Dearie Awards 2011: Movie of the Year - WEEKEND

While most awards-givers are heaping praise on more mainstream titles, we at Movie Dearest like to take a queerer look at film. Andrew Haigh’s intimate romance Weekend, while every bit as moving as, say, The Descendants or The Artist, is the film that will resonate much more with the GLBT community. Although some found the accents hard to decipher, those who could understand the handsome blokes in Weekend were rewarded with a sweet, sexy, moving romance with a keen understanding of how gay men interact and the walls they put up while seeking companionship. Tom Cullen was a gorgeous teddy bear and Chris New was a purposely abrasive party boy at first, who then dropped his façade when confronted with Cullen’s innate sweetness and lack of pretense. A bittersweet ending was the perfect way to complete this enthralling Weekend.

Honorable Mentions:
In a year overflowing with marvelous female performances on screen, what other film had the amazing collection of women as The Help? Based on the bestseller, The Help is a moving story of the strong African-American women who worked tirelessly for their often-abusive Southern employers in Civil Rights-era Mississippi. Drama and comedy meld effortlessly in this chick flick extraordinaire! Meanwhile, in the amazing French import Tomboy, Zoé Héran plays a young girl who moves to a new town and is mistaken for a boy by the neighborhood kids. This gives her the freedom to live her life the way she wants, at least for the summer. Tomboy showed a deep understanding of gender identity issues and its hopeful ending demonstrates the saying about “Out of the mouths of babes.”

Review by Neil Cohen, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and Phoenix's Echo Magazine.