TIFF ’21 Capsule Reviews, Round Four

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

A new week, a new slate of titles screening at the 46th annual Toronto International Film Festival.

Our intrepid writers are screening countless films to offer best bets (and must-avoids) for your movie-watching time and money. Check back each day to catch a new crop of capsule reviews, interviews and more.

Need details on purchasing in-person tickets or streaming titles digitally? Go here.

And wondering why our content isn’t organized by date of first screening? It’s because we O-C kids are observing TIFF-imposed embargoes. Yeah, we’re good like that.

Memoria

Memoria (Special Events)

Monday, Sept 13, 4 pm, Cinesphere, IMAX; Friday, Sept 17, 3 pm TIFF Bell Lightbox.

Thai writer/director Apichatpong Weerasethakul won the Jury Prize at Cannes this year for this his first movie set outside his home country. Tilda Swinton stars as Jessica, who is visiting her sister in Bogotá when she is awoken by a loud sound that she, and she alone, keeps hearing. She’s so affected by it that, as she goes about her daily life, she tries to find the source of it. Memoria is Weerasethakul’s most character-driven movie to date, but even still, this is a director who does not adhere to conventional narrative structure, and who overlaps the ordinary, the supernatural, and the mystical in movies that are mysterious and meditative. If you relax and go with the flow, his movies have a way of getting under your skin. KG

Nobody Has to Know (Contemporary World Cinema)

Tue, Sept 14, 3 pm, digital TIFF Bell Lightbox; Tue, Sept 14, 8:30 pm, Visa Skyline Drive-In at Ontario Place; Thu, Sept 16, 5 pm, digital TIFF Bell Lightbox.

An unconventional love story propelled by the antithesis of a meet-cute, triple threat writer/director/star Bouli Lanners’ low-lit drama follows Phil, a somewhat mysterious Belgian expat toiling beneath perennially pewter skies on a family-run sheep farm on the Isle of Lewis. When a stroke wipes Phil’s memories clean, the boss’s daughter Millie (Michelle Fairley of Game of Thrones) steps into the caretaker role. Because Phil and Millie had been secret lovers. Or so she says. Sweeping aerial shots of the rugged Scottish landscape invoke the beauty and bleakness of midlife at the point where the prospect of death makes living suddenly urgent. Equal parts charming and haunting, tender and bittersweet. KH

The Starling (Special Presentations)

Mon, Sept. 13, 4 pm, digital TIFF Bell Lightbox; Thur, Sept 16, 10 am, digital TIFF Bell Lightbox.

“Real subtle stuff,” Melissa McCarthy’s grieving mom Lilly deadpans to Kevin Kline’s psychiatrist-turned-veterinarian Larry Fine (as in The Three Stooges, Lilly observes), adding another clichéd wisdom to the pile of healing-takes-its-own-path tripe in The Starling. Lilly and husband Jack (Chris O’Dowd) are parents stumbling to come to terms with the sudden death of their baby daughter. He’s in a psychiatric hospital. She’s dealing with a dive-bombing bird that won’t let her restore their overgrown garden in peace. Metaphors drop like anvils as McCarthy and O’Dowd try their best but are underserved by Matt Harris’s Hallmark-level script. Director Theodore Melfi (Hidden Figures) was last at TIFF with St. Vincent, also starring McCarthy. But there’s no Bill Murray to add tartness to the proceedings, although perhaps Lilly’s fondness for hollering “sonuvabitch!” at the CGI starling is supposed to add some edge to this awkward mix of comedy and drama. Like the blue-icing-coated Hostess Snoballs that play a central role, the film is cloyingly sweet. The real puzzle is how The Starling made the TIFF lineup at all. LB

Dashcam (Midnight Madness)

Thurs. Sept 16, 9 pm, digital TIFF Bell Lightbox.

PROUDLY SUPPORTS ORIGINAL-CIN

In Rob Savage’s (Host) caught-on-camera horror film, Annie Hardy plays Annie Hardy. One hopes the real Annie Hardy is a far toss from the Annie Hardy we get onscreen. Onscreen, Annie is a quick-witted, inappropriately hilarious, and uncensored vlogger who improvises (mostly) obscene rap lyrics based on words submitted by her followers. She is also more toxic than an acid-lined vat of Drano. Annie is a brash Maga hat–wearing, COVID-denying, anti-masker, anti-vaxer who refuses to step outside her realm of delusions even if it costs her friend Stretch (Amar Chadha-Patel) his job. Savage may not be doing himself any favours making his lead character so unlikeable. No amount of horror is more terrifying than Annie’s behaviour. And it’s hard to care what happens to Annie when things start to get messy—especially since that mess comes from the hands and teeth (and a few unmentionable body parts) of a vicious older African-British woman (the movie takes place in the UK) with supernatural powers. But, as easy as it is to hate Annie (and gawd, I hate Annie), Annie’s unapologetic narcissism can be unavoidably funny—not forgivable, but funny. Some viewers will be onboard with Annie and find a new hero for the era of COVID, vaccines, and Black Lives Matter. And that scares me. TE

Ali & Ava

Ali & Ava (Special Presentations)

Mon, Sept 13, 9 pm, Ontario Place West Island Open Air Cinema; Wed, Sept 15, 3 pm, digital TIFF Bell Lightbox.

Set in Bradford, Yorkshire, this middle-aged interracial romance is moving without being gooey in a portrait of two people from different backgrounds who bond over a love of children and music. Writer-director Clio Barnard (The Selfish Giant) based her characters on a couple she met while researching a previous film and the authenticity of their circumstances makes this more like a social study than a conventional romance. Adeel Akhtar (Victoria & Abdul) as Ali, a Muslim landlord and neighbourhood jokester. Claire Rushbrook (Mike Leigh’s Secrets and Lies) as Ava, a kindly teacher’s assistant from an Irish-Catholic background, and widowed grandmother. Each has issues: Ali is separated from his wife but can’t admit it to his family, so he spends hours in his basement studio, exorcising his frustrations by creating loud music. Ava has survived an abusive marriage, and a couple of her adult children have psychological problems. While the complications get over-busy in the third act, it’s a pleasure watching the affectionate rapport between the two actors. LL

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