THE TWO POPES
Anthony Hopkins portrays Benedict and Jonathan Pryce is Francis in new film based on a true story playing at TIFF,
The buzz was bang on.
Taika Waititi’s audacious anti-hate comedy Jojo Rabbit was identified as the top film to watch at the Toronto International Film Festival, in my annual poll of critics, programmers and other movie insiders.
At Sunday’s world premiere at the Princess of Wales Theatre, the audience loved Waititi’s bold mix of comic fantasy and stark reality in his story of a young boy’s misguided quest to be a good Nazi, when all he really wants to be is a good human being. It’s my favourite of the films I’ve seen so far as TIFF 2019 reaches the halfway mark.
Here are 10 films I liked and five I didn’t like:
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood ( ) Tom Hanks fits the red sweater like he was born in it, but Marielle Heller’s unique take on Fred Rogers’ magnetism exceeds impersonation. A movie of heart, empathy and invention, it’s no biopic; it’s a demonstration of the man’s positivity in motion, as seen in the attitude change it brings to a cynical journalist (Matthew Rhys).
Dolemite Is My Name ( ) Great to see Eddie Murphy back in Raw comic form, reviving rudely hilarious Blaxploitation comedy. He’s not phoning this one in, as he reconjures and salutes Rudy Ray Moore, a.k.a. Dolemite, a potty-mouthed 1970s comic with Hollywood-sized ambitions. Keegan-Michael Key, Craig Robinson, Wesley Snipes and Da’Vine Joy Randolph make fine comic accomplices, as Murphy pimp-struts into a potential career revival.
Ford v Ferrari ( ) The gas is hi-octane and so’s the testosterone, as James Mangold thrillingly tells the tale of Detroit’s Ford Motor Co. taking on Italy’s Ferrari for Le Mans glory, a strange-but true story from the 1960s. Matt Damon and Christian Bale are racing toward awards consideration as the savvy designer and mercurial driver who teamed up to drive like hell. The story’s great and the racetrack action leaves skid marks on the eyeballs.
Hustlers ( ) The first half’s a hoot, as Jennifer Lopez’s stripping vet shows Constance Wu’s new recruit the pole-dance ropes. But the bump turns to grind with a messy Wall Street caper plot and multiple flashbacks, as writer/director Lorene Scafaria strives for an empowerment story that just isn’t there. But if you want to see JLo in her best role in 21 years, since Out of Sight, you’ve come to the right naughty place.
Jojo Rabbit ( ) Taika Waititi knocks it out of der park with the meaningful lunacy of his antihate satire, which is equal parts Mel Brooks, Wes Anderson and Waititi’s own whimsical brilliance. Jojo Betzler (Roman Griffin Davis), a 10-year-old Nazi in training with Adolf Hitler as an imaginary friend, has something to learn: Love conquers hate and laughter makes it easier. Yet for all its mockery, the film sincerely depicts how war is the real insanity.
Judy ( ) Renée Zellweger wasn’t the obvious choice to play the late Judy Garland, the joyful Wizard of Oz ingénue turned adult captive of addiction and anxiety, but she makes it seem like there’s no place like her home. Rupert Goold’s screen adaptation of the stage play End of the Rainbow breaks no new cinematic ground. Just watch Zellweger as she expresses the complications of a remarkable woman and talent.
Just Mercy ( ) Set in the Alabama of 1989 but speaking to everywhere today, Destin Daniel Cretton’s fact-based story of a lawyer seeking freedom for a death-row inmate framed by another’s lies is long on drama and short on subtlety. It’s fuelled by righteous anger about wrongful convictions in an America where racism and expediency trump civil rights and humanity. Strong performances, especially by Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx and Tim Blake Nelson, help make the message a movie. Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and
The Band ( )
The ties that bind also divide, as Toronto filmmaker Daniel Roher finds in his illuminating doc on the Band, the legendary quintet who helped Bob Dylan go electric and showed Eric Clapton, Van Morrison and multitudes more how deep the roots of rock go. This TIFF 2019 gala opener is very much guitarist/songwriter Robertson’s version of the truth, but it rings true as it accounts how drugs, petty jealousies and other demons ultimately undid these Fab Five musicians.
The Two Popes ( ) Is that golden smoke coming from the Vatican chimney? There’s much pleasure to be had and awards to be anticipated, watching Anthony Hopkins as Benedict, the pope of dogma and reason, spar with Jonathan Pryce as Francis, the pope of compassion and empathy. Fernando Meirelles’ charming two-hander, based on the true story of Benedict’s 2013 retirement from the papacy and Francis’s unlikely ascendancy to it, is wise to Catholicism and also human nature.
Waves ( ) Demanding but impressive filmmaking by Trey Edward Shults of a family in crisis. Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Taylor Russell anchor a split narrative of an affluent African-American family where the pursuit of success at all costs leads to tragedy. The camera’s on fire and so is the acting as the story hurtles towards unforeseen outcomes. Waves takes us on a real journey, leaving us breathless but marvelling at the end.
And here are five TIFF 2019 films I don’t much like: Frankie ( ) Any film that wastes the great Isabelle Huppert is a crime. She’s the title Frankie, a cancer-stricken famous actress. She summons her nearest and dearest to a fabulous place in Sintra, Portugal, for one last bash, but you already know how that’s going to turn out. Director Ira Sachs is brilliant when he’s got a good story to tell, as he did with Little Men and Love Is Strange. Here he has little on his mind apart from working in a gorgeous location.
The Goldfinch ( ) A movie as inert as the famous oil painting it is titled for. John Crowley’s listless direction and a cast — led by Ansel Elgort and Nicole Kidman — that is apparently afflicted with narcolepsy make this the first big bomb of TIFF 2019. It’s based on a Pulitzer-winning novel by Donna Tartt, which has a challenging narrative that is hard to express visually, even with the legendary Roger Deakins behind the camera. Some books were never meant to be movies.
Greed ( ) Latest Michael Winterbottom/Steve Coogan collaboration can’t decide whether it wants to be funny or nasty, settling far too often for the latter. Coogan’s one-note riff as a ruthless purveyor of cheap clothes gets old quickly and the anti-exploitation message lacks punch.
A Hidden Life ( ) It pains me to say it, but Terrence Malick is a prisoner of his own tropes. With this fact-based story of Franz Jagerstatter (Austria’s August Diehl), a Second World War conscientious objector who refused to support Hitler and paid a heavy price, Malick falls prey yet again to the voice-over whispering and dreamy cloud-watching he relies on too much. Malick’s indulgences drain the film of drama over a nearly three-hour running time.
The Whistlers ( ) Auteur Corneliu Porumboiu brings the novel notion of a bird-call whistling code to this noir satire of a corrupt cop, a femme fatale and a gangland scheme to find a mattress containing millions in cash but ultimately fails to find the funny in his whistling conceit.