TIFF 2019: There's Something in the Water

Ellen Page's quickly-assembled (filmed in April, completed a week before TIFF started) documentary There's Something in the Water takes a look at a handful of black and first nations communities in her native Nova Scotia, where environmental disasters (existing and potential) threaten the health of people. These are stories similar to that of Flint Michigan or many of our arctic Inuit communities, where the people are treated as second-class citizens and left to live with poison in their water and other pollutants.

The film shows its roughness, and the production values are not especially high, but the voices of the women with whom Page talks about these issues are powerful and compelling. This wasn't one of the best "movies" we saw this week, but it is a very powerful and important film.

TIFF 2019 Overview

TIFF 2019: Harriet

Harriet stars Cynthia Erivo in the title role as Harriet Tubman, and tells how she escaped slavery and worked to free many other slaves. At times it seemed she was lucky to elude her pursuers, but she was also shown to be brave and tough and persistent. We saw this film right after Just Mercy, reinforcing our sadness at how evil the rich and powerful (and of course white) have been, and how the legacy of slavery still divides our society and keeps many from real freedom and justice.

There was a lot of action in this film, and while I knew the basics of the story, it filled in a lot of details for me. Not as heart-wrenching or powerful as Just Mercy, but a decent film.

TIFF 2019 Overview

TIFF 2019: Just Mercy

Just Mercy stars Michael B Jordan as a young lawyer who takes up the cause of prisoners on death row who have not been well-treated by the justice system. He finds that one of them (played by Jamie Foxx) was completely railroaded, convicted by the testimony of a single witness who was coerced to lie about what he saw. Based on a true story, this was by far the best film at the festival for both me and Susan. We were bawling by the end, and shocked by the portrayal of southern US "justice", and how poorly it has treated it most vulnerable citizens, black and white (though overwhelmingly black).

Jordan and Foxx deliver outstanding performances, and the film did not drag despite running 2 1/4 hours. This is a must-see.


TIFF 2019 Overview

TIFF 2019: Red Penguins

Red Penguins is a documentary, ostensibly about how the Pittsburgh Penguins invested in the Moscow Red Army hockey team after the fall of the USSR. It's really more about the chaos that followed the transition from communism to "democracy", and the corruption that took over. I'm really interested in hockey, Russia and history/politics, so I was keen to see this film. I had intended to wear the Russian Penguins hockey jersey that I bought years ago (customized with my name in Cyrillic on the back!), but in the rush to prepare for a long day with 3 films, I forgot.

The film had a mix of interesting history, humourous looks at how the Russian Penguins tried to market their product in a country unaccustomed to commercial promotion, and upsetting scenes of violence as the fragile Russian democracy yielded to Putin's corrupt regime. Overall the film was rough and uneven. Worth seeing if you're a fan of these topics like me, but not one of the finer films we saw this week.

This was the 100th films I have seen at TIFF, dating back to my first in 1998!

TIFF 2019 Overview

TIFF 2019: Bad Education

Hugh Jackman gives a great performance in Bad Education as the superintendent of schools who has overseen a dramatic improvement in academic performance. Allison Janney is his sidekick. The two are riding high until a student reporter starts digging into school expenses, and uncovers an embezzlement scheme that shocks the community. The story is based on a real-life scandal, and it plays out in entertaining fashion as we learn about what has been going on behind the backs of the school board, and the depth of the corruption. This one was pretty good, but it's shocking that it really happened.

TIFF 2019 Overview

TIFF 2019: Blackbird

Susan Sarandon stars in Blackbird as a terminally ill woman who gathers her family together one last time. The men in the family mostly fade into the background, as the story focuses on the relationship between her two daughters (played by Kate Winslet and Mia Wasikowska), who have a simmering conflict that comes to the surface, and her relationships with them. There is sadness and humour and love and conflict, and some twists that keep things moving along. This was one of the best films we have seen at the festival so far.

TIFF 2019 Overview

TIFF 2019: Lyrebird

Lyrebird tells the true story of failed Dutch artist Han van Meegeren (played by Guy Pearce), who is accused after World War II of having collaborated with the Nazis by selling stolen art to them. Claes Bang plays the Dutch resistance fighter working with the Canadian/Allied forces who sets out to bring him to justice, though what that entails changes as the story progresses. The painting at the centre of the plot is a recently-discovered work by Vermeer, which brought back memories of Tim's Vermeer, a film I saw in 2013 at my first TIFF festival (and which I still highly recommend!).

The film really held my interest, with its look at post-war Holland (scenes of some of the ruins were impressive), and a steady supply of humour throughout. I think it was a pretty good film, with Pearce's performance the highlight.


TIFF 2019 Overview

TIFF 2019: Motherless Brooklyn

Edward Norton directs and stars in Motherless Brooklyn, a detective/film-noir adaptation of the Jonathan Lethem book. That makes two great books I've read turned into movies at this year's festival (The Goldfinch was the other), and so far they have been my two favourite films.

Norton is Lionel Essrog, one of a few employees of L & L Investigations trying to figure out why their boss (played briefly by Bruce Willis) has come to an unfortunate end, and pick up the pieces of the investigation that led him there. Alec Baldwin plays the bad guy, and Willem Dafoe adds to the impressive cast; Norton said before the film that they all worked for scale to help him get the unconventional film made. Essrog has Tourette Syndrome, which produces involuntary tics and vocal outbursts, sometimes quite inappropriate. Despite the condition, Essrog functions normally and is generally well-accepted by those around him, and his phenomenal memory makes him a valuable member of the detective firm.

Although the novel was set in the 1990's, Norton takes it back to the '50s to put it back in its genre, and it works beautifully. The cars, the New York skyline and the costumes support the mood of the film, and one scene in a diner reminded me of an Edward Hopper painting.

Norton is the centre of the film, appearing in almost every scene, and he keeps the action moving. The film is not short at 144 minutes, but it never dragged, and the characters and scenery supported a great performance by him. Great film!


TIFF 2019 Overview

TIFF 2019: The Obituary of Tunde Johnson

Steven Silver is the title character in The Obituary of Tunde Johnson, which is sort of like a mashup of The Hate You Give with Groundhog Day (with maybe a dash of Moonlight added in). Tunde Johnson is a gay black student, who endures a variety of violent deaths at the hands of police as he relives the same day over and over. He comes out to his parents, and struggles to convince his boyfriend to stop hiding who he is as well. Silver gives a great performance in the lead role, showing honesty, strength and vulnerability. At times we are not sure if what we are seeing is real or his hallucination.

I liked the film and found it powerful, especially the way the repeated killing scenes were shown from different perspectives. But some parts of the film did not work for me. I'm not a fan of rap, and the music/soundtrack was loud and noisy and disturbing at times. I also felt that Tunde's friendship with Marley, a stuck-up girl who cared more about appearances than what was real, did not make any sense at all, and that made a big part of the film fail for me. And near the end I started wondering where the story was going.

Stanley Kulu wrote the screenplay at age 19, and it won a screenwriting contest that had more than 500 entries. It's a different look at a dark and important subject, and it treats it with a sense of hope.

TIFF 2019 Overview

TIFF 2019: Ordinary Love

Ordinary Love stars Lesley Manville and Liam Neeson as Joan and Tom, a middle-aged couple in Northern Ireland who deal with the discovery that Joan has breast cancer. The death of their daughter years before seems to have brought them closer together, but also perhaps made them isolated from others, as we see no signs of any friends or family as they deal with the illness.

The title is very apt. We see two people who really love each other, but the film focuses on the very ordinary aspects of their lives, even as they deal with the ordeal of cancer diagnosis and treatment. It is also an ordinary story, as so many in the audience would have been touched by cancer. Both lead performances were outstanding, and the story felt very real. The subject matter is serious and frightening, but humour is present throughout, and the love they feel for each other is obvious even though it's never said out loud.

TIFF 2019 Overview

TIFF 2019: The Rest of Us

The Rest of Us reminded me a little of Stepmom. It's the story is an ex-wife who takes  her ex-husband's wife and daughter in when they find themselves suddenly homeless. We start out with a lot of hatred, resentment and conflict, and over the course of the film the various characters sort out their issues, find common ground, and reach new understandings of each other and themselves. It's not so deep or complicated, but it works. The performances are wonderful, and North Bay is a nicer setting for it than I would have guessed. Recommended!

TIFF 2019 Overview

TIFF 2019: The Goldfinch

The Goldfinch is based on the best-selling novel by Donna Tartt, and stars Baby Driver's Ansel Elgort as Theo Decker, orphaned at age 13 by a tragedy that follows him the rest of his life. The film is very faithful to the book, following Theo through a series of living situations, some nourishing and some not so much. There is a bit of a jumbling of the timeline that I did not see much motivation for, but overall the film felt just right to me, and the characters looked and behaved exactly as I expected. While some of the performances were reserved, I thought those worked, and provided contrast to the characters that were a little more over the top. I really liked this one a lot, and recommend it.

TIFF 2019 Overview

TIFF 2019: Tammy's Always Dying

Felicity Huffman and Anastasia Phillips star in director Amy Jo Johnson's film about a wreck of a woman and the daughter who tries to pick up after her and care for her. Director Johnson spoke before the film and called it a comedy, but we found it deeply depressing. Huffman's Tammy is a drunk whose life is a complete mess even before she finds out she is seriously ill. Phillips as her daughter Cathy is barely better off, working in a seedy bar and getting her morsels of human contact where she can, at the expense of others and herself.

Hamilton is the setting for this film that captures the grit and misery of poverty, and the stereotypes (which I know are not all true) of Hamilton as a dirty, ugly city are unfortunately strongly reinforced. The acting was good in this film, but I did not see any redemption for people trapped in a lousy life, and whatever comedic notes there were didn't really work for me.

TIFF 2019 Overview

TIFF 2019: A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood takes us into the world of Mr Rogers, a little deeper in some ways than  expected, while not really showing us much beyond the character he presents on his show.

Tom Hanks portrays Fred Rogers absolutely perfectly, while Matthew Rhys plays Lloyd Vogel, a journalist with a troubled personal life who initially resents being assigned a puff-piece, covering Rogers for an issue of Esquire about heroes. Rogers' freakish niceness is difficult for Vogel to accept as real (I felt the same way watching the film), but it is real, and it eventually helps Vogel to come to terms with his issues. I was surprised to find myself crying despite my feeling that Rogers was too good to be true.

This one was quite good, despite a deliberately very slow pace (consistent with the character of Mr Rogers and how he behaved on his show).

TIFF 2019 Overview

TIFF 2019: Dads

Our first film of the festival! Dads is a documentary by Bryce Dallas Howard (Ron Howard's daughter) celebrating fatherhood and examining how it has changed in recent years.

The film is a hodge-podge of awkward interviews with comedians (including Hasan Minaj, Jimmy Fallon, Will Smith, Neil Patrick Harris), all filmed standing up against a blank coloured background, mixed with scenes of fathers talking about their families and what fatherhood means to them. Howard also shows us her family: her famous dad, her grandfather (who talks a bit about supporting the young Ron Howard on the set of The Andy Griffith Show), and her brother, who is expecting a child with his wife while the film is being made.

It's a feel-good piece that shows us a bunch of father in different situations. They are all great dads in their own way, and it's nice, and I cried a little bit here and there, but overall it seemed to lack focus and was a bit disjointed. It was pretty good overall and we both enjoyed it, but we did not quite feel like joining in on the standing ovation it received (we attended the world premier).

We were in the front row, off to one side with a good view of the post-film Q&A

Director Howard appeared alone with the TIFF staffer on stage for the Q&A session after the film. We had hoped to see Ron Howard, but my guess is he chose to let her have the stage to herself for the world premier of her first film, rather than steal her lime lite.

TIFF 2019 Overview

TIFF 2019: The Films

Once again it's time for the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). Susan and I bought a Flex Package of 30 tickets, and last week I went through the program book to read all the film summaries. Over the weekend we came up with a ranked list of about 40 films we are interested in seeing, and this evening was our selection window on the TIFF web site.

One film we wanted to see (Knives Out) was sold out. It only had one screening available apart from the Gala screening, and that was gone by the time I got in to pick our films. We did get our top 14 other choices, and then added one more to complete our picks. While there was only one shut-out, there were many films on our list whose screenings conflicted with other films we had already picked, so we ended up with our 26th overall choice as the last pick.

Here are the films we saw, in the order we saw them. Films in bold are highly recommended; pass on the one in italics!:

• Dads
• A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
• Tammy's Always Dying
• The Goldfinch
• The Rest of Us
• Ordinary Love
• The Obituary of Tunde Johnson
• Motherless Brooklyn
• Lyrebird
• Blackbird
• Bad Education
• *Just Mercy*
• Harriet
• Red Penguins
• There's Something in the Water

Overall we had a great TIFF this year. We may not have seen as many breathtakingly great films as in some years, but we saw a bunch of really, really good ones, and the only stinker wasn't all that terrible (I call it the best worst film I have ever seen at TIFF!). Looking back, 8 of the 15 films were either documentaries, or based on true stories. That was not planned.

We are already looking forward to next year!