Toronto is a godsend for recovering patient
TORONTO — For personal reasons, this year’s installment of the Toronto International Film Festival felt like a bigger deal to me than usual: As of April, it was pretty doubtful I was going to be able to travel anywhere, let alone a film festival, but the cinema gods work in strange and mysterious ways, and my heart surgery happened at a time that gave me a potential window of possibility. As I told friends at the time, the Toronto festival became my Holy Grail, the sign of serious progress in my health, and a bit of reward for what had been a difficult summer.
Normally, I book my travel to Toronto in February, mostly because I’m just that paranoid, but also to give myself something definite to look forward to in the future (in this way, having the Toronto festival approximately four months before Sundance cleaves the year nicely in twain). It was depressing to me to not have my flight booked, a room ready to go, but there was no way I could book such a thing until I felt pretty sure I could handle it, and that took some months.
even after booking everything in early August (unthinkable!), I was still so uncertain, I looked into buying extra travel insurance, and would only look for Airbnb rooms that allowed for a generous cancellation policy. I was nervous
in the week leading up my departure, paranoid about getting sick — or, vastly worse, going into rejection — which meant I was constantly throwing Purell on my hands and avoiding anybody who even looked like they might sneeze.
In any event, things worked out, and even though I had to limit myself and didn’t quite get to see everything I would have liked to, I had a good festival, and one I must say I’ve never felt quite so grateful to experience.
Fortunately, I still got to see a pretty wide swath of films, many of which will be coming out in the next few months. Forthwith, let’s break down the experience, awards style!
Best Atmospheric Character: The howling wind. Wind was such a star at this year’s festival, it even had a film named after it (see below). The blowing gusts were a huge part of the sense of dread in Hold the Dark, and the madcap weirdness of The Sisters Brothers, but it was especially a standout in William McGregor’s exceptionally atmospheric anxiety drama Gwen, which had far less human dialogue than it did the wind’s unceasing yowl.
Most Lively Screening: Halloween. It’s a well-known fact that an audience of critics are a subdued bunch, not prone to outbursts of emotion, or communal joy-building. The P & I screenings tend to be mainly quiet — albeit with an annoying, unfathomable tendency to be lit up by cellphone screens. No, if you want action and sass, you’ve got to go public. At the midnight screening of Halloween the crowd was so raucous and onboard, even the pre-show commercials got the treatment, and there were entire chunks of dialogue I couldn’t make out over the din of hoots and hollers. This would be a problem for, say, Hold the Dark, but for a crowd-pleaser like the return of Michael Myers? Perfect.
Most obsessed With Playing Cops: James Badge Dale. every Toronto International Film Festival, there are actors who seem to dominate the festival. often, they are just the biggest star (especially if that star happens to be Canadian — when Ryan Gosling or Ryan Reynolds appears in something, watch out!) — who dominate conversation, but other times it’s a much less well-known actor who appears in multiple entries. This year, for my money, that actor is James Badge Dale, who appeared in three films I saw. More peculiarly, he played some version of cop in each one. There was his turn as the corrupt sheriff in Tim Sutton’s otherwise brutish Donnybrook; his ex-cop, lead interrogator character in the psychologically taut Standoff at Sparrow Creek; and his crafty, courageous police captain in Jeremy Saulnier’s Hold the Dark. Solid in all of them, and very good as the lead in Standoff, I’d say Mr. Dale had a good Toronto International Film Festival. Now, maybe let someone else try on the badge and gun for a bit.
Best Food option: Arepas. Yes, I have for years decried the quality of burrito one can get in the entertainment District of Toronto (the cold-ingredients-and-grill method simply makes no sense!), but this year I did find an excellent Latinx alternative: The arepa, a delicious staple of Venezuelan cuisine, which comes in many wonderful combinations, including vegetarian. Consisting of a thick disc of grilled corn maize dough, split in half a bit like a pita, and filled with beans, cheese, veggies or meat, it’s almost as satisfying as a burrito, but harder to eat with just your hands. More importantly, it’s one dish Toronto seems to get absolutely right. Good on you, Canada!
Best Retrospective Goodbye: Robert Redford, The Old Man & The Gun
David Lowery’s film, based on a true story, concerns an aged bank robber (Redford) who approaches his jobs with an air of bemusement, very gentlemanly informing the tellers that he will need to take all their cash, please, and don’t worry about a thing. It’s a prime role for the venerable actor, who announced during filming it would be his retirement swan song. If so, he couldn’t have gone on out a more fitting note: The film plays a bit like a summation of his career, as Lowery sneaks in old photos of his leading man from his glory days as a Hollywood superstar, and notably puts him back on a horse, reminiscent, of course of his star-making turn as The Sundance Kid. At the end, his character goes out on his terms, much like the man portraying him.
Best Artistic Collaboration: Barry Jenkins and James Baldwin, If Beale Street Could Talk: Difficult it would be to follow up the oscar-winning film Moonlight, one that critics and viewers positively fawned over, so Barry Jenkins turned to a sublime source for his next project, adapting a novel from the brilliant James Baldwin. The combination of Baldwin’s luscious prose and precise characters, along with Jenkins’ vision and skill with his actors produces a powerhouse of a film, with spectacular work from his cast, especially Regina King, who is a marvel. With this film, Jenkins further cements his position among the American auteurs.
Most Anxiety Provoking: Free Solo. In a festival that had no shortage of highstakes dramas and thrillers, Jimmy Chin’s documentary about wunderkind climber Alex Honnold attempting the afore-considred-impossible ascent of el Capitán sans ropes, was easily the most stomach-twisting, fingernail chewing experience I had over the last week. Chin’s cameras, carefully placed at key junctures, capture the exalting freedom Honnold feels making his way up the sheer rock face, but they also never let you forget that for the entire 3000 foot climb, a single misstep or missed handhold would result in the death of this man we’ve grown to care about. Absolutely riveting stuff.
Most Disappointing Film: The Wind. I had high hopes for this Western/Horror mash-up from director emma Tammi, which has a fantastic sounding setup — a young wife is left alone for several days on her desolate frontier farm when her husband has to help their only neighbor pack up and move away after a tragedy occurs to his wife — but Tammi’s inexperience (this is her first narrative feature), and a shaky script from Teresa Sutherland capsize the production. The mise-enscene is notably poor, with far too clean costumes that look off the rack, props that stand out for their modernity, and a sheen that seems unlived in. By comparison, William McGregor’s Gwen took similar desolation and produced a deeply haunting portrayal.
Most Divisive Film: High Life. Let me first announce that, for the second consecutive time, I did not see a festival’s most contrary entry (at Sundance, I passed on Mandy, and only time will judge me brilliant or a fool). Claire Denis’ sci-fi freak out apparently has everything from a sex room to a spaceship filled with dogs, but the day I was planning to see it, I read vague insinuations of animal cruelty that made it “hard to watch,” and passed instead. Those suggestions may or may not be accurate — I’m still unclear — but what was clear was the critical reaction ranged from rapturous praise to absolutely damning condemnation.
Best Male Performance: Timothee Chalamet, Beautiful Boy. If you thought Chalamet’s turn in Call Me By Your Name was lightning in a bottle, you are in for a pleasant rebuke. In Felix Van Groeningen’s memoir-based drug addiction drama, Chalamet plays Nic Sheff, a young man who seemingly has it all, but can’t stop himself from ripping it — and his extended family — to shreds in pursuit of his next glorious high. Chalamet, whose combination of preternatural good looks and staggering talent suggest a similar ceiling as his character, is absolutely devastating in the role, displaying Sheff’s self-hatred, anguish, kindness, selfishness, and despair in equal measures. He manages to capture the contradictory nature of Sheff’s personality, and keeps him sympathetic even as he continually tries to throw his life away.
Best Female Performance: Viola Davis, Widows. This was an incredibly tough field at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, with amazing performances from Regina King, Sissy Spacek, Penelope Cruz, Claire Foy, and newcomer Yalitza Aparacio, all more or less equally worthy. Davis, however, has to run her character from loving naive to stern taskmaster and finally to high-stakes crime operative in the course of two hours, and infuses each phase with precision and ingenuity. The plot eventually runs toward the gaudy, but her character always remains sharply delineated, a tribute to both Davis and her director, Steve McQueen.
Best Film: Roma. How do I best describe Alfonso Cuaron’s domestic epic, which somehow captures a specific time and place (Mexico City, 1970) so perfectly, it feels nearly autobiographical for its entire audience? Its luscious black and white imagery calls to mind vintage Fellini. Cuaron, who amazingly acted as his own DP, fills his screen with such a gorgeous, complex display from foreground to background, you have to train your eyes to take everything in at once. The story follows a year in the life of a middle-class family and their maid (Yalitza Aparacio, who is excellent) in the throes of crisis, in a country roiling politically, in an era of revolution. Oddly enough, Netflix bought the rights to the film, which is fine as far as audience is concerned but a tragic loss in another sense: You should see this on as big a screen as possible, a fully rigged IMAX would hardly do it justice.