It’s time to embrace positivity – from the underdog idealism of Rocky to the transcendent A Matter of Life and Death and the gloriously morbid optimism of Harold and Maude
New Year’s Day: too late for year-end reflections but too early, as we all blearily nurse our prosecco hangovers, to charge forth into a new-release calendar. Rather, January is a month when I tend to gravitate towards old favourites, but not the sentimental nostalgia of
Christmas time. Instead, I seek out the hopeful, the optimistic, the forward-looking – films on which to build a new outlook.
The genre of films that tick those boxes without sinking into drippy inspirational territory – or more simple feelgood fare – is a rather specific one, though it can encompass extravagant fantasy and downhome realism. The first and most straightforwardly uplifting film I thought of for my new year playlist was Rocky, a popular phenomenon from 1976 that has been so obscured by its subsequent sequels and mythos that people tend to forget what a plain, earnest and pure-hearted little film it is. It’s an underdog story that gets you high on the possibility of achieving anything, brings you down to reality a little bit, and finally reminds you that reality can be pretty good anyway. It encapsulates the spirit of realistic idealism I want for 2023.