Anybody else's favorite movie of all time?
Is The Grifters anybody else's favorite movie of all time or is it just me? This is, without a doubt, the single best film I have ever seen.
shareI like The Grifters, and tend to watch it about once a year. But worthy of favorite movie status???
I am not saying I disagree, but I will tell you what. There is going to have to be a little bit of explaination.
What do you all like so much about this movie? How does it function better than any other movie (thus deserving the "favorite" title)?
Please, make me a convert, cause right now I am still stuck on either Persona or Mr. Smith Goes to Washington... and have been itchin' to move on.
Here is my attempt at a review of the film that I wrote a few years ago. Take from it what you may:
The Grifters - This is it. This is my favorite movie of all time. Unequivocally, without a doubt, in spades the best movie I have ever seen. While there are films that I love and think are wonderful beyond comparison, no movie ever would, ever could come close to The Grifters. The ultimate irony of my love for the film is my inability to articulate why it is so special to me. What about The Grifters makes it my favorite movie of all time? No plot really threads the three main characters Lily Dillon (Anjelica Houston) her son Roy (John Cusak) and his girlfriend Myra Langtry (Annette Benning). What we get instead are their interactions as they con their way through life. Either doing small-time crookery, cheating wealthy oil men out of large sums of money or lowering odds on racehorses so track odds don’t bankrupt bookies, each of these characters are fascinating as they hustle their way through each other’s lives and their own. What starts out as a threesome of different cons played on other people quickly becomes much more serious as the rules change and everyone soon learns they have more to loose than at first perception. To say that Houston, Cusak and Benning all give the performances of their career is an understatement. These are three actors who are consistently at the top of their games. They know how to act and watching them is never dull. But what they do here is what can only be described as sheer enjoyment. We have fun watching them because we know they are having fun playing these characters, which are hopefully not a reflection of them in some way. Of all the actors, I fluctuate between liking the job that each one of them do over the other every time I see it, which, admittedly, has been over 75 times. I have not yet talked about the spirit of the film, or the mode/mood it projects. It is the very essence of film noir. You know what film noir is. Those semi-undefinable films from the 1940’s and 1950’s usually dealing with criminals, gangsters, battered heroes, femme fatales and the like. What I like about The Grifters is that every single frame, every single shot is essentially a nod, an homage to the genre of film noir without ever, for one second, becoming gimmicky. When cross-referencing decade genre themes it’s always difficult to make the transition without a transgression. While there is a campy sort of sense about film noir that carries over to The Grifters it never becomes overbearing or “the point”. The Grifters never becomes an exercise in style (although it has plenty to spare, especially in the achingly beautiful cinematography by Oliver Stapleton) rather it is an experiment in breeding two decades worth of film and updating it almost fifty years later. All arrows point to the ending of the film, which, until I saw Before Sunset (2004) held the place in my heart as my favorite ending of all time. Some (most?) will hate it. It is bleak, dreary and cruel. I loved it because it isn’t a sell-out. These characters are so incredibly self-oriented that anything other than this ending would have been a cheat. It is shocking, suspenseful and beautifully choreographed so at no point is there any confusion as to what is happening and who it’s happening to. The Grifters is so tightly focused, so narratively assured of itself that there is never any wonder where it’s going while, ironically never having any idea what to expect. I hate this review that I’ve written. It is sloppy, unstructured and immature but like I said before The Grifters is the kind of film in which words seem to belittle the experience and, for someone who loves words, it’s nice to see me speechless for once. That’s when you know I’ve seen a great movie