Toronto Standouts: 'An Invisible Woman' and the end of slavery

Among the studio blockbusters lined up like rockets for awards season two lush costumers have emerged as audience and critic faves: An Invisible Woman directed by and starring Ralph Fiennes as Charles Dickens; and Belle directed by Amma Asante and showcasing rising young thesp Gugu Mbatha-Raw.

Literary historians have long known that Dickens loved and shared a parallel life with the actress Ellen (Nelly) Ternan, a woman he met at the height of his fame when she was seventeen (the age of one of his ten children).  Drawing on Claire Tomalin’s book about this liaison, Fiennes, in his second stint as director after Coriolanus, mounts a romantic and meticulously observed saga of a love that social conventions of the period forced into the shadows.

Film opens with a striking image of Nelly (Felicity Jones), a tiny figure in black furiously pacing the vast beach at Margate.  It's been some time since Dickens has died, Nelly's now married–in a remote, dutiful way–and teaching drama to children.  She remains haunted, though, by her past with Dickens, which Fiennes recreates in sumptuous flashbacks.  (Filmmakers currently seem enamored of starting a story with its ending, then looping back to the earlier years.) 

As we knew he would, Fiennes makes a magnificent Dickens, capturing the ambition and lusty energy of the man – “I walk at quite a pace,” he warns – and his longing, in the midst of family and a curiously modern celebrity, to forge an intimate connection.  Echoing married men since the days of Charlemagne, he tells Nelly his wife understands nothing about him. In an exquisite courting scene, Dickens and Nelly cement their bond with shared confidences across a table, while Nelly’s mum (Kristin Scott-Thomas) snoozes on a chaise nearby.

Fiennes brings to live the dim, feverishly lit Victorian interiors and a world of fellow writers and thesps, including Wilkie Collins (Tom Hollander) whose open liaison with his mistress almost sends Nelly packing. “So this is how it will be,” Nelly finally tells Dickens in a poignant scene. Equally “invisible,” of course, is Dickens’s cast-off wife (Joanna Scanlan, marvelous) who in a quietly devastating encounter warns Nelly about the writer’s fierce self-absorption.  A gifted director, Fiennes enlivens this exquisite period drama with painterly touches: a day at the races could be early Degas.  He also drops brief stretches of silence into the narrative as a linking device to mark the passage of time. Keeping faith with the Victorian sensibility, Fiennes conveys love through the eyes – “no need to show thrashing limbs,” as he said during a Q & A following the gala screening. 

A hallmark of TIFF 2013 is the way filmmakers have seized on true stories.  Steve McQueen's Twelve Years a Slave is based on the journal of one Simon Northup.  Similarly, Belle by Amma Asante -- in some sense a counterpoise to McQueen’s slave drama – relates the real-life journey of Dido Elizabeth Belle, played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw, a revelation.  An 18th century woman of mixed race, Dido, (as she’s called) is raised in England in opulent style by a high-ranking judge (Tom Wilkinson)and his family, but because of her color is treated like a second class citizen.  Then Dido inherits a fortune from her father, a Captain in the Royal Navy, upping her appeal--though not to most “respectable” suitors.  Meanwhile the judge’s beautiful blonde niece (Sarah Gadon) can’t snag a husband because she lacks a dowry.

While the set-up is very Jane Austen, the film’s larger issue has to do with the push to end slavery, the life blood of the British economy.  Into Dido’s life comes Davinier (Sam Reid, perfectly cast), a hot-headed – and hot-looking -- fledgling lawyer hell bent on mounting a criminal case against a slave-trading ship that drowned its slaves in order to collect insurance money. Essentially, Belle is the coming-of-consciousness story of both Dido as she helps Davinier expose the horrific massacre, and of England, as prominent lawmakers condemn the practice of slavery.  Yes, you can see almost immediately where the film is heading.  Cue the violins as love and enlightenment come together.  I won’t disagree with a fellow critic who termed Belle “rather schmaltzy.”  Yet the actors–particularly Tom Wilkinson as the judge and the elegant Mbatha-Raw–carry it off with style, and the story itself is both exotic and uplifting.     

Toronto docs: Mystery photographer Vivian Maier, irrepressible 'Dog Day' thief

Among the most surprising
discoveries at the 2013 Toronto Film Festival were documentary portraits of two
very different but equally fascinating and complicated individuals: Vivian
Maier and John Wojtowicz. The former has only just recently become known among
devotees of photography; the latter name you may recognize as the inspiration
for the ’70s movie classic Dog Day
Afternoon.

Finding Vivian Maier is the remarkable story of the discovery of the
eponymous Maier, a Chicago nanny who became a celebrated photographer only after the film’s co-director John Maloof purchased her
cache of 150,000 negatives at auction two years before her death in 2009, was astonished by her photos,
and proceeded to post a selection online. Maloof makes it his mission to


learn
just who Maier was, and finds a very private, eccentric, troubled woman who
also happened to be a phenomenal artist. The evidence is there onscreen, in
brilliant, evocative street portraits that bear comparison to greats like
Robert Frank, Helen Levitt and Diane Arbus. But they were never made public
until Maloof’s acquisition.

So what kept Maier from
exhibiting her work? Her reasons remain a mystery, although Maloof discovers
late in the doc that she did intend to market the photos she shot in her
ancestral village in France. Otherwise, Maier was content to live a discreet
life as a nanny, an occupation which allowed her the freedom to take to the
streets with her low-slung Rolleiflex camera (sometimes bringing her young
charges with her to dicey neighborhoods).

Always an odd duck,
Maier became increasingly mentally ill as she got older; her few friends and
her former employers (including talk-show host Phil Donahue!) and their children
recall her obsessive-compulsive disorder, her out-of-control hoarding, and her
transformation from a loving nanny to an abusive one.

Although Maier’s
wonderful photographs have been exhibited in galleries around the world, the
art establishment is still resistant to welcoming her as a major photographer.
Maloof’s revelatory documentary is another step toward helping her claim her
place in 20th-century art history.

Dog Day Afternoon is one of the great “stranger than fiction”
movies of all time, but wait till you hear the full story from the subject of
Sidney Lumet’s film, John Wojtowicz. In August 1972, the New York media (and a
neighborhood in Brooklyn) went crazy once word got out that the reason behind a
bank robbery turned hostage situation was Wojtowicz’s desire to fund his
lover’s sex-reassignment surgery. For the TIFF documentary The Dog, directors
Allison Berg and Frank

Keraudren go behind the headlines and the subsequent
movie, with Wojtowicz’s full cooperation. And what a character he is!

Wojtowicz proudly admits
to being a sex addict, attracted to both men and women. (He has no other vices,
he claims.) A former Goldwater Republican and Vietnam veteran, he was
transformed by the war (where he had his first same-sex affair with “a
hillbilly from Kentucky”) and became active in the New York City gay rights
movement in the years right after the Stonewall riots. (He and his trans lover Ernest
Aron even staged a wedding ceremony in Greenwich Village in 1971.)

Wojtowicz, with his huge
ego and profane outlook, is very entertaining movie company, even if you can’t
always take his self-justifying statements at face value. (The sex-change
motivation for the robbery has been disputed, even by Aron, seen as Liz Eden in a
later TV appearance.) But his narrative of the days leading up to the robbery
(including several other failed tries) supports the movie’s portrait of him and
his partner Sal Naturale as anything but pros. And his unapologetic pansexuality
is weirdly refreshing coming from a man Liz’s good friend Jeremiah Newton calls
a “troll.” As Wojtowicz sees it, “Anybody can be straight. It takes somebody
special to be gay.”

Nearly stealing the film
is John’s lively mother Terry, who disapproves of her son’s same-sex adventures
but dotes on him all the same. And John’s most admirable moments involve his
affectionate devotion to his mentally challenged older brother Tony.

John Wojtowicz died in
2006, and The Dog (his nickname) is an admirable ten-year labor of love for the
filmmakers. For any fan of Dog Day Afternoon, the movie is catnip.

I saw 23 and one-third movies
during my six days in Toronto. (The one-third is Mandela, which was surreally
shut down due to technical problems during a scene when Nelson Mandela and his
fellow activists enter an all-white movie theatre and stop the show.) Other personal high points of this bountiful festival not already covered in previous reports include: Jason Reitman's surprisingly romantic hostage drama Labor Day; Belle, the handsomely produced, involving true story of the daughter of a white British admiral and a black Caribbean slave who is raised as an aristocrat (but not quite a full member of the family) in late 18th-century England; Ralph Fiennes directing himself as Charles Dickens in the plush romance The Invisible Woman; director Denis Villeneuve's double appearance in Toronto with the creepy kidnapping thriller Prisoners and the even creepier doppelganger tale Enemy, both starring Jake Gyllenhaal; Hong Kong director Johnnie To's entertaining mix of comedy and mystery thriller in Blind Detective; French auteur Patrice Leconte's assured English-language debut with A Promise, a tale of love deferred; the tough and compelling British prison drama Starred Up; Kevin Kline impersonating Errol Flynn quite well in The Last of Robin Hood, the story of the actor's scandalous late-life romance with an underage aspiring actress played by Dakota Fanning; Jude Law in Ben Kingsley/Sexy Beast mode as a hotheaded gangster in the crime comedy Dom Hemingway; and Scarlett Johansson as a highly seductive alien visitor in director Jonathan Glazer's abstract and eerie Under the Skin. Now it's back to New York and the real, non-movie world.

Music in Toronto: 'Can a Song Save Your Life?' and a Jimi Hendrix biopic

Twelve years ago today,
like everywhere else in North America, all business stopped at the Toronto Film
Festival as the world watched the terrifying attacks on the World Trade Center.
Here in Toronto this morning, thinking of that day, it seemed appropriate to be
watching a film that’s an unabashed love letter to New York City. Can a Song Save Your Life?, the new
film from John Carney, the Irish director of the sleeper hit Once, is a
fairytale about the music business and as far from somber as a movie can get.
The festival has certainly hosted better films this edition, but Carney's lovely
location shooting all around the city was a sweet antidote to today’s
melancholy.

Keira Knightley plays an
aspiring songwriter and sometime singer who we later learn has broken up with
five-year boyfriend Adam Levine (the Maroon 5 front man and “Voice” coach)
after he’s achieved stardom and cheated on her. Singer pal James Corden
encourages her to perform a song at one of his bar gigs, where she catches the
ear of Mark Ruffalo, playing an alcoholic record company co-founder who’s just quit
over long-simmering “creative differences” and after a dry spell without a
successful new discovery. Ruffalo (platonically) pursues Knightley, who, after
putting up considerable resistance, decides to cast her fate with this wild
card. They hit on the idea of recording a demo album outdoors at various spots
around the city, incorporating the sounds of the neighborhoods.

You can surely predict
where all this is going, but Can a Song Save Your Life? is very genial, the songs are catchy, and screen
beauty Knightley reveals a fine singing voice. The Weinstein Company pounced on
this feel-good musical after its debut screening in Toronto.

Another musical
attraction today was All Is By My Side, which traces the early career of Jimi Hendrix from
his time playing backup with a funk band at New York’s Cheetah Club to his
extended stay in England, up to just before his jaw-dropping breakthrough at
the Monterey Pop Festival. The

biopic marks the second feature directing effort of
writer John Ridley, also represented in Toronto by his gripping screenplay for
the festival smash 12 Years a Slave. Ridley adopts a jagged style both visually and aurally,
evoking the whirlwind life of the groundbreaking, spacy and introspective
guitarist during a time when he was still finding his artistic identity and
sometimes confounding his listeners. It’s Hendrix before he became Hendrix, the
rock ’n’ roll wunderkind who briefly thrilled audiences before his death at 27.

All Is By My Side is still awaiting a
U.S. distribution deal, most likely because it’s an art film about the rock
legend, eschewing narrative drive for a more naturalistic approach to Hendrix’s
relationships and his evolution as an artist. Two women play central roles in
the story: Imogen Poots as Linda Keith, Keith Richards’ girlfriend, who is
presented in the film as the first true believer in Hendrix’s exceptional
talent and an important catalyst in his career; and Hayley Atwell as Kathy
Etchingham, a not-very-bright groupie who is utterly devoted to her man (and
sometimes oversteps her bounds). Hendrix is played by Andre Benjamin of
Outkast, who not only creates a reasonable surface facsimile of the music icon
but burrows into his earnest ’60s flower-child personality (and seems to be
doing the virtuosic guitar work required).

Even though it portrays
the pre-Monterey years, the film could have included Hendrix’s early U.K.-based
hits “Hey Joe” and “Purple Haze.” It doesn’t. But you will hear a pretty wild
version of ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” nervily performed by
Hendrix before an audience including two Beatles. For the rest of the canon,
there’s always the documentary Jimi Plays Monterey.

Powerful '12 Years a Slave,' outrageous 'August: Osage County'

Toronto is such a movie-mad city that an 8:30 a.m. screening can attract a packed house. That was the case this morning at the press and industry screening of Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, but of course much of the intense interest stemmed from its electric pre-Toronto showings in Venice and Telluride. For this writer, it certainly ranks as one of the most powerful movie experiences of the past few years.

12 Years a Slave is based on the amazing true story of Solomon Northup, a well-educated, free black violinist living with his wife and children in Saratoga, New York in the 1840s, who is drugged and

kidnapped by a pair of con men and sold into slavery. (Northup published the memoir of his ordeal in 1853.) What follows is searingly painful to watch, and supports Spike Lee’s argument that the jokey Django Unchained (however much a revenge fantasy) was in questionable taste.

McQueen likes to push boundaries, as he did in the scenes of prison brutality in his IRA drama Hunger and the edgy sex scenes in Shame. Here, the camera doesn't turn away from hangings and whippings, particularly in one extended take involving the brutal lashing of a young slave woman who’s displeased her psychotic master played by McQueen regular Michael Fassbender.

Watching 12 Years a Slave, one realizes that a feature film depicting the bane of slavery from the slaves’ perspective is a rare thing indeed. And thanks to British-Nigerian actor Chiwetel Ejiofor’s charismatic, quietly seething, fully committed performance as Northup, that perspective becomes immediately relatable to any viewer of this film, black or white or of any race. The injustice, the arbitrariness of cruelty, the suffering and the struggle to survive are vividly conveyed by McQueen and screenwriter John Ridley. And when those 12 years come to an end, I dare anyone to hold back the tears. I’m not ashamed to admit I was physically overcome during the film’s concluding scene.

Along with the many harrowing moments, thank goodness McQueen also includes a couple of lovely grace notes, each centered on a tight shot of the highly photogenic Ejiofor: one as he joins in the singing of the spiritual “Roll, Jordan, Roll,” the other a silent close-up as he ponders his future fate. Talk about putting a human face on a shameful American legacy…

After the devastation of 12 Years a Slave, something a bit lighter was needed. I rushed across town to the 11 a.m. Elgin Theatre screening of August: Osage County, director John Wells’ film of the

Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Tracy Letts (who also wrote the screenplay). This is one of the more successful stage-to-screen adaptations of recent years, capturing all the laughs and shocks of the play while opening it up rather deftly from the confines of the original’s multi-level house to the parched vistas of Oklahoma. (The tradeoff is that the claustrophobia of the walls enclosing the story’s bickering family is lost.)

Substituting for the excellent but not widely known Steppenwolf company actors who originated the play in Chicago and New York, some major marquee names have gathered for the film: Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts and Ewan McGregor, with able support from the likes of Chris Cooper, Margo Martindale, Abigail Breslin, Julianne Nicholson, Juliette Lewis, Benedict Cumberbatch and Sam Shepard. Shepard plays the family patriarch, a noted poet, who suddenly disappears after the first scene; Streep is his pill-addicted wife, an uncensored holy terror who’s battling mouth cancer. Roberts, Nicholson and Lewis are her three daughters: Nicholson is the responsible caretaker, Lewis the flighty one, and Roberts the one who fled the coop as soon as she could. When Dad is found dead, the family reassembles for the funeral and a dinner that erupts in cruel taunts and recriminations, many coming from the diseased mouth of Streep’s blunt and drug-addled matriarch.

The protean Streep knocks it out of the park again, nailing every uproarious laugh out of her devilishly mean and manipulative character. And Roberts, in her first pairing with Streep, rises to the occasion of those fierce arguments with the mother from hell. McGregor, in the film’s least rewarding role, makes a wan impression, but Cooper and Martindale make the most of their big moments, and Nicholson breaks your heart as the dutiful daughter with a big secret.

A number of Academy Award nods may materialize here, but one thing seems for certain: Get ready for Meryl Streep’s 18th Oscar nomination.

Jewels and Misfires at Toronto 2013: 'Philomena' and 'Night Moves'

Arrived here fresh from Venice, Philomena directed by Stephen Frears more than fulfills the buzz.  Frears has stumbled with such recent efforts as Cheri but in this searing story of the search for a lost adopted child -- and an indictment of aspects of Catholicism --he's again in top form.  As the "inciting incident" (in moviespeak), Martin (Steve Coogan), a world-weary political journalist, gets bounced from his job, then wooed by an editor interested in "human interest" stories, a genre for which Martin has only contempt.  Enter humble single mother and devout Catholic, Philomena (Judi Dench), who remains haunted by the disappearance of her little boy, literally sold to American buyers by the Sisters in an Irish abbey for wayward -- i.e. pregnant -- girls.  The consuming joint search of Martin and Philomena for a boy swallowed by cruel circumstance becomes the very human interest story Martin has so disdained.

The subject of pregnant Irish girls forced into slave labor in church-run homes is familiar from Peter Mullan's The Magdalene Sisters.   But in Frears's telling, the subject remains fresh due to a brilliant screenplay which explores the dynamic bond of cynical Martin and pious Philomena, surprising at every turn.  While the theme of a mother's disappeared child is in itself heart-breaking, Frears makes the story especially haunting when the child's destiny as a successful lawyer--and beyond--is finally uncovered.  But given Frears's social concerns, this is no mere weeper.  In exposing the machinations and concealments the Irish Sisters use to separate mother and child, he mounts a scathing critique of righteous villainy under the guise of saintliness.  The story's complex resolution, which I will not reveal, is deeply satisfying.

Less successful is Kelly Reichardt's Night Moves. The film is particularly frustrating because so many elements are in place: a splendid cast; the director's trademark feeling for Oregon's beauty, and, best of all, a relatively high-concept plot after such past meanderings short on story as Old Joy.

Aptly titled, Night Moves unfurls mainly in darkness and at night, which makes the daylight scenes on an Oregon farming cooperative all the more striking.  The film centers on a trio of eco idealists whose efforts to halt the industrial despoilment of the planet turn to violent acts.  Jesse Eisenberg is the kingpin of a plot to blow up a dam, assisted by rich girl Dakota Fanning and ex-marine Peter Sarsgaard.  The actors are all superb, the naturalness of their dialogue vintage Reichardt.   Eisenberg is intensely private and a coil of angry energy, though you never forget you're watching this particular actor rather than his character; Fanning a revelation as a confident, impassive cohort who cracks when the scheme goes wrong; and Sarsgaard magnetic and inscrutable portraying the idealist as loose cannon.  As the trio implements their scheme we root for them--as we do for characters undertaking a difficult task.  Reichardt newly reveals her talent for suspense as the trio docks their dynamite-loaded boat at the dam before making their getaway in a canoe.  Then, along with the dam, the film implodes.  A finger-wagging morality lecture is added on about the dangers of idealistic violence.  Are we meant to conclude that extreme protest can bring only mayhem and madness?   Somehow Night Moves has shifted into Kathy Boudin/Weathermen terrain, dissipating  the power of its original vision.   

'Gravity' soars as a modern 3D landmark

The buzz out of Venice was sensational, and I finally caught up with Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity at this afternoon's screening in Toronto (alas, minus the presence of Cuaron or stars Sandra Bullock

and George Clooney, who attended last night). And yes, the advance word is justified—Gravity takes its place with the other great landmarks of modern digital 3D cinema, Avatar, Hugo and Life of Pi.

Cuaron's film recaptures some of the awed excitement '60s and '70s audiences felt on their first viewings of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Star Wars. The entire film takes place in the dazzling and terrifying vastness of outer space, with only two characters (if you don't count one ill-fated fellow far in the background who has perhaps two lines). Cuaron tops the virtuosic single take of an attack on a vehicle and its occupants in his Children of Men with an amazing opening 13-minute sequence which begins at a very far distance and gradually closes in on astronauts Bullock and Clooney at work outside their spacecraft. Then, in the very same take, they're ordered to abort their repair mission and get inside their ship, only to be quickly overtaken by fast-moving, hurtling
debris from a destroyed Russian satellite. Again, within the same shot, the astronauts and their ship are hit and
Bullock becomes untethered from the craft.

Like Robert Redford's upcoming solo seafaring drama All Is Lost, Gravity is a stripped-down tale of survival—stripped-down in the narrative sense, but incredibly visually rich and nail-bitingly suspenseful. Bullock, always one of our most relatable actresses, is the audience surrogate we root for, in arguably her most demanding and emotionally open screen performance ever.  Cuaron and his CGI team have created screen spectacle with a searing human dimension, and bring a true sense of wonder to this groundbreaking movie experience.

Spike Jonze previews tantalizing virtual romance with 'Her'

"Why are you so lazy?" Meek's Cutoff director Kelly Reichardt jokingly asked filmmaker Spike Jonze after a dazzling montage of his music-video and feature-film work opened a Q&A session at the

TIFF Bell Lightbox Sunday afternoon at the Toronto Film Festival. Reichardt, who sheepishly confessed to being capable of doing only one thing at a time, was clearly in awe of Jonze's energetic, inventive approach to his craft, which encompasses landmark videos for the likes of Bjork, Beastie Boys and Weezer and such mind-bending movies as Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Where the Wild Things Are.

The event was designed to pique interest in Jonze's new film, Her, and the sequences presented by the director more than accomplished that goal. Written by Jonze very much in the mode of his former collaborator Charlie Kaufman, Her is a satire of our increasing disconnectivity with real human interaction thanks to all the modern electronic devices that command our attention. Joaquin Phoenix plays Theodore, a "creative writer" at a company that composes poignant audio-letters for those too busy or lacking in confidence to pour out their hearts on their own.


When Theodore brings home a new computer with a virtual personal assistant (think Apple's Siri with unlimited terrabytes of personality), he's amazed by how natural, responsive and utterly disarming she is. Voiced by Scarlett Johansson, she calls herself Samantha (after a microsecond scan of a book of names) and is the perfect companion. Soon, she and Theodore are having an affair...of sorts.

As in Adaptation and Being John Malkovich, Jonze takes an outlandish situation and treats it in a wry, low-key manner that gives the surreal a patina of realism; the believable character interactions and the avoidance of rib-poking make the comic conceits more droll. I can't wait to see the finished film when it debuts as the closing-night attraction at the New York Film Festival.

Jonze and Reichardt, who are clearly good friends and mutual admirers, indulged in some good-natured joshing, especially when Jonze praised the "feminine" qualities of his new (male) cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema and Reichardt grilled him on whether that was a compliment or condescension. When an audience member wondered whether Jonze was seeing signs of his influence among newer filmmakers, Reichardt observed, "I think he just called you old."

In all, Jonze came across as humble and the kind of filmmaker who encourages play on his sets. "I work with people I'm close to," he said, "and I like to try out my ideas on my friends." His method on his Beastie Boys videos, for instance, was simply a matter of "cracking ourselves up" and turning those antics into MTV staples. His friend and fellow music-video pioneer Michel Gondry was a big influence; although Gondry was constantly experimenting with visual effects, his videos always had their own unique personality.

Jonze has been in the editing room for 14 months with Her, and the final version is yet to be locked. The editing process is when he "finds" the movie. For him, the message of Her and what it says about man and machine is still being crystallized. "It's about the way we connect, the way we long to connect." And though it's certainly about "how quickly technology has changed our lives," to his mind "it's always been a relationship movie."

Pre-Toronto, hype builds for 'Gravity' and James Cameron gives his endorsement

For those that have been following the Venice and Telluride film festivals, there's one movie that keeps being talked about: Gravity. Our contributor Tomris Laffly named it in her festival top two. Now, leading up to its next appearance at the Toronto Film Festival, the buzz is approaching an onslaught. Variety just released an article going into deep detail about how writer/director Alfonso
Cuaron conquered the incredible technical challenges of making the film---so much so, the movie took 4 1/2 years to make, in part because of the technology needed to film realistic, weightless scenes in space, and needed to do so using his trademark long takes. I try not to get too excited about films that get this much early hype, but in this case, it's hard not to get worked up for this feature. Nearly everything Variety says sounds like Gravity is chock-full of Oscar nominations.

On Sandra Bullock, who already looks like a Best Actress contender:

"Because it was laborious to get in and out of her rig, Bullock chose to
stay inside the light box alone for nine or 10 hours at a time,
communicating only through a headset. Though she calls those hours
isolating and silent, she adds, 'It also gave me the opportunity to dig
as deeply as I needed to for whatever was required, in privacy. … To me
it felt as though there was nothing but the thoughts in my head to give
me company.'"

On just one of the lighting challenges faced by Cuaron's cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki, a five-time Oscar nominee--I'm pretty sure that alone makes him a shoo-on for the statuette:

"Lubezki suggested folding an LED screen into a box, putting the actor
inside, and using the light from the screen to light the actor. That
way, instead of moving either Bullock or Clooney in the middle of static
lights, the projected image could move while they stayed still and
safe."

And there's the endorsement of the film (and by extension, writer/director Cuaron) by one of the most technically precise filmmakers out there, James Cameron:

“'What is interesting is the human dimension,' Cameron says. 'Alfonso and Sandra working together to create an absolutely seamless portrayal of a woman fighting for her life in zero gravity.'"

For those eager to get past the September slump and catch some Oscar-worthy films, they're in luck: Gravity will be one of the first awards frontrunners to release, coming out on October 4.

Bad string of movies hurts Wall Street ratings of movie theatre chains

March needs a hit. Last year it was The Hunger Games, the year before was Rango, and the year before that was Alice in Wonderland. March hits are kind of like spring weather though--unpredictable. Last year the top three March releases earned $758 million. In 2011, though, the top three only added up to $285 million. 2010 was good year, with the top three totaling $618 million. So March is fickle, but so are Wall Street analysts. Analyst Eric Wold of B. Riley Caris recently downgraded the ratings of Carmike, AMC, and Cinemark from buy to neutral, sending their prices sliding downward.

Caris' main reason for the downgrade was the low opening of Jack the Giant Slayer, which should have been a bright spot in six weeks of disappointing box-office returns. He now predicts there will be a year-over-year decline of 15% in the first quarter, instead of 10%. This Friday's release Oz the Great and Powerful should do better than Jack, but it's unlikely it will approach the huge success of Alice in Wonderland.

The unfortunate thing is that the downgraded ratings have nothing to do with the theatres themselves. As many theatre owners have told me during interviews, it's all about the product. If there are good movies, people come. Theatres can dial up the experience with great service and presentation, but without great movies, people stay home.

Now for the good news. Wall Street analysts only care about the next quarter, not the long-term future of the business. This may be a bad March, but what about the summer and winter ahead? Or the amazing lineup of Oscar nominees a few weekends ago, most of which earned over $100 million at the box office? In the wake of so much change, whether it's day-and-date on-demand releases or digital projection, the exhibition industry has been holding strong, and a few bad movies aren't anything the industry hasn't seen before or won't see again.

MoviePass relaunches its all-you-can-watch movie theatre service

A Netflix for movie theatres, MoviePass promises that for a monthly fee ranging from $29.99-$39.99, a user can watch all the movies they can (though no more than one per day, for those who like to schedule old-school double features on rainy Saturdays). Last year, the service launched without the support of the movie industry and quickly shut down amidst reports that
ticket booth employees were not accepting the printed vouchers. Now, after a successful private beta test, the service is rolling out nationwide. Exhibitors still don't support the service, but MoviePass found a way around that. Using a smartphone app, viewers select the show they want to see while they are within GPS range of the theatre (I suspect the geolocation is to prevent sharing, since few people would be willing to give up their phone just to let a friend score a free movie ticket). Then, a prepaid debit card loads with the correct amount, and people can buy their ticket. Looks simple enough, though I imagine there are still a few kinks to be worked out. For example, when I lived in Ohio, we paid a tax on our movie tickets. Would MoviePass cover that? Or would the customer have to pay the difference?

Details aside, it's interesting that MoviePass is able and willing to move forward with the product without the support of exhibitors. They say that they have had conversations with some chains about the project, and received the support of a few independent theatres--but that hasn't led anywhere. They have also made sure to tout the fact that MoviePass members bought 123% more concessions, a big profit center for movie theatres.

Even without the support of the exhibition industry, the industry may eventually come around. Movie theatre attendance is declining. A service like MoviePass could be a big help in terms of bringing people back into theatres. One potential hurdle to getting exhibitors on board is that a small percentage of moviegoers who attend very frequently account for most of their profit. No one wants to cut into the returns from these viewers. However, with MoviePass, you don't really break even as a customer unless you see a movie every week. I suspect an extremely small percentage of people go to the movies more than once a week, or even every single weekend. Currently, MoviePass pays exhibitors (and by extension, studios) full price for every ticket. It loses money when customers see seven movies in a month. It might make a little profit if someone sees only three. Long-term, though, can MoviePass really sustain its business by only making money off under-users? Won't those people eventually cancel when they realize they're not getting their money's worth? The long game for MoviePass will have to involve negotiating for discounts from studios and exhibitors in order to make the product viable long-term.

Toronto wrap: The rest of the best

It was, in all, an exciting TIFF 2012. As always the near-300 features plus documentaries and press events made it impossible for any single journalist to deliver a definitive evaluation; in effect, every critic attends his/her own TIFF. Congrats to the organizers for keeping all the moving parts of this sprawling sprocket opera in play. One caveat: that overloaded first weekend of buzzy films skedded at the same hour makes the critics gaga; why not spread the must-sees into the week? And this year, especially if you were attending public screenings, the venues seemed especially far-flung, requiring either the stamina of an Iron Man or deep pockets for outrageous cab fares.

 

At edition 2012 the drumbeat surrounding “The Master” all but drowned out the competition. Still, I discovered two superb, if relatively un-buzzed dramas. Also featuring Philip Seymour Hoffman, “A Late Quartet” is a first feature from American-Israeli Yaron Zilberman that explores the upheaval in a world-class string quartet when one of its members falls victim to a degenerative
disease. Though the screenplay initially feels over-determined, the story-power is cumulative in this moving, immersive work about the passion to carry forward a musical heritage. It's rare to see a film about the dedication of artists explored with such insight. And after his lunatic turn in “Seven Psychopaths” by Martin McDonagh, it was fun to see Christopher Walken morphed into a cellist and the moral keystone of the quartet. Mark Ivanovir shines as a high-strung (sorry) first violinist in love with Hoffman's musician daughter (Imogene Poots) -- which undercuts the quartet's survival -- and the cast has been expertly coached in how to make like they're making music.

 

“At Any Price,” toplined by Dennis Quaid and Zac Efron, marks a striking departure for Rahmin Bahrani (“Man Push Cart”). The filmmaker sets his riveting drama of a father and son in the Iowa agri world, where in the interest of profits farmers do un-kosher things to the genetically engineered seeds that are probably already poisoning us all. Quaid is heartbreaking as an earnest seed salesman pushed to dubious choices by the need to expand his business in order to survive; while Efron – credible and charismatic in his new indie roles – unleashes a brooding intensity as
Quaid's hothead son. With its shocking ending – all the more disturbing for being muted -- “Price” belongs to a category of films that uses drama to reference issues in the larger culture.

 

Another film infused with matters of conscience and politics is “The Company You Keep” directed by and starring Robert Redford, Susan Sarandon, and Shia LaBeouf. (And what's with this guy's name? For the record, the correct French spelling is boeuf, and the noun is masculine.) It's worth noting that both “Price” and “Company” are distributed by Sony Pictures Classics, also presenting “No,” a politically-themed film about the Pinochet era; and “The Gatekeepers,” the Israeli docu that unlocks the inner workings of the Shin Bet. I never cease to admire how the guys at SPC adroitly combine the entertainment imperative with films that extend their reach beyond navel-gazing or Kate Middleton going topless on the beach (not that that isn't a prime piece of gossip).

 

In “Company” Redford plays a small town lawyer whose life is up-ended when a long-ago member of the Weather Underground who has lived incognito (Susan Sarandon) is arrested and charged with murder during a long-ago anti-war protest in the 60's. To clear his own name, Redford must hunt down a radical friend from the past (Julie Christie, lookin' good) to confirm publicly that he himself was not involved in the shooting of a guard. The median age of these actors is roughly seventy and it's initially shocking to see how time has worked its dirty tricks on Redford (why do the female actors fare better)? But eclipsing such concerns is Redford's seasoned rendering of a man of conscience who has moved on in his life, while refusing to renounce his anti-war sentiments of the past.

 

Directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel, the quietly lacerating “What Maisie Knew” credibly transplants the novel by Henry James to modern-day New York. It's the story of a six-year-old girl (a remarkable Onata Aprile) whip-sawed between two supremely unfit parents (Julianne Moore
and Steve Coogan) as they play musical chairs with new mates. After Coogan weds the babysittter, Moore marries on the quick an amiable bartender (Alexander Skarsgard) to give the impression of stability and ensure custody. But when it comes to school pick-ups and overnights, the child is shockingly shuttled about in a way that will make any parent cringe. Through it all, Maisie, preternaturally wise, keeps an even keel and gravitates toward what love she finds.

 

Set in 18^th century Denmark, “A Royal Affair” by Nikolaj Arcel recreates the real-life story of a German doctor (Mads Mikkelsen) who cuts a swathe through the Danish court when he becomes the caretaker of mad King Christian (a brilliant Mikel Boe Folsgaard), lover to the queen (Alicia Vikander), and de facto head of state intent on implementing the ideas of the Enlightenment. The film combines epic sweep, history, and fascinating court intrigue – and the revelation of Folsgaard, a rising star to watch.

 

And now for my list of Best, Worst, and Most Notable from TIFF 2012.

 

Best headline of the fest: from critic Alonso Duralde, “'The Master' … Is Just Running on Cruise Control.”

 

Most reprehensible comment of the fest: Nick Cassavetes on Incest: “Who Gives a Damn? Love Who You Want”

 

Most memorable sight on King Street: pregnant woman in a tight sheath looking like a python that had swallowed a warthog

 

Worst moment of the fest: Saturday A.M., a hike from my hotel in torrential downpour, and the six flight escalator at the Scotia Bank theater is broken

 

Most pissed-off moment: getting shut out of Harmony Korine's “Spring Breakers” and told we should have lined up an hour and l/2 before

 

Most outrageous moment: dude loudly talking on his cell during a press and industry screening

 

Oscar-bait turns: Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix in “The Master,” Dennis Quaid in “At Any Price” – though I'd vote for Danish Mikkel Boe Folsgaard in “A Royal Affair.”

 

Most delicious, against-type turn: Nicole Kidman, hilarious as a 70's trash queen in “The Paperboy”

 

Hottest actors: the trifecta of Ryan Gosling, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Mads Mikkelsen

 

Swankiest parties that were deprived of my presence because I wasn't invited: anything at Soho House

 

Priciest cab fare: rush-hour ride to the Hazelton Hotel in Yorkville -- and thank you, kind cabbie, for putting me on to trolleys!

 

Worst tech glitches: the roaming on my Android that didn't work – thanks for the memories, Verizon! The laptop that froze mid-post

 

Biggest regret: all the doggone films I didn't get to see 

Malick and Anderson, masters both

As in last year's Toronto Fest, which showcased the talent of Michael Fassbender, edition 2012 also features standout performances by male actors. Playing a beleaguered Iowan farmer, Dennis Quaid delivers what many are calling the performance of a lifetime in
Rahmin Bahrani's At Any Price.  As Quaid's son, Zac Efron,
distancing himself from his teen idol image, makes his own mark in a meaty indie role. Mads Mikkelsen and his cheekbones lay on the charisma in the Danish A Royal Affair by Nikolaj Arcel. 

Standing in a league all their own, though, at this year's TIFF are Philip Seymour Hoffman
and Joaquin Phoenix in The Master by Paul Thomas Anderson. Many critics at the fest are divided on the merits of this film, inspired by L. Ron Hubbard and the swathe cut through American culture by Scientology. But few would not applaud the barn-burning turns from the two male leads. At moments,  watching these hugely interesting thesps play off each other is pure joy.

The film opens with a blast of jagged dissonance (familiar from the score of Anderson's previous There Will be Blood) composed by musical wizard Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead fame. Meet Freddie Quell (Phoenix), newly liberated from the U.S. Navy post WWII, a mass of dissonance in and of himself, a man with sexual issues, an explosive temper, and a talent for concocting moonshine from paint stripper. This walking time bomb loosed on America is adopted almost as a mascot by Hoffman's character Lancaster Dodd, founder of a movement that uses time-travel hypnosis to enable people to take control of their lives; his system can even, so he claims, cure cancer and bring world peace.

The Master traces the trajectory of the bond between master and acolyte, from analytic sessions that Dodd calls "processing" to Quell's rise as Dodd's right-hand man as his empire expands with the publication of his new opus The Split Saber. Also on hand --and perhaps secretly pulling the strings --is Dodd's wife (Amy Adams, putting new perk in perkiness). Into the dance between the two men, Anderson fluidly weaves the backstory of Quell's thwarted love for a 16-year-old girl from his hometown.

The filmmaking, buttressed by Greenwood's score, is stunning from the start, when seaman Quell makes love on the beach to a lady he's built from sand. As Lancaster, Hoffman rocks the screen with the bravado and self-assurance of a power-mad man who--so his his son claims--is "making it up as he goes along." And Phoenix, his whole body twisted and warped as his mind, is almost painfully mesmerizing.

More problematic is the film itself, which doesn't resolve the story so much as cut it loose at the end. Worse, you get the suspicion midpoint that you're witnessing a lot of sound and fury over, well, very little. There's no there there. No back-vision on the part of Anderson regarding what his story is really about. Some deep intelligence from the filmmaker has gone missing.

Also dividing the critics at this year's festival is Terrence Malick's To the Wonder. While few would
deny its surpassing visual beauty, some are put
off by the film's vaunting religiosity, paucity of story, virtual
absence of dialogue. Over dinner last night, one critic friend called it
"self-parody."

Me, I find Wonder a thing of wonder. The ravishing images
married to a glorious score- think Wagner's Parsifal--keep you in a
suspended swoon. And the film manages the paradoxical feat of naked
intimacy, as if you were lolling about in Malick's pysche, while
revealing scant details about the notoriously private filmmaker.

Such story as there is basically involves a memory/meditation about a
man (Ben Affleck) who falls in love with a Parisian (Olga Kurylenko)
and brings her back to the States to his home somewhere in Malick-land--i.e. windswept plains always viewed at dusk or early dawn, dotted
with sterile suburban houses and peopled with folks wandering about in a
trance. The man reconnects with a childhood friend (gorgeous Rachel
McAdams), his transplanted wife starts an affair, the marriage unravels.
Throughout, a priest (Javier Bardem) who has lost his calling weaves
his own prayerful musings among Kurylenko's voiceovers. The closing
images offer little closure, only fodder for speculation.

The film opens with Kurylenko's murmured French for "I'd never hoped to
love like this again," set against the couple wandering the vast flats
of a literal world wonder, the monastery Mont St. Michel in Brittany.
Shot in midwinter and of course at some mystical violet hour, the place
resembles Malick's depiction of heaven at the end of The Tree of Life.
It's as if this astonishing filmmaker had a direct pipeline to divinity
and feels as comfy in apocalyptic milieu as in someone's living room
(a trait that maddens some viewers). "I want only to go a little of our
way together," Kurylenko says. And, "If you love me, I need nothing
else."

In Wonder, Malick unabashedly sets the limits of time-bound
human love against God's eternal love, a theme underscored by Bardem's
longing to reconnect with his faith. Not unlike Malick, the priest is
also dialoguing with God: "How long will you hide Yourself?"

Granted, maybe Affleck and especially Kurylenko go overboard with the
frolicking and gamboling in Malick's idiosyncratic take on lovers. But
you don't need religion to savor this hymn about profane and sacred love--and about light, maybe the film's central subject. The wind-bending
grasses, a woman's hair, sun through trees, bison--even a humble
insect on a windowpane--are all conveyed by Malick's genius
cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki as spirit made manifest. (Intriguing
factoid: Lubezki is Jewish.) Malick offers a unique way of seeing the
world, a world filtered through the lens of a cinematic visionary.

At the Toronto Fest: 'Seven Psychopaths'...plus one

September 10 was Psychopath Day at the Toronto International Film Festival—or at least that’s the way this fest-goer’s viewing selections coalesced. The day began at 8:30 a.m. with a screening of Paul Thomas Anderson’s eagerly anticipated The Master, in which Joaquin Phoenix’s ex-World War II sailor character has major anger issues, to say the least. Erica Abeel will be writing in more detail about this film which just won the Best Director prize in Venice, but I can safely predict that the volatile Phoenix and especially the masterful Philip Seymour Hoffman as a messianic L. Ron Hubbard type will be strong contenders for end-of-the-year acting prizes. I haven’t fully embraced an Anderson film since Boogie Nights (and found Magnolia especially bloated), but The Master’s portrait of a religious cult with uncanny echoes of Scientology is pretty mesmerizing, despite its many self-indulgent passages.

The undisputed psychopaths appeared in Ariel Vromen’s The Iceman, the true story of a notorious
New Jersey contract killer, and (naturally) Martin McDonagh’s new black comedy, Seven Psychopaths. In the former, Michael Shannon of “Boardwalk Empire” and Take Shelter is dynamic and dangerous as Richard Kuklinski, a Polish hit man for the mob who tallied at least 100 killings during his three-decade crime career. What sets this story apart from similar tales is the cold-blooded assassin’s devotion to his wife (played by Winona Ryder) and two young daughters, who know nothing of his lethal lifestyle. Kuklinski is a terrible, terrible man, yet the audience is compelled to root against his exposure because his family is so innocent and vulnerable. A jarring personal aside: This infamous psycho lived for years in suburban Dumont, New Jersey—the very town where yours truly grew up.

On a perversely lighter note, Seven Psychopaths is an alternately hilarious and horrifying comedy
from the poison pen of Martin McDonagh, his second feature after the irresistible In Bruges. (McDonagh is also the prize-winning author of darkly funny stage hits like The Lieutenant of Inishmore and A Behanding in Spokane.) His new film is set in Los Angeles and centers on a struggling screenwriter named Marty played by Colin Farrell, which gives McDonagh free rein to go all meta and comment on the tropes of violent movies and our expectations about the very movie we’re watching. The graphic content, witty dialogue digressions and playful structure are reminiscent of Quentin Tarantino, with the added bonus that McDonagh is not just movie-literate.

Sam Rockwell and Christopher Walken, who co-starred on Broadway in Behanding in Spokane, have juicy roles here as conspirators in a dognapping scheme: Marty’s impulsive, out-of-control pal Billy and his elderly partner Hans. Big trouble erupts when Billy abducts the beloved Shi Tzu of a ruthless gangster played by Woody Harrelson.

Those unaccustomed to McDonagh’s shock tactics may be deeply offended by the politically incorrect language, the over-the-top violence, and the movie’s treatment of women (which is noted numerous times in debates between pacifist-leaning Farrell and pure-id Billy). But go with the satiric intent, and you’ll be laughing out loud at the movie’s notions of a vengeful Quaker, an interracial couple that gets medieval on serial killers, deconstructions of pop-movie clichés, and a hapless screenwriter who sets out to make a meaningful social statement out of a project titled Seven Psychopaths. This CBS Films release won’t be for everyone, but a certain kind of avid moviegoer will eat it up.

Whedon-mania comes to Toronto

Film Journal's spring interview with Avengers director Joss Whedon discussed his rabid fan base, stemming largely from the cult adoration of his TV series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Angel,” “Firefly” and “Dollhouse.” This writer got to witness Whedon-mania up close at the Toronto International Film
Festival premiere of his low-budget, black-and-white modern updating of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. To say the audience at this screening was predisposed to like the film is a vast understatement.

Shooting in a mere 12 days at his own Santa Monica home (nice house!), Whedon cast primarily actors with whom he had previously worked on his TV series. Of the cast, the only ones familiar to me were Clark Gregg (who had a featured role in The Avengers), Reed Diamond (better known to me from “24”), Nathan Fillion (star of both “Firefly” and the non-Whedon “Castle”) and Fran Kranz from Whedon’s recent horror sendup The Cabin in the Woods. But aficionados in the audience could tell you that Amy Acker and Alexis Denisof, in the lead roles of bickering lovers-to-be Beatrice and Benedick, are veterans of “Angel,” “Dollhouse” and “Buffy.” For them, this Much Ado was like seeing the Whedon stock company do summer theatre.

Though the Shakespearean language and L.A. contemporary milieu of the movie can make an odd mix, the actors are all adept, and Whedon adds plenty of slapstick and small sight gags (not at all inappropriate in a classic farce) to make the medicine go down easy for the uninitiated. And Fillion, one of the most adored of the Whedon players, got explosive laughs as the malaprop-prone cop Dogberry. How well this homemade art-house project will go down with an audience who can’t tell Joss Whedon from J.J. Abrams is another question altogether, but Whedon deserves a few bouquets for taking such a left turn from Blockbuster World and preserving his private Shakespeare party on film.

The entire main cast paraded onto the stage to delirious cheers and applause after the screening, and each got to share one reflection on the making of the movie. (The most terrifying aspect for some was having to nail that Shakespeare dialogue in one or two takes.)

As for the black-and-white, Whedon said he always saw more darkness in the material than Kenneth Branagh did in his early ’90s version; for him, Much Ado is more like “romantic noir.” Budget limitations of costume and production design were also abetted by the lack of color. As Whedon noted, “Everything is elegant in black-and-white.”

'Silver Linings Playbook' and 'Frances Ha' charm in Toronto

Due to a looming Film Journal deadline, this editor’s time at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is limited to three and a half days. Which is especially regrettable, since this year’s lineup of films appears especially strong. By the time I leave Tuesday morning, I’ll have seen 19 selections, but there are at least two or three times that number on the schedule that are oh-so-tantalizing.

Of course, no one can catch all that TIFF has to offer, with its program of 289 features and its status as the launching pad for so many of the fall’s prestigious new movies. Two of my personal highlights so far are highly satisfying new comedies from proven indie auteurs: David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook and Noam Baumbach’s Frances Ha.

Following his Oscar-nominated dramatic success with The Fighter, Silver Linings Playbook finds
Russell returning to the screwball ensemble territory of his early gem Flirting with Disaster. (I’ll refrain from mentioning the one Russell film I actively dislike, I Heart Huckabees.) Bradley Cooper, in surely his best role to date, plays Pat Solatano, a former high-school teacher just released from a psychiatric facility where he was committed after violently beating a colleague he discovered naked in the shower with his wife. Pat is struggling with bipolar disorder—not the usual source of comedy, but there is something undeniably droll about a grown man waking up his parents at four a.m. to vent when he discovers Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms has an unhappy ending. It runs in the family, as they say: Pat’s dad (Robert De Niro gifted with his best part in years) has OCD and a panoply of superstitions tied to his illegal football betting operation.

At a dinner party, Pat meets someone who seems almost equally troubled: Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), an outspoken, mercurial young woman who went into a messy tailspin after the death of her cop husband. The chemistry between Cooper and the comically agile Lawrence is sensational, but their emotional wounds make a very persuasive obstacle to the inevitable, especially in light of Pat’s obsession with winning his wife back despite a restraining order.
The humor here is as quirky as anything in Flirting with Disaster, but the diverse characters (from a well-reviewed novel by Matthew Quick) are never less than engaging, the entire cast is on their game, and the sleek comedic structure (culminating in a dance competition and major football game happening simultaneously) is worthy of Billy Wilder. The unwieldy title may be a marketing challenge, but Silver Linings Playbook is a rare delight.

Also utterly disarming is Frances Ha, co-written by new indie couple Noah Baumbach and his star, Greta Gerwig. Traversing much the same territory as Lena Dunham’s hit HBO series “Girls,” this comedy is nonetheless a winning look at a 27-year-old New York woman whose penchant for faux pas and bad decisions makes her, in her own self-deprecating words, “undatable.” The movie begins with a montage of scenes depicting Frances’ warm relationship with her best friend and roommate Sophie (Mickey Sumner), a bond that is severed when Sophie moves in with her boyfriend. A struggling apprentice in a dance company, Frances can’t get through a dinner party without putting her foot in her mouth and even turns an impulsive weekend in Paris into a mournful occasion. But Gerwig is so adorable, and her observations so on-target and amusing, we root for this neurotic, vulnerable heroine to succeed. Shot in black-and-white and punctuated by music from the French New Wave, Frances Ha is a breakthrough for indie darling Gerwig and Baumbach’s best movie since The Squid and the Whale.

A Hot Moto-Man and A Rebooted Classic at Toronto 2012

In earlier decades the blonde bombshells in movies were women.  In this year's edition of the Toronto Film Festival at least two of the more visible ones are men.   Aaron Taylor-Johnson is a golden-maned blue-eyed vision as Count Vronsky in Joe Wright's adaptation of "Anna Karenina."  While Ryan Gosling's peroxoide job adds allure to his turn as a badboy stunt motorcyclist in Derek Cianfrance's "The Place Beyind the Pines."

Following on the heels of Cianfrance's glowingly received "Blue Valentine" -- also starring Gosling -- "Pines" has been one of the fest's most anticipated titles (and was just picked up by Focus
Features after reported interest from TWC).   Clocking in at well over two hours and pursuing at least three separate plot strands, the film initially struck me as overlong and uncentered.  Could have been that the morning of the screening it was pouring rain and the escalator at the Scotia Bank Theater (rising to daunting heights) was out of order.   On reflection, I've found the film more to my liking.

Gosling reprises his portrayal of a cash-poor, marginalized dude who not only can't find, but wouldn't know how to look for the path up.   In our current under-employed land Cianfrance has hit on a kind of loser/loner emblematic of the times.  And since he's played by ultra-charismatic Gosling we root for him even as he makes disastrous choices.   

The film's riveting first scene ogles Gosling's naked, tattooed midriff -- openly fetishizing the star's famously ripped body -- as he's about to perform a death-defying motorcycle stunt at a fair.   Some past baggage surfaces in the form of Eva Mendes as a girlfriend he more or less abandoned in his wanderings.    "Who's that guy?" he says of the baby in her arms.

Gosling wants back as a father and husband -- even though Mendes has made a home with a different man.   Convinced he can win her over with money, he takes to robbing local upstate banks with an accomplice, using his motorcycle skills to pull off the heists.  Gosling ends up on the wrong end of the gun of a rookie cop (Bradley Cooper) and -- whammo, the story then sprints off on another track to tell the story of the  cop -- who also has a baby son -- and who crusades against the police corruption in his own backyward.  Finally, the story jumps 15 years forward to wrap up the fate of the two now teenage boys.

Cianfrance is juggling many themes here, chief among them retribution for past acts that ripple outward and poison future generations.  There's a sort of mythic feel to how Gosling's son feels impelled to honor his father.    Like few other American filmmakers, Cianfrance conveys empathy for folks on the lower economic rung who are struggling, even if misguidedly, to find their footing.

The beauty of Toronto's sprawling sprocket opera is that you can turn on a dime and find yourself in a totally different universe -- that of "Anna Karenina" and the toniest circles of Imperial Russia in 1874.   Tolstoy's novel famously portrays the epic love story of Anna, an elegant beauty married to a government official, and
dashing cavalry officer Count Vronsky.  It's a work of
penetrating psychological insight with characters so true-feeling you could reach out
and touch them.

Yet Wright has daringly  given Tolstoy's masterpiece of realism a heavily
stylized re-do by camping it in a vast decaying theater. Periodically
the action jumps the artificial theater space to embrace the natural
world beyond.

The film opens with the babble of an orchestra tuning up, as various
players of the story enact
disjointed scenes from their daily routines -- often in balletic fashion -- on a stage fronted by

footlights. The synchronized movements of a herd of government
bureaucrats (the world of Anna's husband Karenin, played by Jude Law)
are as stylized as the performance art of Pina Bausch.

We're given fair warning: this is no conventional costumer/period
piece. You either buy into it right away. Or say, What the... ? Or get
seduced into Wright's daring vision, a bit the way virtuous Anna (Keira
Knightley) gets worn down by Count Vronsky.



True to the novel, the fevered theatricalized world of Anna and Vronsky
is interwoven with the narrative of Kitty and Levin, an idealistic
landowner attached to the soil, whose belief in lifelong marital
commitment acts as a foil to Vronsky and his roistering cavalry officer
comrades; and as a counter-view to the
ill-fated Anna and Vronsky, who are ostracized by a hypocritical
society for flouting the rules.



What overrides the formal challenges Wright throws at the viewer is the visual splendor of the film's many set pieces -- like the
ball where Vronsky (in white) and Anna (in black lace) unite as lovers
in a rapturous waltz that makes entirely explicit the erotic content of
the male/female pas de deux in ballet.  Knightley has said that a later
sex scene shot in closeup was quite literally a choreographed dance, which would be
evident in a wide shot.  With its ravishing visuals, "Anna" is seldom less than enthralling.

Wright, with his background in the visual arts, has clearly looked at a
lot of theater, dance, and art to create this adaptation. Count among
his influences "The Red Shoes," Lars Von Trier, Robert Wilson, Brecht, along with ballet
and avant garde dance.  His stagey take on Tolstoy's epic novel is hardly a gratuitous choice; rather, it brilliantly captures  Russian society of the period, which
sought to imitate and act out French styles.



A couple of cavils concerning casting. Jude Law is pitch-perfect as
poor cuckolded Karenin. In some ways Knightley -- who's become Wright's
muse -- seems born to play Anna. Yet her 21st century girlish slimness
runs counter to the more Rubenesque ideal of feminine beauty in
Tolstoy's day. Domhnall Gleeson's Levin comes off too buffoonish, while
Alicia Vikander's Kitty invites wonder at what he sees in her -- the
pair don't do justice to one of literature's great love affairs.



As Vronsky, Aaron Taylor-Johnson moves with virile assurance; this is a star-making turn. Also, for the gawkers among us,
the actor (22) has added the name Taylor to reflect his union with
director/artist Sam Taylor-Wood (45) with whom he has two daughters.
Now there's a movie in itself.

A Final Potpourri of films from Toronto's 36th

By Sarah Sluis

Film Journal International contributor Erica Abeel reports from the Toronto Film Festival.

Underlining Toronto's role as a launch pad for awards season, this year's fest featured a batch of high-profile films that look on track for the Oscars. Also on tap were plenty of quirkier, less mainstream works unlikely to nab prizes, but most of them richly deserving of attention. Several filmmakers were drawn to characters on the verge - or flat out crazy - who inhabit a world in which fact is braided with imagination and hallucination.

Among this group is Martha Marcy May Marlene by Sean Durkin, a Sundance darling which offers a breakout performance by Elizabeth Olsen as a young woman who flees a faschistic commune in upstate New York, taking refuge in the upscale Connecticut home of her sister and husband (Sarah Paulson and the superb Hugh Dancy). Though she may have escaped the physical place, Martha's sinister experiences there have left her shattered and unable to adjust to "normal" living. More comatose than awake, she walks in on her hosts mid-coitus and generally behaves like a loony, yet can't articulate her awful secrets.

Shifting fluidly from present to past, Durkin skillfully pays out the story behind Martha's traumatized condition. After joining a close-knit, cultish collective on a farm in the Catskills, she was apparently subjected to some sort of drugged sexual initiation by the patriarch, who remained her partner for a time before moving on to the next recruit. There's worse, including a possible murder and implied infanticide. Durkin wittily contrasts the upscale, stressed-out lives of Martha's well-meaning sister and brother-in-law with the cult's hippy-dippy sharing and austere routines, implying that the socially sanctioned go-getter style has drawbacks of its own. Throughout, the director weaves a mood of menace, all the creepier for its vagueness, so that by the alarming final scene the viewer feels as disoriented as Martha. Durkin brilliantly taps into a current sentiment that even the most protected environments remain vulnerable to unknown predators.

On the face of it, The Woman in the 5th has much going for it: director Pawel Pawlikowski (of the sublime My Summer of Love), Kristin Scott-Thomas, Ethan Hawke, Parisian setting. But unlike Martha, which maintains a balance between fact and imagination, Woman seriously misfires by turning so incoherent it mainly inspires a big "Huh?" Hawke plays a writer who travels from the States to Paris to reunite with his daughter by a French wife. But he has apparently committed so heinous an act (never elucidated; we know only that he was "sick"), the wife has a restraining order forbidding him access to the kid. Meanwhile Hawke is seduced by an alluring Hungarian translator (Scott-Thomas), who may or may not be a creature of his imagination. Fatally, the story never comes into focus, sunk by its own obscurity.

In Toronto, scheduling usually presents impossible choices, as time slots for must-see films tend to overlap with equally enticing others. Alexander Sokurov's Faust ran up against Bruce Beresford's Peace, Love, & Misunderstanding, but after Sokurov's big win in Venice, a crowd of journos opted for his 134 minute take on the iconic work. And to judge by all the walk-outs, some made it a quick round trip (a common practice in Toronto that leaves those who remain feeling like jerks). Perhaps it was that early graphic scene of a dissection to locate the seat of the soul that sent journos fleeing - especially those who managed to gobble lunch.

Sokurov's Faust has less to do with Goethe than the filmmaker's own asynchronous version of a story about a restless doctor (Johannes Zeiler) searching for knowledge, love, immortality, you name it. Teasingly leading him on is a sniveling devil figure (Anton Adasinskiy), complete with satyr's tail, who offers him ravishing blonde Margarete (Isolda Dychauk) in exchange for his soul. Mother and Son and Father and Son testified to Sokurov's gift for capturing on screen a strange limbo between dream and reality. Again in Faust, images are fascinatingly skewed and distorted through Sokurov's anamorphic lens, perfectly conveying the doctor's tortured soul. The influence of Flemish and Dutch painting is evident throughout; one light-struck shot of Dychauk comes straight from Vermeer. A shot of her and Faust falling in love - literally falling together into a lake - is to die for. There's even a touch of levity in Hanna Schygulla's cameo as the devil's wife. But generally the narrative remains too opaque for all but intrepid Sokurov fans.

Pivoting from the sublime to the delightfully ridiculous, Whit Stillman's LOL Damsels in Distress also creates a world all its own. In the much-anticipated film - following a long pause after 1998's The Last Days of Disco - a charming Greta Gerwig anchors a nutty parody of college life that could exist only in Stillman-land. Vaguely set in perhaps the 70's - the women's prissy, button-down styles give little clue - Damsel unscrolls in a retro campus universe, where frat house doofuses never learned to distinguish colors in kindergarten and Gerwig and her merry band run a suicide prevention clinic (that prescribes tap dancing and doughnuts as cures), when they're not obsessing about offensive male odors. Plot such as it is kicks off when Gerwig and friends adopt new girl Analeigh Tipton, enlisting her in their efforts to reform the male population of Neanderthals and comfort any co-ed who's been dumped. With her upscale Brit diction, clique member Megalyn Echikunwoke is a hoot in her dimissals of hapless frat boys; equally so Gerwig, her stilted speech spoofing sophomore pretentiousness. "I'd like to thank you for this chastisement," she says, when Tipton calls her arrogant. There's also a hilarious French boyfriend who styles himself a medieval Cathar, insisting on certain sexual practices he claims are prescribed by his religion. A screwball comedy relocated to a parallel reality, Damsels shows that Stillman still has plenty of arrows in his quiver.

To judge by 360 from Fernando Meirelles (City of God), Arthur Schnitzler's play La Ronde continues to inspire spinoffs. In this version, toplined by Jude Law and Rachel Weisz, the lovers are linked not so much by a daisy chain but through a broad webbing of circumstance and locale that eventually circles back to the character in the first story. She's a woman driven by economic need to internet prostitution, and her travails kick start a series of vignettes that largely examine global styles of infidelity, sometimes in humorous fashion. Meirelles applies the same headlong, hand-held manner from City of God to urban malcontents and adulterers, but the stories, some more captivating than others, fail to climax in a unified whole. Also falling short of expectations is Oren Moverman's Rampart, a Woody Harrelson starrer about a corrupt racist cop with no discernible redeeming values. It's a brave portrait of a macho figure who's outlived his time and alienated his daughters, but it's an ugly one. James Ellroy is credited with the story, while Moverman wrote the screenplay, and you sense something got lost in translation.

Far more successful is The Deep Blue Sea, Terence Davies's adaptation of the Terence Ratigan play. Set in post-war London, it's the story of elegant Hester Collyer (a luminous Rachel Weisz), who discards a cossetted, luxurious life with her staid older husband (Simon Russell Beale) for dashing Freddy Nash (Tom Hiddleston) a former RAF pilot and party boy. Freddy's inability - or reluctance - to match the intensity of Hester's love drives her to a suicide attempt in their dreary little bedsit. Toggling between present and past, it's revealed that in fact the pair is radically mismatched; "you know we're lethal to each other," he says. It's also implied that with Freddy Hester has experienced sensual satisfaction for the first time. Weisz's victimized Hester is of course a bit retro and pathetic for today's viewers, but even so the pleasures of Deep are manifold. Relying on a sepia-toned palette that seems the very color of remembrance, Davies recreates the look of post-war London with painterly detail, down to the flowered wallpapers and fringed lamp shades. He includes to rousing effect such period songs as "You Belong to Me" and "Molly Malone," drawing as well on the sonorous melancholy of a Samel Barber cello concerto. In Deep Davies recreates the same mesmerizing fever-dreamscape that he captured in Of Time and the City, his exquisite recreation of his native Liverpool.

Lionsgate sets its sights on Toronto selection 'Friends with Kids'

By Sarah Sluis

After the success of Bridesmaids, it's no surprise that Lionsgate is considering buying Toronto selection Friends with Kids. The parent-centered romantic comedy includes four cast members of Bridesmaids and channels its eye-raising humor. The story centers on two best friends (director/writer Jennifer Westfeldt and Adam Scott) who decide to raise a child with each other while pursuing their own romantic interests. Both Variety and The Hollywood Reporter have come out generally in favor of the film, but their praise is slightly muted--and not always in agreement.

"Although the comic riffs about parenting and alternative families easily rep the pic's sharpest dialogue and strike a chord with more mature audiences, they co-exist uneasily with Westfeldt's inclusion of a more crude brand of humor," Variety reports. In contrast, THR notes that "the film also borrows from the Bridesmaids playbook with its mild smattering of raunch, which won't hurt its commercial chances."

The movie's also drawn numerous comparisons to sitcoms, though no one can agree exactly what kind.

"Unfolding in a glib, familiar sitcom universe" the movie is a combination of "Friends," "Seinfeld" and "Judd Apatow crass patter" according to Variety. After calling the movie a "successful sitcom," IndieWIRE situates the movie among the "progressive families" featured in the sitcoms "Will & Grace" and "Modern Family." Apparently the humor is original enough to elicit more than one comparison.

The criticism that most makes me want to see the movie is THR's mention that Westfeldt finds "fresh insights" about parenthood and "nuanced consideration of the many ways in which having children changes adults' lives, going beyond the standard comedy terrain of sleep deprivation, frazzled nerves and diaper disasters." Variety hints at this as well, mentioning one instance that's "beautifully evocative of what it means to be a parent." I hate seeing comedies that are stuffed full of tired clichs and sterotypes. The funniest things in life are true, so the best comedy in my book draws from everyday life.

In addition to Westfeldt and Scott as the lead characters, Jon Hamm (Westfeldt's longtime romantic partner), Kristen Wiig, Chris Dowd, and Maya Rudolph (all from Bridesmaids), along with Megan Fox and Edward Burns, round out the cast. Because of its rising-star actors and friendly, easy-to-digest plotting, Friends with Kids could be one of the festival's top-dollar acquisitions.

This year's Toronto: Autuers turn mainstream and male actors shine

By Sarah Sluis

Reporting from the Toronto International Film Fetival, Film Journal contributor Erica Abeel weighs in on two of the festival's most highly anticipated films.

To judge by notable films in the early days of this year's edition of the Toronto Film Festival, renegade auteurs such as David Cronenberg (A Dangerous Method) and Alexander Payne (The Descendants), have gone conspicuously more mainstream. Also striking in the 36th edition of the sprawling sprocket opera is the outsize talent displayed by male actors, among them George Clooney (The Descendants), Ryan Gosling (Ides of March), Ben Foster (360), and both Viggo Mortensen and Michael Fassbender in A Dangerous Method.

Dangerous is a compelling, and for Cronenberg, oddly straightforward account of the turbulent triangle formed by fledgling psychiatrist Carl Jung (Fassbender), his mentor Sigmund Freud (Mortensen), and the gifted but troubled patient Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley) who came between them. The film succeeds best at capturing the excitement and daring of the two brilliant doctors as they pioneer the new field of psychoanalysis during a repressive era, and their respectful though competitive relationship. Sabina's affair with the married Jung illumines his allegiance to conventional family and Victorian values, even when it's clear that she's his true intellectual and romantic partner.

Dangerous hits the ground running as Sabina, shrieking like a banshee, is carted off to Jung's elegant Swiss clinic. In a fascinating series of sessions, Jung tries out his new "talking cure," dragging from his patient the revelation that she found childhood beatings by her father unbearably exciting. After Sabina seduces Jung, spankings figure heavily in their erotic repertoire, linking the film to Cronenberg's previous explorations of the marginal and perverse. In her early scenes Keira Knightley makes a convincing patient in the grips of psychosis, and becomes increasingly assured as a woman whose intellect and determination enabled her to escape the reigning patriarchy. In contrast--and perhaps Cronenberg intended an extreme contrast--Jung and Freud are steely, restrained, and impassive.

Fassbender is magnificent as the ambitious scientist torn by passion for his beautiful patient. And as the cigar-smoking Freud, Mortensen (sporting a nose prosthesis?) all but steals the picture with the wicked humor of his wry responses. Shot in locales around Switzerland and Vienna, the film is gorgeous, contrasting the light-filled lake country with Freud's faithfully reproduced Victorian study. Despite the film's talky approach, its intellectual sweep and kinky romance should cross over to general audiences. Cronenberg's mischief is slyly evidenced by his breezy assumption that spanking and other S/M games are an acceptable variation on adult human behavior.

Ides of March - which stars both George Clooney and Ryan Gosling and is directed by Clooney -- bowed for the press at the TIFF Bell Lighbtbox, Toronto's movie complex that anchors the annual fest.
Ironically, despite the state of the art venue, TIFF has become more, not less wearing on journos than past iterations, partly because we're forced to stand far too long in "holding areas" like cattle pens, with no perceptible circulating air.

And despite the overloaded title, Ides is entertaining political drama--two terms which don't usually inhabit the same sentence--with whip-smart dialog and a liberal (both senses) dollop of topicality and gravitas. Focusing on an idealistic young press secretary (Gosling), it follows the backroom machinations and shifts in allegiance during a political campaign to position a Democratic governor resembling Howard Dean (Clooney) as his party's nomination for president.

Essentially, Ides tackles that venerable theme of the corruption of an innocent, posing the question, is it possible to be a principled politician - at least one who gets elected? As a counterpoint to Gosling's idealist, Paul Giamatti and Philip Seyour Hoffman deliver wicked turns as more seasoned and cynical political operatives. In an effort to spice things up, the scripters have thrown in a melodramatic subplot involving a hot young intern (Evan Rachel Wood) who gets involved with the press secretary and whose past indiscretions throw the game. It's cheesy, yet makes for a twisty climax. Strangely, though Ides appears to embrace a liberal agenda, it trashes the Democrats, implying they play as dirty as Republicans. You have to wonder what Clooney, known for espousing progressive causes, hoped to achieve. But one thing is clear: Ides marks the emergence of charismatic Ryan Gosling as a certifiable star.