TIFF '21 Capsule Reviews, Round One
By Jim Slotek, Linda Barnard, Thom Ernst, Karen Gordon, Kim Hughes, Liam Lacey, and Bonnie Laufer
The 46th annual Toronto International Film Festival is officially on! 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.
The Odd-Job Men
The Odd-Job Men (Contemporary World Cinema)
Mon, Sept 13, 3 pm, digital TIFF Bell Lightbox; Thu Sept 16, 9 pm, digital TIFF Bell Lightbox.
This wry and lively comedy, set in Barcelona, follows three men on six days on a work crew as they repair air-conditioners, plumbing, and miscellaneous things. The intriguing thing here is that three actors — a Moroccan immigrant, Mohamed, who’s on a week’s trial, soon-to-be-retired perfectionist, Pep, and motormouth bigot Valero — are, in fact, professional handymen who Catalan director Neus Ballús discovered and trained over the course of two years. Based on real-life stories from the cast and the director (her father was a plumber) about the oddball customers (an erotic art photographer, a pair of adolescent girls who nearly electrocute them), the film makes its point about xenophobia and teamwork while keeping things light. In an amusing twist, two of the “non-professional” actors, Mohamed Mellali as the beleaguered newcomer, and Valero Escolar as his loudmouth nemesis, shared the best actor award at the recent Locarno Film Festival. LL
Attica (TIFF Docs)
Thu, Sept 16, digital TIFF Bell Lightbox, 1 pm.
The five-day Attica prison insurrection, which took place 50 years ago this week, quickly became a kind of punchline, first used in Dog Day Afternoon in 1975, and later referenced by John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. It’s impossible to imagine, for example, the Kent State killings being treated in the same way. The reality was, as Stanley Nelson’s measured but powerful documentary reminds us, that Attica was a massacre of historic proportions, that reverberates with the Black Lives Matter movement and calls for prison reform.
The assault to take back the prison, conducted the New York State Police, left 32 inmates killed and 85 wounded. Of the 10 correctional officers killed, nine were victims of police bullets; only one was beaten to death by the prisoners at the beginning of the riot. Nelson’s film blends extensive well-chosen archival footage with compelling contemporary testimony from elderly surviving prisoners, family members of guards, official mediators and observers and national guard members. Collectively, they describe an avoidable atrocity, inflamed by right-wing politics and racism, in the backlash against the civil rights struggle. Archival images and accounts of the surviving prisoners’ humiliation and torture are difficult but clarifying viewing. LL
The Box (Special Presentations)
Fri, Sept 10, 5 pm, digital TIFF Bell Lightbox; Wed, Sept 15, 1 pm digital TIFF Bell Lightbox.
The latest from Venezuelan director Lorenzo Vigas (From Afar) is a bleak reminder that drug cartels aren’t the only scourge plaguing poor Mexicans. Factories relying on cheap, disposable labour are also insidious, a fact young Hatzín discovers when a series of odd circumstances lead him to connect with Mario, a man he thinks is his long-lost father who also happens to be in the business of recruiting vulnerable labourers for backbreaking work, sometimes with murderous outcomes. Added to this tale of contemporary exploitation is one of loyalty and familial bonds as Hatzín seeks out the increasingly troubling truth about who Mario is and what, exactly, he does to earn his paycheque. KH
Dear Evan Hansen (Gala Presentation)
Thur., Sept 9, 9 pm, digital TIFF Bell Lightbox.
Dear Evan Hansen – TIFF’s opening night gala movie - was everything I wanted it to be and more. I’ve seen the award winning musical three times (once on Broadway with Tony winner Ben Platt). And I was nervous when I heard a movie was being made. Directed by Stephen Chbosky (Perks of a Wallflower, Wonder) the story centers on Evan (Ben Platt), a struggling high school senior with social anxiety disorder. His journey of self-discovery follows the suicide of a fellow classmate. Many of the original songs are in the film, written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. We also get a few new numbers composed specifically for the movie which are unsurprisingly touching and heartfelt. Ben Platt fleshes out the character beautifully. Each song is sung with such clarity and deep emotion, it's hard not to be swept away by his performance and the character’s deep pain and anxiety. Kudos to cast-mates, especially Kaitlyn Denver who plays Zoe, the sister of the suicide victim and the object of Evan’s affections. Which brings me to another surprise - Julianne Moore, who plays Evan's mother. Moore belts out one of the most touching songs of the film with such ease you wonder why we've never seen her in a musical before this. As for Platt, he may be on his way to EGOT. (B.L.)
Petit Maman (Special Presentations)
PROUDLY SUPPORTS ORIGINAL-CIN
Tue, Sept 14, 1 pm, digital TIFF Bell Lightbox.
In the follow-up to her international success with the period drama Portrait of a Lady on Fire, French director Céline Sciamma offers this original meditation on the lives of mothers and daughters. Like a fairy tale or ghost story, the drama is about the friendship between two mysteriously similar 8-year-old girls who meet in the autumn forest and become fast friends. The grandmother of Nelly (Joséphine Sanz) has just died, and she has arrived with her father and grief-struck mother to the older woman’s forest cottage to clear out her belongings. Nelly’s mother, facing an emotional crisis, goes home early, leaving the father to do the job. Left alone to amuse herself, Nelly soon meets a friend, Marion (played by Gabrielle Zanz) who reveals she’s facing surgery in three days. The girls, as well as looking alike (they’re played by sisters) have a mysterious maturity and empathy that effortlessly erases the line between the literal and the realm of imagination. LL
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