Thursday Movie Picks: 2019 Releases

A weekly series hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves

As you probably guess from the title, the films we are sharing for this week's Thursday Movie Picks series were released last year. With the Oscar nominations having been revealed on Monday — I won't even waste time commenting on those because what's even the point? —, I'm picking three films that I loved and didn't get the attention they deserved, specifically in the acting categories.

Midsommar (2019) - Review

Plot: Devastated by a family tragedy, Dani (Florence Pugh) travels to Sweden with her boyfriend, Christian (Jack Reynor), and his friends to attend a Summer festival. Once the group arrives, they slowly realize that nothing is as it seems.

Predictably snubbed for its genre — horror —, Ari Aster's second feature is a terrific film that deals with themes such as life, death, nature, deity and, the most important one, toxic relationships. It has a fantastic script and stunning cinematography but the core is Florence Pugh's performance. She captures and delivers so much here — pain, vulnerability and genuine terror and horror — and keeps you emotionally invested in the film. 

Rocketman (2019) - Review

Plot: As he makes his way into rehab, Elton John (Taron Egerton) starts telling his life story, from his childhood when he emerged as a child prodigy to his adulthood when alcohol, drugs and John Reid (Richard Maiden) make their way into his life. 

While I can see the reason why many people didn't love this — the timeline is kind of random, some events are left out, John is painted in a completely positive light, the characters and relationships aren't as developed as they should have been —, something you cannot argue is Taron Egerton's magistral performance. Looks, personality, voice, Egerton got it all absolutely on point. It doesn't' feel like watching an actor but like the man himself as he doesn't imitate the rock legend but embodies him. I did see him being snubbed though. They gave Maleck an (undeserved) Oscar last year, after all.

Us (2019) - Review

Plot: Adelaide (Lupita Nyong'o), accompanied by her family, returns to the beachfront home where she grew up, a place she doesn't want to be in as it brings back terrible memories from her childhood. However, memories will soon be the least of her problems as four masked individuals break into her house in the middle of the night.  

Jordan Peele's second feature is a film that divided the audience as some thought it was brilliant and couldn't stop thinking about it and some thought it was tremendously flawed and couldn't stop thinking about it. Either way, people kept talking about it. But that's not my point. What I want to highlight here is Lupita Nyong'o terrific double performance as Adelaide and Red. While she is good as the good Adelaide, she gives her best as Red with an intense and terrifying performance that adds so much depth to the thin character Peele wrote. But again, I'm not surprised by the snub, this is another horror, after all.