Fest Practice

VENICE & TIFF The films to look forward to from this year’s autumn festivals

ENCOUNTER

The second feature from Beast director Michael Pearce sees Riz Ahmed in an intriguing sci-fi-tinged thriller. Ahmed’s former marine Malik douses himself with bug spray to ward off the ‘non-terrestrial micro-organisms’ that have stealthily found a home on Earth. Collecting his estranged kids for a crosscountry journey, he explains: “This ain’t a road trip, it’s a rescue.” It’s a gripping premise, and an impressive turn from Ahmed maximises the tension. Some later plot developments might go too far for some, but the chemistry between Ahmed and his onscreen sons make this a trip worth taking.

TRUE THINGS

British director Harry Wootliff follows her IVF drama Only You with another authentic tale of the male-female dynamic. Adapted from the book True Things About Me by Deborah Kay Davies, Ruth Wilson plays Kate, an unmoored benefits officer living in Ramsgate who finds sudden excitement in the shape of Tom Burke’s charismatic ex-con – known only as Blonde. So begins a heated union, albeit one troubled by Burke’s shifty character, who’s almost a working-class cousin of his elusive figure in The Souvenir. What emerges is an absorbing study of empowerment, with Wilson doing her best work since The Affair.

PARALLEL MOTHERS

Penélope Cruz won Best Actress in Venice for this latest role for Spanish master Pedro Almodóvar, though her mesmerising young co-star Milena Smit is just as impressive. Set in Madrid, they play two very different women who give birth on the same day in the same hospital, in a story that blends matriarchal melodrama with a deeper, burning historical subtext that brings audiences back to the horrors of the Franco era. With a more muted palette than Almodóvar’s usual vivid design, this is one of the most thoughtful films of his distinguished career: subtle, striking and fuelled by anger.

THE ELECTRICAL LIFE OF LOUIS WAIN

The struggling-artist biopic gets its template rewired in this quirk-laden telling of the life story of Louis Wain, an illustrator and wannabe inventor who found fame (if not fortune) with his cute cat paintings in the late 19th century. Benedict Cumberbatch is Wain, preternaturally gifted at drawing, and obsessed with the ‘electricity’ he believes is coursing all around. Like Sherlock, his genius sometimes trips over his social awkwardness, at least until he falls for Claire Foy’s Emily, the family’s governess. Though the story is peppered with tragedy, director Will Sharpe leavens proceedings with whimsical visuals and humorous flourishes, including a string of notable cameos.

HAPPENING (L’ÉVÉNEMENT)

Audrey Diwan’s lacerating feminist drama won the coveted Golden Lion at this year’s Venice film festival. Set in France in the 1960s before abortion was legal, Anne (an extraordinary Anamaria Vartolomei), a thriving university student finds herself pregnant with few options available. She works against the clock to terminate the pregnancy and faces spectacular cruelty from her peers and doctors. Based on the memoir of French writer Annie Ernaux, its horrors are all the more sobering because they ring so true. It is difficult to watch at times, but a well-deserved win for a harrowing, necessary film.

THE LOST DAUGHTER

Maggie Gyllenhaal won Best Screenplay at Venice for her directorial debut – an adaptation of the Elena Ferrante novel. A melancholy but sensual psychological thriller about motherhood and regret, it follows Leda (played in the present by Olivia Colman and in the past by Jessie Buckley), a literature professor holidaying alone in Greece.

She becomes interested in a rowdy family spending time on the same beach, particularly Nina (Dakota Johnson) whose relationship with her husband (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) and daughter Elena causes Leda to reflect on her past and confront some uncomfortable truths. A wonderfully complicated film about wonderfully complicated women.

SUNDOWN

The latest film from Mexican arch-provocateur Michel Franco (New Order) sees the writer/director reunite with his Chronic star Tim Roth for an elusive and sedate story about starting over in paradise. On holiday with his sister (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and her two teenage kids in Acapulco, Roth’s Neil opts to stay behind and abandon all responsibilities when a family tragedy cuts the getaway short. Wealthy Neil is almost a passive figure as he bounces between beers on the beach and dates with a local woman. Franco can’t resist the occasional cruel twist, but the film’s meditative rhythms mask deeper truths about life’s pressures.

THE GUILTY

A near shot-for-shot remake of Gustav Möller’s 2018 thriller, The Guilty has one big thing going for it over its Danish doppelganger: Jake Gyllenhaal’s explosive performance as an emergency call centre operator caught up in a long-distance kidnapping. This taut, tense one-man show sees Gyllenhaal flex every possible facial muscle while furiously conversing with a series of famous voices (Ethan Hawke, Riley Keough, Paul Dano) on the other end of a hardy headset. The politics of telling a disgraced American cop story add a new dimension to an otherwise familiar tale, but this is worth investigating for Gyllenhaal alone. JF, MM, JM & LL