TIFF '21 Capsule Reviews, Round Two

By Jim Slotek, Linda Barnard, Thom Ernst, Karen Gordon, Kim Hughes, Liam Lacey, and Bonnie Laufer

The 46th annual Toronto International Film Festival is on! Our intrepid writers are screening countless films to offer best bets (and must-avoids) for your movie-watching time and money. Check back each day to catch a new crop of capsule reviews, interviews and more.

Need details on purchasing in-person tickets or streaming titles digitally? Go here.

And wondering why our content isn’t organized by date of first screening? It’s because we O-C kids are observing TIFF-imposed embargoes. Yeah, we’re good like that.

Titane

Titane (Midnight Madness)

Sat, Sept 11, digital TIFF Bell Lightbox, available at 7 pm; Thurs, Sept 16, 8 pm, Cinesphere IMAX Theatre.

Deranged in a good way — at least by the standards one expects of a Midnight Madness opener — Julia Ducournau’s Cronenberg-esque fable, about a car-show model made pregnant by an automobile, won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. It offers us Agathe Rousselle as an erotically charged woman literally damaged by life; a plate in her head from a childhood car crash kickstarts her pathology. When she graduates to murder, she runs and adopts the adult identity of a long-missing boy and insinuates herself as a son into the sad life of a macho firefighter captain (Vincent Lindon). There’s clear subtext here about toxic masculinity, which is what arguably separates this from an exploitation film. Either way you absorb it, your jaw will drop from the many WTF moments. JS

The Power of the Dog (Special Presentations)

Fri, Sept, 17, 10 am, digital TIFF Bell Lightbox; Sat, Sept, 18, 12 pm, TIFF Bell Lightbox.

Director Jane Campion’s first film in 12 years is a visually powerful, brooding drama that has echoes of her 1993 Palme d’Or-winner The Piano with its themes of gender roles, repressed desire —and yes, a piano — in this drama about ranching brothers living in an isolated wild west mansion. The vast beauty of New Zealand ably stands in for the Montana wilderness, conveyed with stunning skill by Australian cinematographer Ari Wegner. Benedict Cumberbatch is all acid-tongued, simmering menace as the self-assured Phil Burbank. He often bullies his gentlemanly sibling George (Jesse Plemons), disdains airs and graces despite his Yale education, and venerates his macho mentor, the late Bronco Bill. Furious when George marries widowed Rose (Kirsten Dunst, excellent) he begins a bullying campaign that includes her nervous student son, Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Campion wrote the screenplay, based on the 1967 novel by Thomas Savage. Jonny Greenwood contributes the effectively spare score. LB

As In Heaven (Discovery)

Fri, Sept 10, 6:30 pm, Scotiabank Theatre; Fri, Sept 10, 9 pm, digital TIFF Bell Lightbox; Thu, Sept 16, 3 pm, digital TIFF Bell Lightbox.

Directed by Danish first-time feature director Tea Lindeburg, As In Heaven is adapted from a 1912 novel by Marie Bregendahl, a literary chronicler of Danish rural life, and set at the end of the previous century. In the opening scene, angelic 14-year-old Lise wanders through golden wheat fields and has a bloody vision. The eldest of a brood of siblings and cousins, Lise plans to follow her mother’s wish to pursue her education, while enjoying a flirtation with an orphaned stable hand. Then her pregnant mother goes into early labour, the midwife is called, and over the course of one grim night, Lise makes a journey from innocence to a 19th-century woman’s experience. Golden wheat fields are traded for closely shot lamp-lit interiors as the grim night unfolds. While the film echoes an Ingmar Bergman God-questioning drama, it is more effective as a sombre historical coming-of-age drama. Not recommended for anyone contemplating an imminent pregnancy. LL

Kicking Blood

Kicking Blood (Contemporary World Cinema)

Sat, Sept 11, 9 pm, digital TIFF Bell Lightbox; Tues, Sept 14, 3 pm, digital TIFF Bell Lightbox.

Director Blaine Thurier adds yet another introspective, cool-as-ice vampire to the horror genre. Ostensibly a straight-up vampire story, Thurier inches towards something unique even while capturing a tone reminiscent of Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lover’s Left Alive. Anna (played with breathless detachment from Alanna Bale) preys on the pathetic. Her victims are mostly late-night lotharios and immoral predators, earning Anna some humane credibility. But her cohorts are less empathetic, toying with their prey and with a taste veering towards the innocent. As Anna begins to cool on the idea of eternal life, a broken alcoholic (Luke Bilyk) and a terminally ill co-worker (Rosemary Dunsmore) demonstrate a willingness to suffer, even die, to rid themselves of their dependencies. The horror in Kicking Blood is not in the violence (most of which is off-screen) but in the build-up to the violence—think the bar scene in Katheryn Bigelow’s Near Dark. Kicking Blood is a surprisingly docile thriller that still manages to have a considerable bite. TE

Dear Evan Hansen (Gala Presentation) 

Thur., Sept 9, 9 pm, digital TIFF Bell Lightbox.

PROUDLY SUPPORTS ORIGINAL-CIN

TIFF’s opening night gala movie was everything I wanted it to be and more. I’ve seen the award-winning musical three times (once on Broadway with Tony winner Ben Platt). And I was nervous when I heard a movie was being made. Directed by Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Wonder) the story centres on Evan (Platt), a struggling high school senior with social anxiety disorder. His journey of self-discovery follows the suicide of a fellow classmate. Many of the original songs are in the film, written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. We also get a few new numbers composed specifically for the movie which are touching and heartfelt. Platt fleshes out the character beautifully. Each song is sung with clarity and deep emotion, it's hard not to be swept away by his performance and the character’s pain and anxiety. Kudos to castmates, especially Kaitlyn Denver who plays Zoe, the sister of the suicide victim and the object of Evan’s affections, and Julianne Moore, who plays Evan's mother.  Moore belts out one of the most touching songs of the film with such ease you wonder why we've never seen her in a musical before this. As for Platt, he may be on his way to EGOT status. BL

Night Raiders.

Night Raiders (Gala Presentation)

Sat, Sept 11, 1 pm, digital Premiere digital TIFF Bell Lightbox; Mon, Sept 13, 6 pm, Cineplex Cinema St. John (satellite screening).

The past becomes the future in director Danis Goulet’s Night Raiders. No stranger to the festival circuit, Goulet makes her feature film debut with a film that repositions Canada’s darkest moment as a science-fiction thriller. Night Raiders is a futuristic folk tale with roots in the horrors of residential schools, deadly viruses, and imposed segregation. Niska (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers) is a Cree mother who attempts to protect her daughter, Waseese (Brooklyn Letexier-Hart) from the clutches of a state-imposed education camp. But when Waseese is seriously injured, Niska sees no choice but to surrender her to the care of the school. As society falls into further collapse—first with increased military surveillance and then the deadly virus outbreak—Niska rescinds her decision and joins an underground movement to rescue Waseese from the institute. But Waseese’s survival skills make her a valued, if not somewhat ruthless, a student at the State Academy. And the promise of a better life, once she assimilates, might be too much for Waseese to turn down. In lesser hands, the simile between yesterday and tomorrow would be too clever to have any real impact. But Goulet—being of Cree-Metis descent—manages a story that is more prophecy than allegory. Amanda Plummer, Gail Maurice, and Alex Tarrant also star. TE

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