Movie Recs: infected!

Welcome to the FREE Monday newsletter, where I give you some unsolicited movie recommendations. This week, we’re celebrating Alex Garland and Danny Boyle!

28 Years Later

Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his son Spike (Alfie Williams) in Columbia Pictures' 28 Years Later (Photo by Maya Mizuno)

It took me a while to really get the hype surrounding 28 Days Later. I watched it a few years ago for the first time since I was a kid, and remember feeling really down on just how bleak I thought it was. But after watching it in preparation for Danny Boyle and Alex Garland’s foray back into the 28 Days world, I was struck by how well those two Brits’ sensibilities match up – you wouldn’t think it, but they balance each other out in a really lovely way: sensitivity and blunt force, hope and cynicism.

I don’t want to rush into things – my favorites of the year list will not be finalized for some time – but 28 Years Later is sitting high at the top right now. Full disclosure (this is a recommendations newsletter, after all), it is a strange movie, both in what you see on screen and in its construction. For the majority of the film I didn’t really have a clue where we were headed, which is kind of an exhilarating feeling to have while watching a movie.

But all that uncertainty congeals into something really profound about mourning, and family, and isolation. It reminded me a lot of Station Eleven, a series I loved and wrote about a few years ago – not in its content, but rather its combination of all things beautiful and harrowing. There’s so much rustling under the surface, but you can also watch it as straight up entertainment, and that’s great too – the perfect blockbuster, IMO.

Thanks for reading! I’ll see you all Friday with the FREE Friday monthly newsletter.