TIFF ’24: What to See at This Year’s Fest, Sept. 9

By Jim Slotek, Liz Braun, Thom Ernst, Karen Gordon, Kim Hughes, John Kirk, Chris Knight, and Liam Lacey

It’s Monday. But not just any old Monday. For those holding tickets to almost any film playing this year’s Toronto International Film Festival today, it’s a day filled with… pick your descriptor… action, adventure, romance, drama, comedy. The list is long and varied. At Original-Cin, we continue our daily roundup — and frank appraisals — of titles we have screened. We hope these take some of the mystery out of that gigantic cinematic slate. See you again tomorrow.

Sad Jokes

Heretic (Special Presentations)

Mon, Sept.9, 9 pm, Scotiabank Theatre 1.

Hugh Grant plays against type in this smart chamber horror about two young Mormon women (Chloe East and Sophie Thatcher) doing their mission work who happen to knock on the wrong door. The friendly Mr. Reed (Grant) invites them in. He is happy to discuss religion with the women and he’ll even argue points of theology and belief, but — alas — he has ulterior motives. Writers/directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods (writers of A Quiet Place) know how to keep things clever and creepy and this one is a rare find for its ability to surprise you. Bloody unsettling. LB

Kill the Jockey (Centrepiece)

Mon, Sept. 9, 2:15 pm, Scotiabank Theatre 4; Wed, Sept. 11, 9:45 pm, Scotiabank Theatre 14; Sun, Sept. 15, 3:15 pm, TIFF Lightbox 4.

Whatever Luis Ortega’s Kill the Jockey is supposed to be about, it’s highly entertaining filmmaking, blending the sensuality of early Pedro Almodóvar — who produced one of Ortega’s previous films — and the deadpan humour of Aki Kaurismaki, whose cinematographer Timo Salminen is employed here. This Buenos Aires-set camp thriller involves a million-dollar Japanese stallion called Mishima, a mob boss who carries a baby around like a prop, sexy dancing male and female jockeys and a gender-confused amnesiac. Depressed jockey Remo Manfredini (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart) — once a star — is beset by addictions. His pregnant girlfriend and rival jockey no longer loves him. After a serious accident, Remo emerges from a coma, steals a woman’s coat, purse, and makeup, and apparently transforms into a woman named Dolores, while a mobster’s goons try to hunt him down. Whether a dream or parable about second lives, Kill the Jockey is a film that refuses to stop having fun. LL

Riff Raff (Special Presentations)

Mon, Sept. 9, 12:00 pm Visa Screening Room at the Princess of Wales Theatre; Tues, Sept. 10, 12 pm, Scotiabank Theatre 1.

Director Dito Montiel's pitch-black comedy suffers a bit from what feels like mild dissociative identity disorder. Finding a comfortable place to settle in with our expectations is challenging. Riff Raff keeps moving the goal posts between outrageous, satiric, and poignant though this last one is scarce. The film stars Ed Harris as Vince, a reformed criminal in his second marriage to the much younger Sandy (Gabrielle Union) who, with her son DJ (Miles J. Harvey), gave Vince an improved perspective on life. All is good until Vince's estranged son Rocco (Lewis Pullman) shows up unannounced at the door under the auspices of introducing his pregnant girlfriend. But Vince knows Rocco too well; an alternative motive is afoot. Also in the cast is Jennifer Coolidge as Ruth, Vince's acrimonious ex-wife and Rocco's mother. Coolidge is in top form as is Bill Murray in a rare turn as the film's villain. Pete Davidson appears as a hired killer, here showing signs of becoming more comfortable in his new movie star role. TE

Sad Jokes (Discovery)

Mon, Sept. 9, 12:15 pm, Scotiabank Theatre 10; Tues, Sept. 10, 8:10 pm, Scotiabank Theatre 6.

Writer-director-actor Fabian Stumm’s slice of life film is a quiet gem. He stars as Joseph, a Berlin-based director about to launch his new film and pitch the idea for his follow-up. But life, as always, interferes. Joseph is co-parenting his toddler son Pino (Justus Meyer) with Pino’s mother, Joseph’s close friend Sonya (Haley Louise Jones). But she’s struggling, hospitalized with deep depression, meaning that more of his time is built around Pino. Joseph is still getting over a break-up with his boyfriend, but dating beckons, with all the attendant single dad issues. The tone of the film is natural, casual, and often humorous. Life is about juggling things that come at you. These well-drawn characters all really care for each other, and that warmth is what makes this film so winning. KG

The Assessment (Special Presentations)

Mon, Sept. 9, 12:15 pm, Scotiabank Theatre 13; Fri, Sept. 13, 2 pm, Scotiabank Theatre 13; Sat. Sept. 14, 2:45 pm, Scotiabank 3.

Science fiction world building at its finest with Elizabeth Olsen and Himesh Patel as a couple in a future post-environmental-collapse dystopia who agree to a government inspection to see if they’re suitable candidates for the rare gift of parenthood. Alicia Vikander plays the assessor, putting the hapless would-be parents through intense psychological games that border on torture. Is she just doing her job, or does she also get weird kicks from it? French first-time feature director Fleur Fortuné keeps us guessing, then adds an effective coda that answers a few of our questions while never falling off the narrative tightrope she’s constructed. It’ll make you squirm, but you’ll love it. CK

The Room Next Door (Special Presentations)

Mon, Sept. 9, 1 pm, Scotiabank 1.

This weekend, Spanish master Pedro Almodóvar won the Golden Lion, the Venice Film Festival’s top prize, for his English language debut. Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore star as old friends, both writers, who reconnect after many years at a crucial moment in one of their lives. Moore is Ingrid, who has just published a book about fear of death. Swinton is Martha, a former war correspondent who has a serious cancer diagnosis and is contemplating her options. The film bears Almodóvar’s trademarks: beautiful art direction and cinematography, the widespread use of his anchor colour red, elements of melodrama, and an orchestral score. Even the subject matter — how death impacts how one lives — is a regular theme. Typically, there’s a lot of dialogue though without the musicality of Spanish, it feels a bit stilted at times. Almodóvar is an intelligent filmmaker whose movies leave us with more to think about. And he has trusted his words to two wonderfully subtle, deep actors. KG

Triumph (Platform)

Mon, Sept. 9, 11:15 am, Scotiabank Theatre 14.

A weird throwback story of the acclimatization Eastern Bloc countries had to manage after the fall of the Soviet Union. A self-acclaimed psychic manages to convince a high-ranking officer of the Bulgarian military that she is receiving messages from a long-dead alien whose craft lies buried underground. This sparks an expedition to unearth the craft that could mean global triumph for Bulgaria, but runs afoul of the fact that, yeah, this is completely absurd. Featuring Maria Bakalova of Borat fame as the daughter of the ranking science officer. This comedy, while based on an actual historical event, sadly fails to deliver the full range of the absurd story it’s based on. JK

Viktor (Platform)

Mon, Sept. 9, 1 pm, TIFF Lightbox 4; Sat, Sept. 14, 7 pm, TIFF Lightbox 4.

Viktor raises an intriguing question: Just how aesthetically stylized should a war documentary be? In contrast to 2023’s Oscar-winning 20 Days In Mariupol — which compiled news footage to immerse viewers in the chaos of war — Viktor is intimate and queasily dreamlike. Co-produced by Darren Aronofsky, with sound design by the Oscar-winning team behind Sound of Metal, the documentary is shot in luminous black-and-white by the multi-awarded Olivier Sarbil (On The President’s Orders, Mosul, Retrograde). The subject, Viktor Korovsky, is a bearish young man with a thick beard and gravelly voice, caused by his loss of hearing at the five, who lives in a loving relationship with his mother in Kharviv. Inspired by his late father and fascinated with Samurai culture, he wants to defend his country of Ukraine but, because of his deafness, works instead as a war photographer, creating stark, poetic images blended with those of Sarbil’s luminous cinematography. Episodic in nature, the film shuffles from scene to scene of conversation, combat, dinner and shooting practice without an obvious narrative arc but with visceral tension between our consciousness of real danger and the surreality of the imagery. LL

Wrecked a Bunch of Cars, Had a Good Time (Short Cuts 04)

Mon, Sept. 9, 6:45 pm, Scotiabank Theatre 14; Fri, Sept. 13, 9:15 pm, Scotiabank Theatre 13.

A brief but pulse-pounding look into the world of demolition derby drivers, Wrecked a Bunch of Cars, Had a Good Time is a documentary short debuting as part of the reliably excellent Short Cuts Programme. Risking life and injury to put on a good show is pretty much the main ambition for these drivers, who compete for a grand prize of $800 and a trophy. In about 28 minutes, filmmakers James P. Gannon and Matt Ferrin teach us why these drivers compete and how they craft their cars for combat. There are larger-than-life characters and a whole load of twisted metal. It’s not a sport for the faint of heart, but in the end, we meet a community that isn’t quite a community, yet still manages to wreck a bunch of cars and have a good time. JK

Young Werther (Special Presentations)

Mon, Sept. 9, 9 pm. TIFF Lightbox 1; Tues, Sept. 10, 6:15 pm, Scotiabank Theatre 13.

José Avelino Gilles Corbett Lourenço’s feature debut, about an entitled young Toronto narcissist who crushes unstoppably on a girl he just met, feels like a tale out of time. I’m not talking about the 18th century (it’s a modernization of a Goethe novel), but the 1980s. The affable title egotist (Douglas Booth) could be a first cousin of Ferris Bueller, so blithely does he do inappropriate things in his flip, single-minded pursuit of an illusion of love, without regard to consequences. Alison Pill does a terrific job playing an otherwise engaged young woman who is reluctantly swayed by the attention. And her betrothed (Patrick J. Adams) also shines as an on-the-verge-of-wronged fiancé who instinctively likes his rival. Whether you like Werther may come down to whether you’ve since decided that Ferris was a dick. JS