10 TO WATCH
The Toronto International Film Festival serves up some can’t-miss flicks this year
The 2017 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival will be a slightly slimmer affair. Last February, the festival group announced there would be 20 per cent fewer films this year, after the 2016 event delivered a record 296 features.
In fact, this year’s 255 movies represent a drop of closer to 14 per cent, but that’s still a number not seen since 2004. The total screening time of all the movies, including shorts, is a whopping 457 hours, or 19 solid days. Clearly, no one’s going to see them all. But here some films we’re looking forward to catching if we can:
Darkest Hour (directed by Joe Wright): This year has already seen one less-than-stellar Winston biopic: Churchill, which made the British PM look like an angry child. Here’s hoping Gary Oldman can rescue the old man’s legacy.
The Death of Stalin (Armando Iannucci): The king of political satire (In the Loop, Veep, etc.) turns his attention to the former Soviet dictator, imagining what happened in the hours after his sudden demise in March 1952. Steve Buscemi, Michael Palin, Andrea Riseborough and others come along for the ride.
The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro): The Mexican-born director loves mixing monsters and history — see Hellboy, Pan’s Laby rinth, Crimson Peak — so it’s no surprise that his newest is set in the past, this time the early 1960s. Del Toro regular Doug Jones plays the creature, but the real monster looks to be Michael Shannon as an evil federal agent.
The Captain (Robert Schwentke): The director returns to his native Germany to tell a tale set during the closing days of the Second World War, as a deserter finds a captain’s uniform and parlays the outfit into real power. Shot in black and white, it looks magnificent. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Martin McDonagh): Frances McDormand looks to be having a blast in the trailer for this jet-black comedy, playing an angry mother who intends to shame her small town’s police force into working harder to solve the murder of her daughter.
Downsizing (Alexander Payne): Is it possible to live in a giant house and still reduce your carbon footprint? It is if you reduce your actual footprint! Payne’s newest imagines that a miniaturization process has been perfected, and Matt Damon and Kristen Wiig sign up for the ultimate weight-loss program.
Hochelaga, Terre des Âmes (François Girard): The Quebec director behind Boychoir, The Red Violin and Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould stuffs three-quarters of a millennium of Montreal histo- ry into just 100 minutes, touching down on a time before European contact, a deadly epidemic in 1687, the rebellion of 1837 and more.
Les Affamés (Robin Aubert): TIFF is full of zombie films this year, including Ellen Page in The Cured, about what happens after the zombie apocalypse ends; Nicolas Cage turning on his own children in Mom and Dad; and Michael Jackson’s Thriller in 3D. But this one’s homegrown, set in an idyllic Quebec countryside.
Borg/McEnroe (Janus Metz): There are two high-profile tennis movies at TIFF this year. Battle of the Sexes features Emma Stone and Steve Carell replaying the Billie Jean King/Bobby Riggs match of 1973. But who wouldn’t want to see the famously erratic Shia LaBeouf step into the shoes of the famously volatile John McEnroe, circa 1980?
Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House (Peter Landesman): If you’ve had enough of watching Liam Neeson battle terrorists, mob bosses, Albanian kidnappers and even rogue wolves, you may enjoy his less combative role as the FBI agent who became the Nixon whistleblower known as Deep Throat. He still seems pretty intimidating in the trailer, mind you.
The Toronto International Film Festival runs from Sept. 7 to 17. Visit tiff.net.