I’ve been back in California for three days, but only today can I wrap up my time in Toronto representing CraveOnline at the Toronto International Film Festival. It was my first time at the festival and, even though I’d been there before, it felt like my first time in the city itself. What a city! Rows and rows of great restaurants and bars. Very walkable. Coffee on every corner. Locals really repping the longer than usual summer with their bikes and short shorts. But, although the city was fab — and I got some good recommendations for next time (the Scarborough Bluffs) — we were there for the movies and the talented people who made them.
The films that I came away loving were The Theory of Everything and Eden. The film that was the most fun was Nightcrawler (which also gave me my favorite interviews from TIFF, with Rene Russo and Dan Gilroy, and the premiere marked my best evening at the festival as well). The movie that I’m most on the fence about was The Imitation Game. And after my interview with its screenwriter that’s also the most likely one that I could have a change of heart — or an enraged heart — about, further into the fall and winter (awards) season.
Related: CraveOnline TIFF Roundup of Reviews and Interviews
But there were A LOT of films that I wanted to see but couldn’t. Either because they were playing after we left, or because we didn’t have interviews lined-up. I’m curious about two Julianne Moore flicks — because they’re entirely opposite — David Cronenberg’s portrait of Hollywood nut jobs, Maps to the Stars, and an alzheimer’s drama, Still Alice, that’s seemingly thrust Moore into the Oscars race… if it gets released this year. We kept hearing good things about Force Majeure (which has been submitted as Sweden’s choice for Best Foreign Language Film in the Oscar race) and Chris Rock’s Top Five (which got scooped up by Paramount Pictures). Kristen Wiig had an interesting-sounding indie comedy (well, I guess she had two here, but I’m talking about Welcome to Me from Shira Piven, aka Mrs. Adam MacKay) and Canada appears to have repped itself better with Xavier Dolan’s Mommy and Astron-6’s giallo homage The Editor than with homegrown Jason Reitman’s Men, Women and Children. To round out the buzz, my colleague, William Bibbiani, got me excited about Big Game and The Duke of Burgundy.
That being said, there were more films that I’d seen that haven’t gotten that precious digital ink yet. So let’s roll through ’em and close my chapter on TIFF 2014.
First up:
Laggies
The stuck-in-adolescence comedy has been booming for many years. For men. Boys will be boys, they say. Girls? We need them to grow up to be women; girlfriends, wives and mothers. For the amount of bromances we get throughout the year, it’s a little egregious that the ladies haven’t gotten as many chances. Well, thank goodness for Lynn Shelton’s Laggies. Mostly because we get to see Keira Knightley cut loose. As Megan, Knightley tumbles over couches, has a huge mischievous grin, twirls a tax sign, skateboards, mimes with a turtle and has no plans for the future. At her best friend’s wedding (Ellie Kemper) she witness her father (Jeff Garlin) with a woman who isn’t her mother, with her hands down his pants; then her boyfriend (Mark Webber) proposes to her.
Related: Interview with Lynn Shelton and Sam Rockwell on ‘Laggies’
Megan already was in career nowhere-land, but witnessing these combined instances of adulthood sends her into a tailspin of reliving an easier adolescence. She becomes pals with a teenager, Annika, (Chloe Grace Moretz) after Annika asks her to buy her friends some booze. Some inexplicable things happen, but Laggies has smart, crafty dialogue and features a great turn from a perennial Dad of the Year runner-up (Sam Rockwell). Shelton (Your Sister’s Sister, Humpday) understands that what all youth — and especially stunted adolescence — are united by is that refrain, “my parents suck.” Megan’s actions might not seem believable, but if you are thinking of her avoidance of her father, it makes it easier to understand.
There’s a great scene where a car full of teenagers and Megan are all complaining about their parents at the same time and wreck the car. But after the car wreck, Laggies kind of slags off and heads into a predictable third act where all the coming of age contrivances that were turned on their head, turn themselves back over and stand tall.
I am not Lorena
Put Isidora Marras on a “one to watch” list. The Chilean filmmaker’s first film has a great idea — that never fully coalesces — and even hints at a Brian De Palma fixation. I Am Not Lorena follows a young actress Olivia (Loreto Aravena), who is most definitely NOT Lorena. Who is Lorena? We don’t know. But debt collectors keep calling Olivia, looking for her. Repo men come by to repossess Olivia’s stuff. A scorned lover is desperate to find her. And Olivia is desperate to find her, too.
There are wig changes, a play within a play about taking control of someone else, a discovery of a prostitution ring and a friendship with a man (Maho Farias) who is in the process of transitioning to a woman (see, look at the De Palma laundry list!). Combined with something as topical as personal debt set against student protests in the street, I Am Not Lorena has all the pieces to be something subversive and culturally impactful. But Marras doesn’t have the ability to create a Kafka-esque dreamscape. Nor does she have the budget. But there are some interesting ideas at play.
Cut Snake
“Cut Snake” is an Australian expression that applies to a person that’s so agitated that they react to a situation like a snake that’s had its tail cut off. In the film Cut Snake it might as well mean a pair of jeans, that when worn properly, reveals a bulging cut-out of a cock. Yes, Cut Snake might as well be artwork done by “Tom of Australia” (that’s a Tom of Finland joke, Google it, but not at work). Both the agitated man and the bulging man of Tony Ayres’ film is Pommie (Sullivan Stapleton, star of 300: Rise of an Empire), who’s just been released from prison.
Pommie tracks down his former cell mate, Sparra (Alex Russell) who’s gone straight and narrow and is engaged to a young woman (Jessica De Gouw) who doesn’t know that her young street-sweeping stud’s been in prison before. It’s 1974. There’s a lot of agitation. The reasons for the chaffing aren’t revealed until midway through. It’s a shame because the first half is a little too standard. So by the time a twist comes, it seems to be moreso to keep you from boredom. And the twist is a hoot. And what follows could be turned into a pulpy exploitation flick.
Related: Interview with Alex Russell on Cut Snake
I say “could” because the film hasn’t been picked up for distribution yet. The only thing that anyone was talking about afterward was the twist halfway through. If it’s re-edited, (ahem) re-packaged and revealed a little earlier there is a chance of having a longstanding cult film here. And, honestly, Stapleton deserves it. He’s a burly menace. Or should I say, a “bulging” menace?
Foreign Body
Speaking of cult films, where the hell did Foreign Body come from and what does it want to be? It it weren’t so European and serious this film has the potential to be a ludicrous hoot. Instead, as is, it’s the worst film I saw at the Toronto International Film Festival
Polish director Krzysztof Zanussi has combined De Palma subversiveness with Catholic and Capitalist guilt with a giallo trope: that sounds awesome, right? Problem is, Zanussi is very serious. He has serious piano plinks. His only giallo flourish is placing people from another country in Italy so that they have to speak English dialogue to one another. The Catholic guilt is that of a young woman (Agata Buzek) who decides to become a nun. Her former lover (Ricardo Leonelli) tracks her down to Poland and to be close to her, he takes a job at a crooked energy firm nearby. His boss (Agnieszka Grochowska) is both sadistic in mindplay and foreplay. Which side of power will he choose to pursue?!
Say what you will about De Palma’s Passion but that movie was a hoot. Foreign Body can’t even make the line, “You know how bad Russian prison is!” fun. How is that even possible? This movie should be so diabolically fun. But when all the shaming of sexuality and the easy parallels (dominating sex = capitalism; no sex = socialism, got it) are presented as oh-so-serious it can’t even succeed as a gleeful dissection of power. Instead Foreign Body is just something that the audience just has to suffer through.
Brian Formo is a featured contributor on the CraveOnline Film Channel. You can follow him on Twitter at @BrianEmilFormo.
