As seriously moved, enthralled or charmed as I am by Green Book, Roma, Vice, First Reformed, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Happy as Lazzaro, Capernaum, The Mule, Black Panther, First Man and A Star Is Born, Pawel Pawlikowski‘s Cold War sits at the top of the heap. (Setting aside the matter of the ending, which I’ve never let bother me.)
No other 2018 film rang my bell quite as loudly or distinctly. I don’t care what category it’s in — no other film is as concise and self-aware and visually glistening and fatalistic as Cold War. It’s pure silvery pleasure, perfectly distilled, the highest iteration of arthouse porn I ran into all year. And it offers the greatest female performance of the year, courtesy of Joanna Kulig.
