It’s the strangest time of the year, when activity threatens to resume while the weather still says no. The winter lull stretching its legs all the way out from the end of December, it’s still hard to do anything productive other than tidy up and throw out January 1^st’s resolutions. What is there to do other than go to bed early and wake up late? Hide away in a duvet and pass up on Saturday night plans? Well, here are some films to accompany you through that January/February slump.

#1 Another Round (Druk)

Helping you feel like you’ve achieve something in your day, subtitled films always give me a sense of productivity. Another Round is the best kind of subtitled films, centring its plot around recognisable suburbia so you never get lost if you fall slightly behind on the dialogue. Taking an interesting look into our relationship with alcohol, another round is about a group of teacher friends than decide to test out a hypothesis of keeping their blood alcohol content at 0.5% to boost social skills and happiness. For a relatively calm and oddly cosy film, I had so much to say after watching this. For one, the relationships between the men made me want to cry, feeling like the first showing of male friendship that felt real and tangible, more akin to what I feel with my own friends than boring laddy banter. It was also lovely seeing totally normal older men, obviously Mads Mikkelsen is a heartthrob, but overall these men look like men you’d see in your day to day life, entirely centring the film in our society. And then the presentation of alcohol, managing to be as complex and intricate as it truly is, with the film managing to show the tragedies it can bring without demonising its place in joy and celebration.

Filmed in Copenhagen and all in Danish, the complex relationships are all set in a beautifully cosy scandi setting that makes it a perfect late winter watch for a night you’ve cancelled drinking plans.

#2 Man On The Moon

The iconic Jim Carrey playing the iconic Andy Kaufman. I finished watching this film and immediately did my favourite chaotic past time – rating films on Letterboxd purely on how much I enjoyed them. Man on The Moon got 5 stars.

Walking you through the silly complexities of Andy Kauffman’s subversive career, this is the perfect comedy film to watch when you don’t want to watch a comedy. It’s never cheesy and, if you don’t know much about Andy Kaufman like I didn’t, it remains totally unexpected and surprising from start to finish. At points I laughed out loud at the sheer absurdity of it all, but I never felt silly for letting myself sink into it and enjoy. All balanced out with a sad commentary on fame and purpose, the silliness goes hand in hand with the sombre in a perfect Sunday night in January way.

Jim Carrey is absolutely incredible and totally perfect for the role – but I’d skip the urge to follow the film up with his documentary about it, because it makes him seem dead annoying.

#3 Eighth Grade

What better subject to dive into during the cold months than old school trauma. If ‘written and directed by Bo Burnham’ isn’t enough to instantly hook you in, Eighth Grade is genuinely one of the sweetest films I’ve ever seen. Its so simple and tender, using a story of a girls struggles to make friends as a universally relatable tale of nervousness. Focused on Kayla, an eighth grader who makes motivational YouTube videos about confidence while simultaneously having none, its full of all the feels like encapsulate growing up and our school experience. I think Kayla, played by Elsie Fisher, might be one of my favourite character I’ve watched in a long time. While obviously being written in Bo Burnham’s classic dark yet silly comedy style, she feels so real as she walks through experiences we’ve all felt. Blowing up the relatively minor tragedies of teenage years into the end of the world emotional experiences we thought they were at the time, Eighth Grade is emotional and sentimental without ever becoming too heavy. 

If you want to really root for a character and have some time to reconnect with your past self, press play on this.

#4 Summer Of Soul

The total other end of the spectrum, this is one for people who want to get out of winter as quick as possible. Half way through watching this film, I genuinely remarked out loud how happy I felt, as this entire documentary is just so joyful and endearing. Using forgotten archive footage to tell the story of the Harlem Cultural Festival in 1969, there are performances from a lineup of legends including Nina Simone, Sly & The Family Stone, Stevie Wonder, Mahalia Jackson and more. Interviewing people who were there and looking into why this massive festival was forgotten and lost under the shadow of Woodstock, its simultaneously a massive celebration of the event while analysing the society that birthed it. Doing an amazing job of joining the dots between the 60s massive cultural moments that always feel so disconnected, Summer Of Soul immediately became one of my favourite documentaries I’ve ever watched. 

The perfect film for a Friday night when you just wish it would warm up – put the heating on, grab a drink and prepare to listen to the soundtrack for weeks to come.

#5 Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Never, ever in my life did I think I’d get emotional over Melissa McCarthy. I was so reluctant to watch this as Melissa is so associated with family friendly mind numbing comedies, but I’m so glad I got over my own snobbery. Telling the true story of Lee Israel, a biography who turned to forging letter between celebrities and literary legends when she could no longer get published, McCarthy’s performance as the figure is both painfully frustrating and totally devastating. A totally underrated gem of a film with incredible performances from McCarthy and Richard E. Grant, I was stunned when it finished, wondering how I could’ve let the film go unwatched for so long. With enough drama to keep you hooked and enough complexity to make you think, you’ll probably cry then instantly google Lee Israel after.

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I don’t think I was quite prepared for how often someone would ask me what my hobbies are. I thought it was a primary school thing, scribbling down our favourite activities and assigning them to ourselves as identities or future careers. If you liked to play with your pets, you were the class vet. Those who liked being part of the choir were destined to be stars. And I picked writing stories, still wearing my badge at 23. I didn’t think people asked, as I floated through years of friendships and life situations defined by my one big academic interest, and now I feel like I should have a better answer prepared. ‘So what kind of things do you like doing?’ – dates, interviewers, prospective housemates, I don’t really know what to tell you.

This was the first year in a long run that I haven’t written about new year’s eve. Never really knowing what else to do with my reflections, I pour them out into a blog and click publish to tick off an imaginary quota that I’ve engaged with it. I started one and stopped at just under 300 words, a pattern I’ve been seeing a lot. 1000 words used to mean about two hours and now is more like two days, I didn’t used to take breaks and now I’ll procrastinate between every paragraph. I reckon I’m just out of practice now my job doesn’t see me stretching my writers hand all day, but I’m shocked how quickly my lifelong identity as a writer feels threatened after 6 months of reduced output. The voice that used to yell at my lack of ideas or accepted pitches has nothing else to focus on but me, scratching away corner of my perceived self every night I don’t write a word.

For 6 months I’ve clocked off around 6:30 or 7, ate, and seen sinking into a bath for 45 minutes or so as the height of daily luxury. I felt like I read constantly and made no real progress to my to-read pile, I ate the same meals on repeat, melted my brain over hours of Gilmore girls, and didn’t write a single poem.

In December, I remedied it with cross-stitching, a skill I picked up years ago to busy myself after a big heartbreak. I spent a month dedicating every night to a variety of floral patterns and my sisters initials, and had them finished just in time for Christmas day. On the 29^th, my mum taught me the basics of knitting and I found something new to be hooked on that managed to silence the voice that keeps slicing me up. I knitted in the car from Middlesbrough to Sheffield. I knitted on new years eve only half aware of the calendar changing. I knitted all the way back down to London and every night since, until the 16^th. I ran out of wool before my last step, I’m still not over it. I cried when I realised, desperately face-timing my mum to see if she knew some magic fix that would require a week long wait for new wool. I held my breath and waited for the voice inside me to find the mistake to fixate on, woke up the next morning tensed ready. Put on my old scarf in the absence of a new one and waited all the way to work. But nothing came, I just ordered more wool.

When people ask me what my hobbies are, I always lead with writing, hyperaware that I sound like a person that can’t rest. I am that person. I tag going to galleries and gigs onto the list, but for years my weekends have felt wasted if I wasn’t finishing a piece. I struggle to go a week without needing to tick some work off my list, and will sacrifice all other activities to settle that need. I hear my housemates go out running or do drum lessons, my sister jets off for weekend breaks, my mum finishing making a cardigan, and I see all their hobbies as the most beautiful little decoration to their life. On them, it’s a thing of awe, I love the facets of their being, multiplying year on year with some new interest nurtured. And I want it for myself, feeling the blossoming begin each night I let a film soundtrack a stress free creation with no deadline or consequence. The soft wool seemed able to soothe anything, silencing that voice and letting me live in 20 stitch rows, smiling each night at new progress that cost me nothing in terms of strife. I loved how my hands moved without me thinking, feeling like writing on a good day, giving me a dose of that identity-affirming automatic action without any pressure. The needles clicking together was a calming hypnosis, the rows bobbing up and down like waves. I wish my new wool would hurry up and arrive.

After a week without it, the voice is getting louder. Even now, this piece has taken me two hours and I’m at 846 words and I hate myself for it. I have plans to go out and wander and I can’t help feeling like for some reason I don’t deserve to, like there’s a more pressing task I’ve forgotten about, stupid girl.

But knitting into a new year, feeling freshly in love with a task that was never a chore or a stress, my only resolution was to do more no-pressure things. I want to decorate my identity with little badges that have no need to become anything more, no quota to meet, no punishment for a week off. At 23, I want to pick up some hobbies, remedying my younger self that stuck too close to one thing and could never last at anything else if it didn’t mean something bigger. Knitting means nothing bigger, just calm and sweet and soft.

And my new wool has just arrived.