Original-Cin TIFF 2020 Picks: Thursday to Saturday, September 17 to 19

By Jim Slotek, Liam Lacey, Kim Hughes, Karen Gordon, Linda Barnard, Bonnie Laufer, and Thom Ernst

Another Round (Special Presentations)

Sat, Sept. 19, TIFF Bell Lightbox, 12 pm.

Acclaimed Danish director Thomas Vinterberg’s darkly comic drama is perhaps the big-screen’s most audacious illustration of the old chestnut, “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Four schoolteachers, all friends and all engulfed by personal or professional ennui (or both) decide to test-drive an arcane hypothesis that adding a small amount of alcohol to everyday life will unlock creative juices. At first, the daytime drinking works brilliantly; history lessons come alive, choir practice soars. In due time, however, the four dial up the dosage and things start to fall apart though not exactly in ways the quartet (or us) might have predicted. Mads Mikkelsen heads an exceptional ensemble cast that conjure men so real-seeming we can smell their fear and heartbreak. Rarely has the ostensibly mundane subject of alcohol and its awesome/awful impact on aging, relationships, and work been so thoughtfully — or cheekily —considered. -KH

Enemies of the State (TIFF Docs)

Thu, Sept. 17, Visa Skyline Drive-In at CityView, 9 pm.

Matt DeHart is a young American man who became a free speech cause célèbre a few years ago when he claimed the FBI and CIA conspired against him because of information he had about their malfeasance, gained through his relationship to the hacktivist group Anonymous. Though DeHart was questioned on espionage matters, he was jailed for another crime, possession of indecent images of under-aged boys. After 21 months in jail, in 2012, he skipped bail and travelled with his parents to Canada, asking for asylum on the grounds he had been tortured and interrogated by the FBI. In 2015, he was returned to jail in the United States and re-sentenced, earning extra time for his attempt to escape.

Sonia Kennebeck’s documentary, which is produced by Errol Morris, begins with an Oscar Wilde quote that “the truth is rarely pure and never simple.” The film spins out his tale as a paranoid thriller with dramatic re-enactments, ominous music and strategically withheld information, which end up to nothing that’s actually surprising. The more interesting drama here is the story of DeHart’s Matt’s parents, conservative Christian military vets, who are tormented, not by the possibility that their son is a pedophile, but that he is a victim of the government. In the end, the film says little that’s useful about our conspiracy-ridden zeitgeist, except to show the same person can be guilty of one crime and innocent of another. -LL

Good Joe Bell (Gala Presentations)

Fri, Sept. 18, Online at Bell Digital Cinema starting at 6 pm; Sat, Sept. 19, 8 pm, TIFF Bell Lightbox.

Good Joe Bell is a brutally honest gut-punch of a movie that will stay with you for quite some time. Based on real events and scripted by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana (Brokeback Mountain), it tells the story of a father’s walk across the United States to raise awareness about the harms of bullying. Mark Wahlberg plays Joe, husband and father of two boys, one gay. The film follows newcomer Miller Reid's Jadin (brilliant), who faced relentless bullying in rural Oregon, as father Joe struggled to understand and accept his son's sexuality. Jadin eventually took his own life at just 15; Joe, in grief, helplessness and regret, embarked on his walk to raise awareness about the challenges faced by LGBTQ youth.

Told in flashbacks, Joe’s walk helps him understand who his son was and also deal with his guilt and regret about not being there for him. This could not have been an easy role for Wahlberg (himself a father of four) who compassionately conveys the message that we must listen to our children and value them no matter what. The stellar cast includes Connie Britton and Gary Sinise. Have Kleenex standing by, you’re going to need it. -BL

Shiva Baby (Discovery, Next Wave)

Thu, Sept. 17, TIFF Bell Lightbox, 12 pm.

Toronto-based Emma Seligman’s feature debut is an indie comedy set at a Jewish post-funeral ritual gathering. Twenty-something Danielle (Rachel Sennott) goes to a Shiva at her parent’s request and runs into a series of romantic entanglements past and present with messy results. It’s a bit heavy on the Jewish family clichés (Bubbie, you look so thin. Are you eating?) and there are points in the plot that don’t feel quite right. But there are many more moments of fabulous dialogue that hit the spot, and you really feel the lead character’s pain. Terrific cast and performances. - KG

A Suitable Boy, Episodes 1-2 (Primetime)

Sat, Sept. 19, RBC Lakeside Drive-In at Ontario Place, 8: 30 pm; Sat, Sept. 19, West Island Open Air Cinema at Ontario Place. 9 pm.

A Suitable Boy, Episodes 1-6 (Primetime)

Sat, Sept. 19, TIFF Bell Lightbox, 2 pm; Sat, Sept. 19, Online at Bell Digital Cinema starting at 6 pm.

The BBC six-episode adaption of Vikram Seth’s 1,300-page novel, which director Mira Nair has jokingly called “The Crown in brown” follows four families in the aftermath of India’s 1947 independence and partition. Released this summer on British television, the series was hailed as an historic breakthrough, the corporation’s first period drama with a non-white cast and director. The catch, and the brand’s safety net, is that the screenplay adaptation is by Andrew Davies, whose accessible distillations of important novels — Vanity Fair, Pride and Prejudice, Middlemarch, Bleak House, War and Peace — sets the standards for the broadcaster’s house style.

That means we’re guaranteed vibrant production values (shot in India), colourful gowns, helpful servants, busybody older relatives and the consistently strong casting. The lead here is an appealing newcomer, Tanya Maniktala, as Lata, a 19-year-old literature student, whose mother is anxious to marry her off to “a suitable boy.” But the independent Lata is determined to marry the boy she chooses, and soon invites scandal when she starts seeing a Muslim boy who hits on her in the school library. In a parallel story, her playboy brother-in-law Maan (Ishaan Khatter) embarrasses his politician father and begins an illicit affair with a sultry older woman, singer Saeeda. The trade-off of compressing so much material into six episodes is that the social and political backdrop feel rushed. But judging by the first two episodes, this eminently binge-worthy middle-brow entertainment should lead many viewers back to the book. -LL

True Mothers (Special Presentation)

Fri, Sept. 18, 6 pm Online at Bell Digital Cinema starting at 6 pm.

Japanese director Naomi Kawase’s quiet, often-devastating observation on motherhood and memory is seen through the 14-year-old girl who gives up her child and the well-off woman and her husband who adopt him. Impeccably shot — a brief scene of a girl riding a bicycle along a narrow road framed by cherry trees shedding pale blossoms is sublime — the cinematography is rich and occasionally dreamy. Faces carry as much of the story as dialogue in Kawase’s screenplay, adapted from Mizuki Tsujimura’s 2015 novel.

Both female leads are excellent. Satoko (Hiromi Nagasaku), longs for a child when her husband is found to be infertile. Hikari (Aju Makita) is the confused and naïve Grade 8 girl in love with a classmate, sent away to have her baby by disapproving parents. “I wish the fetus would disappear,” Hikari’s mother whispers in the doctor’s office as they see her baby’s face on a scan. But disappearing is something Hikari can’t tolerate.
The two women are brought together through the unfortunately named Baby Baton, a non-profit that sees its role as helping children to find their parents. There are no quick answers here and no easy choices. Young women arrive at an island house from around Japan to wait out their pregnancies away from the emotional chaos, trauma and societal and family judgement that caused then to be there.

A 20-year-old woman gets her first birthday cake and marvels that something she thought was an urban myth actually exists. Are the tears she quietly sheds for her own loss, her situation, or her unborn child, whose birthday she’ll never celebrate in person? - LB

The Truffle Hunters (Special Events)

Fri, Sept. 18, Online at Bell Digital Cinema starting at 6 pm.

In the forests of the Piedmont region of Italy, men go out at night with their specially trained dogs hunting for the valuable and increasingly hard-to-find Alba white truffle. Most of them are in their 80s and have been truffle hunters for much of their lives.

These hunters are old-world characters, attached to the traditional way of doing things, to their beloved dogs, unwilling to share the secrets of how they know how to find the best truffles on their personal territories. But times are changing around them. Dealers sell the prized truffles for thousands of Euros to international clients while paying the hunters a fraction of that and complaining that the market is down. Climate change and deforestation are making it harder to find the prized truffles.

Filmmakers Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw spent three years getting to know the hunters and dealers well enough to get in and film casual moments that they frame, light, and shoot like little sets. The result feels slightly like a feature film, with perhaps a touch of Fellini here and there. Enjoyable as it is to watch, however, it is the record of a tradition that is in danger of fading away, and a delicacy that may disappear as well. -KG

Underplayed (Special Events)

Sat, Sept. 19, Online at Bell Digital Cinema starting at 6 pm; Sat, Sept. 19, OLG Play Stage at Ontario Place, 8 pm.

Electronic dance music is thought of as catering to a young, gender-fluid audience though, look closer, and some things are slow to change. Stacey Lee’s documentary about gender inequality, shot over six months last year, is an easy flowing celebration of creative musicianship, despite pervasive misogyny, online trolling, and the boy’s club mentality that means women remain a tiny fraction of headline acts.

Performance sequences are brief with most of the screen time given to the personal stories of racial and sexual identity with Grammy-winning Tokimonsta, Alison Wonderland, English gay deejay, Sherelle, Brooklyn’s Tygapaw, Niagara Falls native, Rezz, and the Australian sister duo Nervo. The film also pays tribute to pioneers of electronic music in the 1960s and 1970s, including Delia Derbyshire (she arranged the Dr. Who theme), Suzanne Ciani (a five-time Grammy nominee for best New Age album) and Wendy Carlos (Switched On Bach, and Stanley Kubrick film scores). -LL

Hey! Planning to binge-stream TIFF 2020 movies all weekend? Good on you!

We have heaps of mini-reviews, so before plunking down cash, read some sage and (mostly) deeply considered previews RIGHT HERE… AND ALSO HERE… AND HERE… AND HERE… OH YEAH, HERE ALSO… AND HERE… and PHEW HERE!

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