The monumental effect of representation behind the screen is incalculable but congruent with virtually every other system, the film industry has historically had a blatantly sparse amount of women in leadership roles, even as Hollywood attempts to atone for decades of oppression in a post-#MeToo era. According to Deadline, women helmed a staggeringly low 17% of the top 250 grossing movies of 2021. Therefore, in reckoning with a fractured entertainment sphere that is still mending itself, it is imperative to extol female directors as they enrich and innovate the cinematic form. I emphatically recommend the following films from women filmmakers, presented alphabetically, and have also chosen to feature slightly more obscure ones than the traditional blockbuster. Some of these selections are also available in the Media Center at the Paul Meek Library.
Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018)- dir. Marielle Heller
Cantankerous, alcoholic and outcasted author Lee Israel (an exquisitely sardonic and resoundingly dramatic Melissa McCarthy) embarks upon a self-fulfilling journey of deceit when she begins to forge and sell letters of famous authors. Heller’s devastatingly mirthful portrait of loneliness in a cynical world simmers with acidic wit and blistering insight, seething in moments of tenderness for the seemingly deplorable and down-trodden.
Availability: VOD
CODA (2021)- dir. Sian Heder
There is a beautiful volley of power that rolls throughout CODA, miraculously reshaping coming-of-age story tropes until you swear with every fiber of your rejuvenated soul that what ensues is as fresh and vital as ever. As the only hearing member of her deaf family, Ruby (Emilia Jones) is polarized between her obligations at home and a singing tryout at Berkley. This premise may seem mawkish, but Heder’s emotional precision hits all the right notes, generating an incandescent film that implores you to feel something familiar at its full capacity again.
Availability: Apple TV+
The Farewell (2019)- dir. Lulu Wang
Second-generation Chinese-American immigrant Billi (a soul-stirring Awkwafina) is left reeling with her grandmother’s terminal cancer diagnosis not only because of her impending loss but also because cultural traditions dictate that the dying’s fate is kept secret to them, allowing the family to bear that pain instead. Traveling back to China with her mother and father under the guise of a wedding, Billi grapples her with polarization between these two worlds. Laced with mammoth pathos and utmost specificity that renders incredible universality, Wang conjures a deeply melancholic tale of family, identity and grief only done justice by the immersive cinematic form. Like all great films, The Farewell is almost like alchemy, ineffably gorgeous and immeasurably cathartic.
Availability: Showtime, VOD
I’m Your Woman (2020)- dir. Julia Hart
In this thrilling reconstitution of male-skewing 1970s crime films, Hart astutely burrows into the perspective of a marginalized housewife named Jean (Rachel Brosnahan) as she navigates the treacherous remnants of her husband’s illegal machinations. Perhaps one of the most emotionally stirring and stylistically robust approaches to this specific pastiche, Hart assuredly tracks Jean’s poignant journey toward reclaiming all facets of her female autonomy, seeing her tote a gun and baby with equal aplomb.
Availability: Amazon Prime
Lady Bird (2017)- dir. Greta Gerwig
Writer-director Greta Gerwig’s wistful and incisive female gaze revolutionized the coming-of-age tale nearly five years ago. The fiercely individualistic and artistically inclined Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) seeks to escape the perceived mundanity of her hometown Sacramento, California, to a liberal arts college on the east coast, but including the contentious yet ultimately loving relationship with her mother, she finds departing with her roots to be radically more difficult than she anticipated. Bolstered by Gerwig’s scintillating empathy and sage wit, Lady Bird dissects the intrinsic messiness of adolescence with gargantuan emotional honesty.
Availability: Netflix, VOD
Little Woods (2019)- dir. Nia DaCosta
Cripplingly confined to the poverty line like so many others in her desolate North Dakota town, Ollie (a riveting Tessa Thompson) illegally crosses a different border- Canada- to utilize their free universal healthcare and sell medical supplies to others destitute back home. In this taut neo-western and shrewd critique of an American healthcare poisoned by capitalism, DaCosta juggles muscular tension and rich empathy, sewing these extremes together with intellectual insight to underscore the systemic shortcomings that push those marginalized toward criminality.
Availability: Hulu, VOD
Nomadland (2020)- dir. Chloé Zhao
Before she helmed last year’s cosmic Marvel epic Eternals, Zhao’s elegiac masterpiece Nomadland was lauded with three Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Widow Fern (Frances McDormand) grapples with her loss and economic displacement as a modern nomad, attempting to navigate a path toward self-fulfillment that exists outside the tyranny of the dollar in a post-capitalism wasteland. A delicate swirl of naturalism and humanism, Zhao’s spellbinding film renders a singular majesty of deep interiority.
Availability: Hulu, VOD
Passing (2021)- dir. Rebecca Hall
In her assured directing debut, actress-turned-filmmaker Rebecca Hall explores the repression of biracial identity in this ravishing yet haunting adaptation of the acclaimed Nella Larsen novella. When childhood and mixed-race friends Irene (Tessa Thompson) and Clare (Ruth Negga), one socially “passing” for Black and the other white, reunite in 1920s segregated New York City, mutual obsession and interpersonal conflict ensue that challenge their carefully cultivated realities. An enthralling exercise in hazy, subtle perception, Hall deftly crafts a cerebral and viscerally elegant abstraction of potent sociopolitical subtext.
Availability: Netflix
Promising Young Woman (2020)- dir. Emerald Fennell
In this incendiary feminist revenge thriller, the cunning, caustic and enigmatic Cassie (a towering Carey Mulligan) seeks to avenge the death of her best friend by finally delivering male predatory culture its much-deserved comeuppance. Suffused with candy-colored hues, scathing commentary and biting satire, Fennell keenly subverts the historically reductive elements of the woman scorned archetype for an achingly human examination of the thorns embedded into a grieving soul, deconstructing this genre with great panache.
Availability: HBO Max, VOD
Shiva Baby (2021)- dir. Emma Seligman
Shiva Baby follows the chaotic day of a young woman uncertain of her future as she attends a shiva, a Jewish funeral service. There, she must contend with several former and current romantic partners, all of whom must be kept a secret, and the extremely perturbing sensation of family gatherings, brimming with invasive questions about her personal and professional life. Prickly and uncompromising, Seligman’s vision of a claustrophobic, anxiety-inducing afternoon with family is cultivated to pristine effect. It’s a razor-sharp blending of genres that stings and blisters with each scare, observation or sorrow – one that is as wickedly insightful as it is hysterically uncomfortable.
Availability: HBO Max, VOD
Photo Credit / Searchlight Pictures-Focus Features-A24-Netflix
