Princess Diana biopic brings glitter to this year’s muted fest
The most famous person coming to the Toronto International Film Festival is one who has been dead for 24 years (and change).
Get set for “Spencer,” with the People’s Princess in the spotlight.
Having started its awards season journey last week, when it had a giddy reception at the Venice Film Festival followed by a love-in at the small but influential Telluride Film Fest, it arrives in Toronto with the biggest possible bang, if only because the premiere is happening at the Princess of Wales Theatre on King Street West. I repeat: the Diana movie is happening at the Princess of Wales.
Starring a transformative Kristen Stewart and directed by Pablo Larrain, who applies some of the same unconventional gothicness that he brought to “Jackie” some years back, the film unfolds over three tight days during the Christmas season of 1991 at the Windsor bolthole in Sandringham.
The theatre, meanwhile? It’s got its own history. Conceived by the Mirvishes and completed here in 1993, it is a beautiful structure, adorned with the
work of abstract master Frank Stella. Though Diana died before she could visit, it — like her — became more famous through her death. In those tragic days in 1997, it even morphed into an impromptu shrine, the front filled with flowers, candles, teddy bears, etc.
Two books in the lobby were set up, too, so mourners could leave condolences.
Those who were actually in the theatre on the evening of Aug. 30, 1997, still remember the ripple when word got out that the princess had been in an automobile accident. It was the final performance here of “Beauty and the Beast.” Diana would die well after the final curtain call.
Beyond Diana, the festival royally goes on. Though there is certainly action to be had compared to last year, because the slate is still a third of what it normally is, many Americans and others are skipping (opting to participate digitally), and the buzz itself is dialed down in an effort to keep crowds from forming, it will feel like TIFF, but not. Think: TIFF on a juice fast.
It was supposed to be so different. Instead, that brief flicker of hot vax summer turned into the fall of waitand-see, that feeling of the tide having turned being bucked by the peril of Lady Delta and rising cases.
Consequently, even some of the invites have had a kind of aw-shucks apologetically Canadian vibe about them this year.
Exhibit A: Hugo Boss, which has forever thrown a top party during TIFF — one, for example, for “La La Land” with Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone a few years ago at Lavelle. The other day, they sent out a note to their guest list, saying, “We had hoped that 2021 would be the return to our BIG party with the BIG stars. Alas, we are not quite there yet in terms of getting together in large number inside.”
Instead, they are inviting their guests to an outdoor screening at the Ontario Place Open Air Cinema during the first weekend of the fest.
TIFF is part of a vast ecosystem in Toronto beyond the movies — the social life and self-image of the city count on the photos and the word-ofmouth to help establish places, which then causes a ripple for the brands who are sponsoring and the see-and-be-scene local crowd — that gestates in umpteenth ways around this time.
Some of the places where careful parties are happening this year including the Spanish resto Patria (where I once watched Bill Murray shake it to Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” during one TIFF party) as well as Sofia in Yorkville (where in pre-plague times, we saw J.Lo cause sheer pandemonium when she arrived with thenboyfriend A-Rod during yet another TIFF).
But even as some flutes are raised, and stars like Benedict Cumberbatch expected, it is a reminder of how much the social circuit has, well, shortcircuited since the pandemic. Some places are just gone, like Montecito, which welcomed the likes of George Clooney in the past and was particularly lively during TIFF. It closed last year.
La Banane, a cosy restaurant that hosted a superchic Chanel dinner for several years — drawing everyone from Keira Knightley to Priyanka Chopra — is open again after a long closure but only accepting people on its patio.
Bisha, which has been a draw since it opened — I recall a party with Halle Berry, for instance — seems to be in the game again.
Vela — a glimmering new hot spot on Portland — will see some faces, I suspect.
Other newer party spots? They include the mostly openair Harriet’s, atop the just opened 1 Hotel Toronto. It actually had a head start when Simu Liu hosted a shindig just last week following the Canadian premiere of his big monster hit “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.”
It was a cool hang — even if many us felt a bit gun-shy about being at a party at all. So … like … how does this work again?