Original-Cin TIFF 2019 Picks: Thursday, September 12

By Jim Slotek, Liam Lacey, Kim Hughes and Karen Gordon

Yes, the Festival is still going (until Sunday!)

Jungleland (Special Presentations)

Thu, Sep 12, 6 pm, Visa Screening Room at the Princess of Wales Theatre; Fri, Sept. 1, 9:45 pm, Scotiabank 1; Sat, Sep 14., 6 pm, Scotiabank 1.

Shuffling a mix of familiar boxing and road-trip themes, Max Winkler’s blue-collar dreamers tale almost makes up for in freshness. Cocky manager-coach Stan (Charlie Hunnam) is a loud but inept boxing manager to his slow-burn younger sibling, Lion (Jack O’Connell). Because of one of Stan’s screw-ups with a crime boss, the two are given a truck, a gun, and some cash and ordered to traffic an unwilling but wily young woman, Sky (Jessica Barden) from Massachusetts to Reno. There’s also a big bareknuckle prize fight in San Francisco to overload the plot. All three leads — all British actors playing working-class Americans — register strongly, as do the factory, diners, and strip mall locations of America’s sad and seedy side. LL

Jungleland.