My Top 5 Favorite Dramatic Films
Posted Monday, September 24, 2012, at 4:16 PM
Most of my friends who get to know me soon learn that I am a huge movie fan. But more specifically, I am a fan of drama films. Hilarious hijinks, contrived love stories and car chase scenes don't interest me as much as films that represent the true ups and downs of real life. I love films that represent the complexities of real life, and I'd like to tell you my top five favorite dramatic films:
| 5. | The Diving Bell and the Butterfly- This French film is based on a memoir written by the former French Elle magazine editor Jean-Dominique Bauby. When Bauby was 43, he suffered a massive stroke that left him with locked-in syndrome. His entire body was paralyzed except for his left eye, which he used to communicate. He was able to write a memoir by blinking his left eye (as an assistant spoke the alphabet, he'd blink to select a letter). The movie focuses on how he, once a vibrant, well-liked, energetic man, was locked into his own body after the stroke. The film's point of view is from his eye and viewers hear his thoughts. He struggles with the fact that his mind is racing like a butterfly, but his body is heavy like a diving bell. It is a film that makes you realize just how lucky you are to have a functioning body, and just how quickly things can change. |
| 4. | Rabbit Hole- This family stars Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart as parents grieving the death of their only child, a 4-year-old boy. While Kidman's character wants to get rid of the child's clothes, change his room and erase any memory of having a child, her husband attends group therapy sessions alone and struggles to remain married to his wife. The story is realistic in that the characters don't gloss over the pain of their loss. They struggle with it in every aspect of their lives and the movie creates a very raw portrayal of what grief can look like. |
| 3. | Revolutionary Road- this film reunited Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio ten years after Titanic propelled them to fame. But instead of doomed lovers on a ship, they're instead a doomed married couple in the suburbs. The film chronicles the couple's relationship through a series of flashbacks intermixed with the present action. We see them when they first meet, fall in love and dream of living in Paris. Then an unexpected pregnancy finds them settling in the suburbs and putting their dreams on hold. Soon, invigorated with ideas from the past, Winslet's character April decides that the family (now with two children) should go to Paris and live out the couple's original dreams. Her husband agrees and their marriage is happy again. But an unexpected roadblock puts the dream on hold again, and they're back to their mundane, unhappy lives. This film is filled with some of the best acting I've ever seen, and portrays a pretty tragic account of what 'normal' lives can do to some people. |
| 2. | The Boy in the Striped Pajamas- This film is also based on a book by Irish novelist John Boyne. The story tells of a young boy, Bruno, moving with his family because of his father's work. This might seem like a typical scenario, but the catch is that his father is a commander for the German Nazi party during WWII. Bruno and his family are relocated to a home on the outskirts of a concentration camp. Bruno is confused about the "people who live on the farm" he can see from the attic window that "wear pajamas all day." Though his mother forbids him from going out of the bounds of their backyard, Bruno finds his way to the camp and befriends a young Jewish boy living inside named Shmuel. The two form a friendship that transcends their differences. The ending of the film is incredibly shocking and tragic, but reminds the viewers that prejudice and hate can hurt all sorts of people. |
| 1. | Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close- This film is based on the popular novel of the same name by Jonathan Safran Foer (which I recommend even more than the movie). It tells the story of Oscar, a young boy who is left without a father after the Sept. 11 attacks in New York City claim his father's life. Oscar struggles in relating to his mother and feeling happiness in a world where his father is permanently absent. Flashbacks reveal Oscar's father (played by Tom Hanks) would frequently send him on scavenger hunts and adventures, so when he finds a key in an envelope labeled "Black" in his father's things, he sets off on an adventure around NYC to meet every "Black" and ask them if they have a connection to his father or the key. Throughout the film we learn that Oscar's connection to his father's death is stronger than anyone realizes, and he feels guilt for the events that panned out on that fateful morning. It is an incredibly sad film that not only deals with death but also deals with death in unusual circumstances and how one is to move on and continue living in the wake of those circumstances. |
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