TIFF ’25: What to See at This Year’s Fest, Sept. 6

By Jim Slotek, Liz Braun, Thom Ernst, Karen Gordon, Kim Hughes, John Kirk, Chris Knight, Liam Lacey and Bonnie Laufer

And we’re off! The 50th anniversary of the Toronto International Film Festival is officially underway with hundreds of features, documentaries, and shorts from around the world premiering before the festival closes September 14.

Original-Cin writers have screened dozens of titles. Starting today and repeating every day until TIFF’s conclusion, we offer capsule reviews of what’s hot and what’s meh. We hope this helps make things more manageable. As always, never be afraid to take a chance on something unfamiliar.  Brilliance could await. 

Laundry

Dandelion’s Odyssey (Centrepiece)

Sat, Sept. 6, 6:50 pm, Scotiabank Theatre 7; Wed, Sept. 10, 4:30 pm, Scotiabank Theatre 12; Fri, Sept. 12, 9:20 am, Scotiabank Theatre 11.

The debut feature from director Momoko Seto is less about story than visuals; specifically, a high-concept blend of animation and live action meticulously captured over many months with many high-tech cameras. The result, as the official program notes, “expands the boundaries of genre and animated storytelling” told without dialogue but with music and some very striking scenes. When a nuclear explosion destroys Earth, four dandelion spurs or achenes are launched into space where they encounter bizarre landscapes and creatures, with viewers sharing their very-up-close perspectives. Anthropomorphizing the dandelion achenes saps the film of some of its splendour but it’s still a very entertaining way to spend an hour. KH

Fuze (Gala Presentations)

Sat, Sept. 6, 9:35 pm, Scotiabank Theatre 4.

Fuze is a frenetic rollercoaster ride of a heist movie. Directed by David Mackenzie (Hell or High Water, Relay), this high-stakes thriller set in central London centres around what seems to be a perfectly planned bank theft. The city is thrown into panic by the discovery of an unexploded WWII bomb on a construction site. Amid the chaos of a widespread evacuation, a gang of criminals begin an audacious but potentially lucrative robbery. With multiple twists and turns, it’s hard to keep up with who's double crossing who. But what a cast: Aaron Taylor-Johnson as a soldier specializing in explosives brought in to detonate the bomb; Gugu Mbatha-Raw as the police constable in charge, Sam Worthington as one of the thieves and Theo James as the mastermind of the heist… or is he? Though the film becomes a bit muddled (who are we rooting for?) the performances kees viewers on the edge of their seats. BL

Laundry (Discovery)

Sat, Sept. 6, 9:40 pm, Scotiabank Theatre 8.

Director-screenwriter Zamo Mkhwanazi creates a palpable sense of time and place in Laundry, a coming-of-age drama set in 1968 in Johannesburg which, instead of a hero narrative, dramatizes the impact of apartheid on one lower middle-class Black family. Gifted teenaged musician Khuthala is growing up, resenting the expectation that he should work in the family laundry, hoping instead to accompany a successful woman singer, who has been invited to perform in the United States. When the family business is threatened with eviction by white officials, Khuthala’s father goes to city hall, believing he has special privileges because of his relationship with a white official, but the city officials dash his hopes and worse. What follows is a believable and well-acted drama about how people under the boot of oppression are forced to make indefensible choices. Some moments of redemption and terrific music make a bitter pill easier to swallow. LL

 Little Lorraine (Discovery)

Sat, Sept. 6, 11:30 am, Scotiabank Theatre 13.

Inspired by songwriter Adam Baldwin’s 2022 outlaw ballad “Lighthouse in Little Lorraine,” this crime caper is a factionalized account of the development of a cocaine smuggling ring in the late eighties in a Cape Breton seaside town. Director-screenwriter Andy Hines, making the transition from music videos, has created a small-town tragicomedy (think a flatter version of The Banshees of Inisherin) which mixes local colour, smalltown quirk, sentiment and violence. Though the story is local, the cast is sprinkled with imported talent with an eye to international distribution: Sean Astin as a local priest, Veep’s Matt Walsh as a local cop, Columbian singer J Balvin, as an Interpol agent, and This is Us’ Auden Thornton as a mother and aspiring artist. The Canadian side of the cast led by Stephen Amell (the superhero series Arrow) as Jimmy, a hunky laid-off miner and dad who reluctantly takes up a life of drug smuggling with his mining buddies. The real pleasure here is the performance by veteran Canadian actor Stephen McHattie as an eccentric named Uncle Huey, a maritime Satan who leads the community astray. LL

Lovely Day (Special Presentations)

Sat, Sept. 6, 12 pm, Scotiabank Theatre 14.

Quebec director Philippe Falardeau has a knack for making movies that are charming but not cloying and full of depth and warmth. His characters feel like people we want to know. His latest is a sweet and rewarding adaptation of Alain Farrah’s autobiographical novel, Milles secrets, milles dangers. Alain (Neil Elias) is understandably anxious on his wedding day. As he makes his way to church in his best man’s truck, we learn some things about Alain: anxiety is a constant in his life. He has a serious gastro-intestinal problem, so present that everyone in his life helps him regulate it by avoiding triggers. His loyal lifelong best friend and best man is a bit of a fuck up. And Alain wants to stop taking anxiety meds. From that opening, the film goes back and forth in time, fleshing out the people and events that shaped him. In the end, the film that has been so focused on Alain’s world gives us — and him — a perspective of how friends and family feel about him. It’s not all sugar-coated, but it is beautiful. KG

Lovely Day

Sirât (Special Presentations)

Sat, Sept. 6, 10 pm, Scotiabank Theatre 3; Sat, Sept. 13, 3:30 pm, Scotiabank Theatre 10.

A film of exceptional emotional range, director Oliver Laxe’s French Spanish production is a reminder that the lives we lead are at once precarious, precious, and completely unpredictable. Set in a perennially sunlit moonscape of the Moroccan desert and propelled by a thundering techno score by Kangding Ray, Sirât follows Luis (Sergi López), a father canvassing a loose and itinerant raver community in search of his adult daughter. When the military breaks up the rave encampment, Luis and his young son Esteban tag along with a small, charismatic band of revelers as they peel off in search of the next party.

A surprisingly powerful bond forms as this unconventional group travels hostile terrain, encountering heart-stopping obstacles and shattering losses. Despite an absence of backstories, viewers are fully engaged with Sirât’s characters, most played by non-professional actors, imbuing the story with palpable, sometimes uneasy, authenticity refracted through an ambiguous time frame (paper maps, no cell phones but modern-looking piercings and tattoos). A winner of this year’s Cannes Competition Jury Prize, Sirât is mesmerizing. KH

Still Single (TIFF Docs)

Sat, Sept. 6, 10 pm, Scotiabank Theatre 14; Sat, Sept. 13, 9:10 am, Scotiabank Theatre 9.

Since there are about 150 restaurants in the world with three Michelin stars, it’s not entirely clear why we need a documentary about the chef of a two-star Michelin restaurant, except that Toronto’s Masaki Saito is the first two-star rated restaurant in Canada, underwritten by Saito’s multi-millionaire friend, William Cheng. Chef Saito is a flamboyant character, portrayed as a kind of genius brat and jokester who recently curbed his medically dangerous level of drinking, likes to fly to Macao to gamble, wears designer clothes and dresses down his employees mercilessly but pays them very well. The film barely mentions his personal life beyond, per the title, that he’s still single. The documentary, directed by Jamal Burger and Jukan Tateisi and produced by Rhombus Media, feels like an infomercial for epicurianism. The approach also feels awkwardly of touch with the current political and economic climate. True, there are some pretty slo-mo fish-slicing scenes and a lot of talk about the pursuit of excellence in ingredients but nothing about the public good. The tasting menu at LSL, a subsequent French/Japanese Saito-associated resto in Toronto, costs $680. Or, in the alternative, you could buy someone a warm winter coat. LL