TORONTO TOP PICKS
A showcase of Oscar hopefuls and world cinema highlights, the film festival which wrapped up last weekend is one of the most influential in the world. Here are our highlights
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
This small-town drama with tragicomedic edges won Toronto’s People Choice Award, a reliable precursor for a bright future at the Oscars. Frances McDormand plays a rancorous mother whose teenage daughter was raped and murdered. When Sheriff Bill Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) fails to catch the criminal, she rents three large billboards to condemn him and the police, sending the town reeling. Writer/director Martin McDonagh ( In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths) mixes dark comedy with soul-searching social commentary, anchored in McDormand’s performance as a grieving mother who turns her frustration into defiance and anger. She’s definitely getting an Oscar nod. The film is likely to come to Thailand early next year.
The Shape Of Water
Guillermo Del Toro’s R-rated Cold War fantasy (expletives, interspecies sex, masturbation) is already an Oscar frontrunner — and it’s only September. Set in the 1960s, though the shadowy Gothic decor makes it look like some mythical neverland covered under dark nuclear clouds, the film stars Sally Hawkins as a mute cleaning lady working in a government science centre. As the US and Russia tangle in an escalating space race, a scientist has captured an Amazonian monster for research, and in this love story between misfits, the beast-man bonds with the mute girl. It’s not Del Toro’s best film, but for the Oscars, this sweet crowd-pleaser looks like a strong bet.
Molly’s Game
The directorial debut of Aaron Sorkin (writer of West Wing, The Social Network, Steve Jobs, etc) is exactly what you expected it to be: a voluble, kinetic character study of an overachiever. At the centre is Jessica Chastain as Molly Bloom (she’s not Irish! she has nothing to do with Joyce’s Ulysses!), a real-life poker madam who runs star-studded poker games in LA and New York. Like the films Sorkin wrote for, Molly’s Game is motored by eloquence, even garrulity, as the characters trade wits, insults, and the voice-over fires up even the most mundane activities into something galvanising. For one thing, Chastain has booked her place in the Best Actress race.
I, Tonya
The story of the US ice skater Tonya Harding is a sensational tale of competitiveness and absurdity, and director Craig Gillespie’s retelling of it is everything but conventional. Margot Robbie, in a role that will shoot her forward on the road to the Oscars, plays the controversial athlete who, in a well-known story, hires a thug to break her competitor’s leg to stop her from joining the national championship. But the film is more about Harding’s tough life and her string of bad relationships, all done with verve and black comedy. Another one to watch as the award season arrives.