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

Another week, another full slate of films to absorb as part of the 51st annual Toronto International Film Festival, on now until September 20. Read on for today’s selection of capsule reviews from Original-Cin writers, highlighting titles both great and wanting.

All of a Sudden (Special Presentations)

Mon, Sept. 14, 12:30 pm, TIFF Lightbox 2; Sat, Sept. 19, 2:15 pm, Scotiabank 10.

In the tradition of Jean-Luc Godard, Japanese director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car, Evil Does Not Exist) is fearless about putting big ideas in his characters’ mouths. His latest is a drama about how a new friendship can change your life, and a three-and-a-quarter hour conversation about bodies, freedom, risk, and capitalism. Marie-Lou Fontaine (Virginie Efira), in her late 30s, is the near burned-out director of a Paris elder-care home, struggling to implement a compassionate care system. Her life is changed by an encounter with a terminally ill experimental Japanese theatre director Mari (Tao Okamoto) whose art resonates with her work. The two women become instant soulmates. Adapted from a 2019 Japanese nonfiction book of letters between terminally ill philosopher Makiko Miyano and medical anthropologist Maho Isono, All of a Sudden is improbable, precious, audacious and profound. LL

Bucking Fastard (Special Presentations)

Mon, Sept. 14, 12 pm, TIFF Lightbox 1; Wed, Sept. 16, 9:15 pm, Scotiabank 1; Sun, Sept. 20, 3 pm, Scotiabank 13.

It took the Oscars forever to relent in giving best director to co-directors (the Coen brothers). Could they give co-best acting awards to Mara and Kate Rooney who, in Bucking Fastard, play real-life-inspired psychologically conjoined Irish twin sisters, share every scene together, move in sync and pathologically speak every line in unison? It likely won’t come to that, but it’s an intriguing thought. The tale is played for Werner Herzog-esque dry humour (you’re not always sure it’s a comedy), but there’s a touching existential ache in their existence, as they seek a place they can be together, and find love with someone who accepts them both as one. The Rooney sisters’ performance starts out like synchronized automatons, but by the last act, their humanity, and even traces of individuality, break through. JS

Elsinore (Special Presentations)

Mon, Sept. 14, 12 pm, Visa Screening Room at the Princess of Wales Theatre; Tue, Sept. 15, 6:30 pm, Scotiabank 1; Sat, Sept 19, 1 pm, Roy Thompson Hall.

The next time someone says nothing’s perfect, I’ll point them to Andrew Scott’s utterly, breathtakingly gorgeous performance in Elsinore. Scott plays the late Scottish actor Ian Charleson, best known for his role the Oscar-winning film, Chariots of Fire. Charleson’s in the closet and by the late-80s, also HIV-positive, but otherwise healthy and working. He’s aching to do one of Shakespeare’s great roles on stage. In 1989 he gets his wish: He’s cast as Hamlet by the National Theatre Company, but at the same time, his HIV becomes full-blown AIDS. Charleson is advised to give up on the demanding role but is unwilling to yield. The film moves between rehearsals and his declining health, which means we get Scott as Charleson, the fighter, the friend, the son and as Hamlet. Director Simon Stone keeps the tone light and human and stands back to let his brilliant leading man break our hearts. KG

Future Tense (Centrepiece)

Mon, Sept. 14, 8:45 pm, TIFF Lightbox 3; Wed, Sept. 16, 7 pm, TIFF Lightbox 4; Sat, Sept. 19, 8:50 pm, Scotiabank 6.

This beautifully shot head-scratcher is more interested in starting a conversation than providing easy answers. 1647 may not have the same ring as 1492, but it marks the year a Dutch East India Company ship ran aground off what is now Cape Town; friendly relations with the natives essentially kicked off the colonial conquest of South Africa. Lwando (Lawrence Maleka) hopes to change all that when, in the near future, he wins a trip back in time. With his unwitting girlfriend (Kristen Raath) in tow he escapes the holiday compound and heads for the coast. A third-act twist raises questions of free will and the river of history. CK

L’Autre (Centrepiece)

Mon, Sept. 14, 12:30 pm, Scotiabank Theatre 9.

Part body-horror, part fever-dream, part trenchant critique of Quebec’s health-care system, writer-director Alexandre Franchi’s third feature is a dark comedy-thriller set entirely inside a Montreal hospital. Stan (Pierre-Yves Cardinal) has just had surgery to remove a cancerous tumour from his leg. But his recovery is hampered by a second patient in his private room, a gunshot victim in a coma. Or is he? When no one else is around, the new guy reveals he’s a gang member and threatens Stan and his family. L’Autre (The Other) is said to be inspired by Franchi’s own experience with cancer. I hope he had a more peaceful convalescence with fewer accidentally switched meds. CK

Look Back (Special Presentations)

Mon, Sept. 14, 9:45 pm, VISA Screening Room at the Princess of Wales Theatre; Wed, Sept. 16, 11:45 am, TIFF Lightbox 1; Sat, Sept. 19, 5:30 pm, Royal Alexandra Theatre.

Master Hirokazu Kore-eda has the honour of creating the live-action version of this incredibly moving story of two aspiring manga artists, whose friendship begins with a childhood rivalry drawing for their school newspaper. Kore-eda’s adaptation has added in how they work together to show the audience how the stories are developed, the drawing process, and the running of the manga industry. The main theme about friendship and the modern world of school gun violence remains front and centre. It is just as touching, if not more so, than the original manga or the 58-minute animated feature by Kiyotaka Oshiyama. AS

Love of Your Life (Special Presentations)

Mon, Sept. 14, 5:45 pm TIFF Lightbox 3; Sat, Sept. 19, 10, TIFF Lightbox 3.

Margaret Qualley proves she's got the goods in her new romantic drama. She plays Maya, a young ER nurse based in Boston shattered by a sudden marital loss. She disappears to Portugal, hoping the distance will help her heal. She spends her time roaming around; eating, drinking, having casual sex and makes her living doing virtual health visits. She just exists. Unexpectedly, she connects with Felix (Aaron Pierre) whose steadiness challenges the wall she has built around herself. Love of Your Life tracks Maya’s attempt to rebuild when everything familiar has fallen away. Rachel Morrison’s direction keeps the film grounded in reality. Grief can linger, desires can complicate, and the film explores the messy truth that there might be more than one great love in a lifetime. And there's nothing wrong with reaching out when you're in need. Catherine Keener also delivers an unforgettable moment in the film. BL

Neverman (Centrepiece)

Mon, Sept. 14, 9:15 pm, Scotiabank 11; Wed, Sept. 16, 3 pm, Scotiabank 13.

“I don’t want to go anywhere where I have to explain myself,” says Lucia Neverman, a glamorous 74-year-old trans woman — played with flinty hauteur by cabaret and Broadway star Justin Vivan Bond — who is entering a nursing home in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Cuban Canadian filmmaker Rodrigo Barriuso’s (A Translator) nuanced study of the costs of freedom flashes back to Lucia’s younger self (played by Eva Everett Irving) when her consuming political commitment led to her estrangement from her partner (Jess Salgueiro) and daughter. In the present, Lucia finds intimacy with a fellow resident (Deborah Glover) and tenderness from widower (Elias Koteas) but engages in a war of wills with her misguided trans-denying caregiver, Eleanor (Marie-Josée Croze), whose unexpectedly sympathetic performance echoes the lover who tried to change Lucia years before. LL

Strong Son (Discovery)

Mon, Sept. 14, 9:55 pm, Scotiabank 14; Wed, Sept. 16, 2:30 pm, Scotiabank 10; Fri, Sept. 18, 5:30 pm, Scotiabank 5.

When not pumping iron at the local gym or ferrying his elderly father between medical appointments, Harvinder “Harvey” Singh (Mandeep Sodhi) is bawling, literally, and breathing fretfully into a paper bag. While the root causes of Harvinder’s debilitating anxiety are suggested — an absent mother in the family home he has recently and reluctantly returned to, the endless judgements of his traditional-ish Sikh father (Amrit Parbhakar) — Winnipeg writer-director Ian Bawa offers so little character development that viewers are left to guess. Eventually, even that feels like too much effort for a protagonist so thinly drawn. KH

The Debut (Special Presentations)

Mon, Sept 14, 6:45 pm, Scotiabank 1; Thu, Sept 17, 2 pm, TIFF Lightbox 1.

Deeply repressed Mona Friedman (Julianne Moore) begins The Debut with the light almost gone from her eyes and ends with the lights fully on. She gets there via a small role in a community theatre production of a musical. Initially, she's terrible and has no understanding of theatre, but the director Jerry (Paul Giamatti) pushes her hard hoping to get her up to speed. This is the third feature written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg, who expertly chronicles square pegs. His latest is a comedy with Eisenberg leaning into absurdist tendencies, taking Mona — who starts the movie feeling like a clichéd repressed character — into odd, unexpected places. The result has humour and depth and is (perhaps weirdly) a love letter to theatre people, featuring two of the best performances you’ll see at the movies this year. KG

Wild Horse Nine (Special Presentations)

Mon, Sept. 14, 3 pm, Visa Screening Room at the Princess of Wales Theatre; Tue, Sept. 15, 9:30 pm, Scotiabank 4; Sat, Sept. 19, 9 pm, Visa Screening Room at the Princess of Wales Theatre; Sun, Sept. 20, 10:15 am, Scotiabank 2.

Martin McDonagh (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, The Banshees of Inisherin) continues to write eccentric and darkly funny tales set in the oddest places. In this case, it’s Easter Island, where Chris (John Malkovich), a CIA agent and reputed assassin of heads of state, is facing his final days, with his agent partner Lee (Sam Rockwell) along for the ride and the promise of a mercy killing. It’s 1973, a vicious coup is about to take place in Chile, and incipient dementia is loosening Chris’ lips, forcing the hand of the duo’s boss (Steve Buscemi). Believe it or not, there’s much hilarious whimsy here, and an already Oscar-touted performance by Malkovich. JS

Wild Wild East (Platform)

Mon, Sept. 14, 9 pm, TIFF Lightbox 1; Tue, Sept. 15, 2 pm, Scotiabank 13; Sat, Sept. 19, 4:45 pm, Scotiabank 14.

In occupied Poland in the winter of 1943, a stranger rides into town, looking for a rumoured cache of gold. Director Jan Holoubek expertly mixes and matches elements of war and western genres, with Itay Tiran as Martin Wolff, a German clerk with a mysterious past and a no-nonsense attitude that in one scene appears to literally frighten a man to death. There are a few plot holes, and a late scene that seems there to show off the horrors of the camps, just in case we didn’t know. But if you like a good western or a war movie — and particularly if you can’t make up your mind — this one should appeal. CK

TIFF ’26: What to See at This Year’s Fest, Sept. 14

REVIEWS INTERVIEWS

About Contact