Films I Saw in February

In the past five years, I shared a year-end list of the films I saw throughout 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020. For 2021, I decided to do this monthly and share a list of the films I saw during each month of the year. These are the films I saw in February, which make up a total of 10 titles. As always, films marked with a heart (❤) are my favourites.

The Night Watch (2011) | Starring Anna Maxwell Martin, Claire Foy and Jodie Whittaker
Love & Friendship (2016) | Starring Kate Beckinsale, Chloë Sevigny and Xavier Samuel
Monsoon (2019) | Starring Henry Golding, Parker Sawyers, David Tran and Molly Harris
The Aeronauts (2019) | Starring Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones and Himesh Patel
Enola Holmes (2020) | Starring Millie Bobby Brown, Henry Cavill and Sam Caflin
❤ Promising Young Woman (2020) | Starring Carey Mulligan and Bo Burnham
❤ Sylvie's Love (2020) | Starring Tessa Thompson and Nnamdi Asomugha
Wild Mountain Thyme (2020) | Starring Emily Blunt, Jamie Dornan and Jon Hamm
❤ The Dig (2021) | Starring Carey Mulligan, Ralph Fiennes, Lily James and Johnny Flynn
The Little Things (2021) | Starring Denzel Washington, Rami Malek and Jared Leto

I watched 10 films in February, and liked all of them quite a lot. But my absolute favourites were The Dig, Promising Young Woman and Sylvie's Love. Two of them coincidentally star Carey Mulligan, who is one of my all-time favourite actresses.

The Dig is based on the real story behind the 1939 excavation of Sutton Hoo, in Suffolk, England. Carey Mulligan plays Edith Pretty, the owner of a rural estate which turns out to be the site of two early medieval cemeteries. Ralph Fiennes co-stars as Basil Brown, a local self-taught archaeologist-excavator hired by Edith to tackle the burial mounds at her estate. When Basil uncovers iron rivets from a ship, making it the burial site of someone of great distinction, Sutton Hoo's significance becomes apparent and national experts take over the excavation. They later discover that the cemeteries are of Anglo-Saxon origin, dating from the 6th to the 7th centuries.

If you haven't watched The Dig, I strongly recommend it. Carey Mulligan and Ralph Fiennes are a match made in heaven — how the two of them haven't won an Oscar yet is completely beyond me — and the shots of the English countryside are absolutely beautiful.

Promising Young Woman stars Carey Mulligan as Cassie Thomas, young woman seeking to avenge best friend, Nina, who committed suicide after being raped by one of classmates. I won't go into a lot of detail about the plot, because I don't want to spoil anything for you.

For some reason, I wasn't expecting to like Promising Young Woman as much as I did. It's honestly one of the best films of 2020. It's bold and provocative, but also really sad and heartbreaking. Emerald Fennell's script and directing are perfect and Carey, as always, delivers an absolutely stunning performance alongside Bo Burnham, who I kind of have a crush on now. The thing that really did it for me was the ending. I was not expecting that ending AT ALL!

Lastly, Sylvie's Love tells the love story of a young couple, Sylvie and Robert, played by Tessa Thompson and Nnamdi Asomugha. They met when she was working at her father's record store and he was an aspiring saxophone player. They begin a whilrwind romance and Sylvie becomes pregnant, just as Robert and his band are leaving New York to perform at a nightclub in Paris. She doesn't tell him that she's pregnant, and they eventually lose touch. Five years later, they meet again and realize they are still as in love with each other as they once were.

Sylvie's Love is one of the loveliest films I have ever seen. It's the sweetest, most perfect old-fashioned romance, and Tessa Thompson and Nnamdi Asomugha are beautifully matched. The film actually reminds me of a verse by Shakespeare that goes, «Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.» Oh, and if you're a fan of Bridgerton, there's a certain Duke of Hastings that makes an appearance in this film as well. So you've got that to look forward to as well if you do decide to watch Sylvie's Love — which you definitely should.

And that's all, folks. These are the films I watched in February. Have you seen any of the films I mentioned? If so, which ones?

Comments

Patrick Wahl14 March 2021 at 07:56
I mostly, or partly anyway, liked The Dig, but half way through it switched characters. It didn't quite become a different movie, but it did change the emphasis from the 2 characters who started the movie.
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