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