My Most Anticipated Sundance Movies

The annual Sundance Film Festival is wrapping up, and as usual, there are plenty of exciting movies to look forward to that, prior to the festival, most people (including me) had never even heard of.  Some of my favorite movies of the past few years got their start at Sundance, including (500) Days of Summer, Blue Valentine, and last year's Like Crazy, so hopefully some of these films will live up to the hype that is already building in my movie-crazed mind.

1. Save the Date - Director Michael Mohan directs a screenplay he cowrote with Jeffrey Brown and Egan Reich about a pair of sisters navigating the world of modern relationships.  Beth is in the midst of planning her wedding to an unsure fiance, while Sarah is on the rebound after breaking up with her musician boyfriend.  Like Blue Valentine or Like Crazy, Save the Date seeks to convey relationships in a realistic light without stooping to generic cliches or forced happy endings.  The film stars Lizzy Caplan, Alison Brie, Martin Star, Mark Webber, and Geoffrey Arend.

2. The Surrogate - Since his breakthrough performance in Winter's Bone (for which he received an Oscar nomination), John Hawkes has delivered a string of solid supporting performances in films like Contagion, Higher Ground, and Martha Marcy May Marlene.  The Surrogate (not to be confused with that Bruce Willis movie) stars Hawkes as a man confined to an iron lung who hires a sex surrogate (Helen Hunt) so he can lose his virginity.  The pair form a relationship over the course of multiple sessions, and writer-director Ben Lewin's work is said to be careful and moving, bringing out an oddly touching tale from somewhat strange material.

3. Liberal Arts - How I Met Your Mother star Josh Radnor successfully transitioned to film with his debut, happythankyoumoreplease, which he wrote, directed, and starred in.  Radnor is back with Liberal Arts, a story about a man, Jesse (Radnor), who returns to his college to honor a respected professor's (Richard Jenkins) career.  Radnor's character starts with a student named Zibby (Elizabeth Olsen).  Zibby wants to pursue something long-term despite the obvious obstacles in the way.  Radnor's first film felt like Woody Allen lite, so I'm excited to see him establish himself as a more unique voice, especially with such a talented cast (which also includes Allison Janney and Zac Effron) at his disposal.

4. Beasts of the Southern Wild - Fox Searchlight has scooped up distribution rights for Ben Zeitlin's Beasts of the Southern Wild, a sort of mythological coming-of-age tale about a six year-old named Hushpuppy who sets out to find her lost mother after her father, Wink, gets ill and nature goes wild in response.  If it sounds weird, it's because it is, but the film's unbridled imagination is the sort of thing that is normally reserved for over-processed kiddie fare, so I'm excited to see the world Zeitlin has created in his directorial debut.

5. Keep the Lights On - Last year, Weekend broke onto the scene and claimed the romantic genre for the gay community.  It sounds as though Keep the Lights On may continue the tradition, albeit perhaps not as optimistically.  Shot in a grainy '90s style, director Ira Sachs' film chronicles the highs and lows of a lengthy relationship between a documentarian and a closeted lawyer.  The film is invested in investigating the depths of sorrow and joy that define any romantic relationship, especially one charged by recklessness.