It was a good year for quality films from art house darlings (Paul Thomas Anderson’s Scientology-tinged The Master, the mystical Beasts of the Southern Wild and Sean Penn’s quaint turn in This Must Be the Place), foreign films (Iran’s A Separation, Turkey’s Once Upon a Time in Anatolia) science fiction (Joseph Gordon-Levitt channeling Bruce Willis in the slick and intelligent Looper), rom-coms (The Five Year Engagement, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, the under-rated Friends with Kids), big budget popcorn flicks (The Avengers), bio-pics (My Week With Marilyn) indie’s (Take This Waltz, Your Sister’s Sister, The Sessions), adaptations (Hugo, The Rum Diary, Carnage, Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy) and local fare (Wish You Were Here, The Sapphires, Lore).
But one film stood out for me, for the sheer rush of endorphins it gave me as I left the cinema and ever since.
My best film for 2012 was the quaintly named French hit The Intouchables, the genuinely touching true story of the relationship between a disabled aristocrat (François Cluzet, Tell No One) and the drifter (Omar Sy, Micmacs) who became his carer.
Some called it populist and low brow but I found it joyous, frank, poignant, endearing and very funny. It was a true feel-good – nay, feel-great – movie with a whole lot of heart and left me feeling elated long after I left the cinema.
And after all, isn’t that one of cinema’s best, most enduring powers?
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