Double-masked, double-caffeinated, and starting off my first day at the Toronto International Film Festival. I'll be threading reactions (including ones to things I was able to screen in advance) here to be browsed or muted more easily #TIFF21
Escalator status: working
MEMORIA: Tilda Swinton has a breakthrough or breakdown after hearing a sound no one else can. Was more challenging than past Weerasethakuls, or maybe I'm just out of practice, but there's still a powerful sense of the past sharing space with a willfully oblivious present #TIFF21
PETITE MAMAN: Just a perfect miniature of a movie from Céline Sciamma. A little girl gets to magically spend time with her mom as a kid, and the way the leads (who are sisters) play is as enchanting as the theme of longing to better understand your parent is melancholy #TIFF21
VIOLET: Woman of the moment Olivia Munn is impressive as an unhappy development exec trapped in her own head, but so many aspects of her character's supposed healing journey are underexamined or are themselves toxic that the result feels like a self-care nightmare #TIFF21
DEAR EVAN HANSEN: If there were any chance of making this character look like something other than a monster, it rested on emphasizing his raw youth, which makes the casting of an OBVIOUSLY GROWN MAN JUST HUNCHING HIS SHOULDERS an act of sabotage that's near avant-garde #TIFF21
MOTHERING SUNDAY: Handsome, dull 1920s drama starring Odessa Young and Josh O'Connor (and not a decidedly supporting Olivia Colman and Colin Firth despite attempts to pretend otherwise) that brings to mind ATONEMENT without the heat or the elaborate war sequences #TIFF21
MLUNGU WAM: South African thriller about a woman staying with her estranged mother, a live-in housekeeper whose devotion toward her white employer is inexplicably intense. Some details get rushed past, but it's creepily effective, with shades of Gothic horror and GET OUT. #TIFF21
THE POWER OF THE DOG: If anything, almost too bald about toxic masculinity as oppressing everyone, including its enforcers, but Campion's direction is so sinewy and unsettling and Cumberbatch is just great as a repressed rancher jealously guarding his homosocial kingdom #TIFF21
EARWIG: Honestly, not a clue. But there's a girl who wears custom ice dentures that have to be replaced when they melt, and she's being raised in ritualistic isolation, so fair to call this is another one of Lucile Hadžihalilović's intensely uncanny takes on adolescence #TIFF21
TITANE: Pretty sure my face melted off at least half a dozen times while watching this. Can't imagine another film this year going anywhere near as hard, even if I'm still not sure how it all comes together #TIFF21
A BANQUET: Ruth Paxton’ arty horror debut — about a suburban mother whose daughter stops eating after a seemingly mystical revelation — is moody, beautifully shot, and overstuffed with ideas it doesn't really explore #TIFF21
LAST NIGHT IN SOHO: Not at all sold on Edgar Wright’s latest, which dithers around in “is she haunted or pulling a REPULSION” territory before arriving at an ending I found downright glib. Great soundtrack, though? #TIFF21
THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD: Joachim Trier is so generous w/ his characters, even/esp when they’re fucking up, that a movie about a 30-year-old flake can also be, without any sense of overreach, about the roles art, family, work, children play in finding meaning in life #tiff21
DUNE: Is... good! #TIFF21
THE FORGIVEN: Counting this as more resort horror even though it technically takes place over a weekend of excess in a Moroccan expat mansion. Great cast playing a great array of awful characters, but the whole thing soon becomes unbearably airless #tiff21
LISTENING TO KENNY G: The easy listening king’s such a cheery weirdo in these interviews that a straightforward biodoc about him would have been plenty entertaining, but Penny Lane also deftly uses G’s career to explore conflicting feelings about “let people enjoy things” #tiff21
THE STARLING: Okay, this is the second Netflix movie this year to center on characters healing from tragedy with the help of relationships with wild birds. THAT SAID, some nice performances from Melissa McCarthy and (esp) Chris O'Dowd #tiff21
BERGMAN ISLAND: Is terrific in a way it's hard to do justice to on Twitter, but there's an expressive amount of space between the dying embers of the fond marriage of filmmakers that's the primary focus and the wild emotions of the film within the film that gets described #TIFF21
THE HUMANS: This talky Thanksgiving drama set in a Chinatown apartment somehow generates more dread than a horror movie. Acting's good all around, but it's the way Stephen Karam uses space that makes this impressive, it doesn't feel beholden to how it was staged as a play #tiff21
JULIA: Julia Child's too interesting a subject for a biodoc this by the numbers, imo! #tiff21
ALI & AVA: Having seen Adeel Akhtar and Claire Rushbrook in what feels like 10000 supporting roles over the years, v. satisfying to see them move to the forefront for this careworn, grown-up romance from Clio Barnard that's about embracing the baggage we bring with us #tiff21
BELFAST: Entirely possible that this is a warm, pained tribute to a tumultuous childhood in Northern Ireland, but right now head is empty, there is only the splendor of Jamie Dornan singing “Everlasting Love” to Caitríona Balfe as she looks on from the dance floor #tiff21
JAGGED: Smart doc portrait that's able to do more interesting things by focusing only on Alanis Morissette's early pop era into JAGGED LITTLE PILL — like explore her dynamic with her all-male backing band and the media's insistence on always characterizing her as angry #tiff21
THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE: Jessica Chastain just swings for the fences in this one, but the film itself feels like it isn't sure if it wants to understand its subjects or to make fun of them, and ends up not quiet committing to either #tiff21
SPENCER: Oh hell yes #tiff21 #technically #sinceimbackinnycnow
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