But she’s also a tragic figure of sorts—a bedridden agoraphobe whose two-timing prick of a professor-husband (Michael Stuhlbarg) has gaslit her into another dimension. It recalls The Yellow Wallpaper, with Moss assuming the role of the infantilized woman, lashing about in the abyss. — Marlow Stern
BEST ACTOR: Anthony Hopkins, The Father
The Father is a brutal movie to watch. Anthony Hopkins plays Anthony, a man whose mind and memory is slipping as he struggles with dementia. As his daughter (Olivia Colman, in an affecting, tender performance) grapples with the reality that she may no longer be able to care for him on her own, the film becomes an aching portrait of loss of all kinds: memory, relationships, time. But it’s a sensational performance from Hopkins, both towering and brittle—and maybe his best work since Amistad—that grounds a narrative in which being unmoored is entirely the point. You never quite know what’s real, what’s misremembered, and what’s an amalgamation of both, a state of disorientation for the viewer but of panic and horror for Anthony, who is flailing for a grip on the truth and, with it, his life. Hopkins delivers astonishing, layered work, a sledgehammer of a performance. — Kevin Fallon
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Yuh-Jung Youn, Minari
Yuh-Jung Youn is the beating heart of Minari. She plays young David’s grandmother, Soonja, who is sent for from Korea to help care for David and his sister—and to appease Monica (Yeri Han), whose frustration with her husband and his farming pipe dream is fiery enough that the kids are starting to worry if their parents will make it. David, who is meeting her for the first time, initially is annoyed by and outwardly doesn’t like her, as she’s not enough like what he thinks a grandmother should be by American standards. She doesn’t even bake cookies! But Soonja meets this culture clash with steely humor, and as their bond grows so, too, does the emotional core of the film. Youn crafts a woman whose interactions are lighthearted, but for whom the weight of a life long- and hard-lived is evident with every breath. — Kevin Fallon
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Alan Kim, Minari
“Never work with animals or children,” muttered the writer and actor W.C. Fields. Well, the ol’ curmudgeon never had the pleasure of attending the Sundance Film Festival, a veritable smorgasbord of unforgettable child performances. Who can forget Quvenzhané Wallis’ heroic Hushpuppy in Beasts of the Southern Wild, Abigail Breslin’s dreamer in Little Miss Sunshine, or Elsie Fisher’s aching adolescent in Eighth Grade? Well, you can add Alan Kim’s name to the list. If Yuh-Jung Youn’s grandmother is the beating heart of Minari, his David is its gentle soul, compelling laughter one moment (e.g. when he serves his grandma a cup of pee), and pathos the next (his struggle to run, due to the small hole in his heart). And, I mean, the kid is just ridiculously cute, kickin’ about his Korean-immigrant family’s Oklahoma farm in lil’ cowboy boots. You grow to love David over the course of Minari, becoming as fiercely protective of him as his own (onscreen) parents. — Marlow Stern
