11 Days of Canadian and International Cinema
TIFF 2024 Volume 5
The 2024 Toronto International Film Festival delivered another unforgettable celebration of cinema, and I was thrilled to be a part of it for my second consecutive year. Over the course of the festival, I immersed myself in 61 films spanning genres, countries, and styles, each adding a unique thread to TIFF’s rich tapestry. Across six volumes, I’m excited to share my reviews, offering snapshots of these cinematic experiences with links to full analyses as they’re published.
As always, TIFF reminded me why I love movies—their power to transport, challenge, and connect us. From hidden gems to high-profile premieres, this year’s lineup didn’t disappoint. I’m grateful for the opportunity to take it all in, for the city of Toronto’s warmth and energy, and for the anticipation of returning in 2025 for TIFF’s 50th Anniversary. Until then, here’s a look at the films that made TIFF 2024 such a memorable journey
BABYGIRL
A high-powered CEO puts her career and family on the line when she begins a torrid affair with her much-younger intern.
During the early days of TIFF, we found Nicole Kidman had won Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival for her work in Halina Reijn’s newest film, BABYGIRL. It made the possibility of seeing this film a week later all the more exciting, even if Kidman couldn’t introduce it due to her mother’s sad passing. I’m hoping the positive energy the premiere crowd was giving to the screen throughout the evening was felt by Kidman back home, too.
For an actress who has dedicated the second act of her career to taking on challenging roles with fresh filmmakers, Kidman has snagged another jewel of a performance for her glittering crown. Playing a high-powered tech exec and married mother of two who enters into a complex physical/emotional relationship with an intern (Harris Dickinson), Kidman is working with material that asks her to go to almost torturously demanding areas of her psyche and for audiences to put away their pre-programmed judgment of sex and sexuality for two hours while watching her do it. It’s raw and shatteringly vulnerable. It’s erotic and explicit. It’s maddening. It’s going to rub a lot of people the wrong way almost as much as it will touch people right in their sweet spot.
Reijn’s curiosity with kinky emotional attachment leads to an unpredictable film involving consent, complicity, and control. The influences and vague benchmarks of ’90s sex-thrillers are all there (Disclosure often came to mind), but BABYGIRL isn’t asking questions only to provide a standard response. Instead, it wants to engage and enrage, using your discomfort as a mirror to turn back on you and ask yourself, are there any heroes and villains if we’re all searching for joy?
MILLERS IN MARRIAGE
The complicated relationships of a group of siblings and their partners.
Since breaking big in 1995 at Sundance with The Brothers McMullen, writer/director/actor Edward Burns has released a series of talky relationship dramas with crisscrossing ensemble storylines. Not all of them have been winners, but Burns consistently attracts exceptional talent who often allow audiences to overlook weaknesses in the narrative design.
The good news for TIFF audiences sitting down for the world premiere of MILLERS IN MARRIAGE, Burns’s latest, is that not only is this one of the most impressive casts from top to bottom, but I found Millers one of the strongest offerings from the filmmaker in years. Centered on the romantic and platonic pairings of three siblings in NYC, it’s familiar in structure but comes with an almost serene maturity. Acutely observed, rich in the awkward stinging truths everyone can understand but only those in long-term relationships could truly explain, it has darkly funny moments but has a cruel bite when it wants to hurt.
This cast is SO appealing: red-hot stars of the ‘90s that still carry major heat as they near their 60s. Always underrated, Gretchen Mol gets the spotlight role she deserves while Campbell Scott, Minnie Driver (also stealing scenes in TIFF’s THE ASSESSMENT), Julianna Margulies, Patrick Wilson, Benjamin Bratt, Morena Baccarin, and Burns himself contribute memorable moments. Classy ensemble dramas like this aren’t always congruous, but as he has done for nearly three decades, Burns shows us he has a master’s touch.
SATURDAY NIGHT
At 11:30pm on October 11th, 1975, a ferocious troupe of young comedians and writers changed television forever. Find out what happened behind the scenes in the 90 minutes leading up to the first broadcast of Saturday Night Live (1975).
With its 50th season set to begin in just a few weeks, Saturday Night Live has survived management shifts, cast changes, bad press, and even worse sketches but remains a late-night stalwart.
Currently featuring a sprawling cast of 17, it can be hard to fathom that it began with just seven, and on October 11 1975 (the same day in 2024 this opens in theaters), the show very nearly didn’t go on at all. The SNL origin story has been retold in print and podcast ad nauseum but writer/director Jason Reitman (who wrote for the show for one week in 2008) has brought that eventful night to the big screen, filming the 90 minutes leading up to airtime in all its manic glory for SATURDAY NIGHT.
It’s a huge undertaking, and Reitman, along with co-writer Gil Kenan, has assembled an impressive cast of both young talent and veterans to take on the names we know (Cory Michael Smith is a standout as Chevy Chase) as well as those audiences might not be as familiar with (Rachel Sennott as Rosie Shuster, the wife of producer/creator Lorne Michaels who also wrote for the show). I enjoyed Matt Wood’s strong John Belushi, all pent-up energy with nowhere to go. At the same time, Gabriel LaBelle resisted the urge to mimic Michaels, giving his performance extra validity when it turns heartfelt near the end.
What I didn’t respond to was the score from Jon Batiste. Composed daily while watching rough cuts of the scenes shot, the music is often so loud that the dialogue is drowned out. I doubt it’s the fault of the theater screening it, so it must be the filmmaker’s choice, and I think it’s the wrong one. If we can’t understand why things are going wrong, how can we appreciate the triumph the show has become?
THE FRIEND
A writer adopts a Great Dane left to her by her deceased best friend and mentor.
Winner of the National Book Award, Sigrid Nunez’s 2018 novel THE FRIEND is more than your typical “dog enters non-dog person’s life and wonderful things happen” narrative. Loosely autobiographical, Nunez (whose work is also represented at TIFF in Pedro Almodóvar‘s THE ROOM NEXT DOOR) explores themes of suicide and depression and how, through the bond of a pet, one can learn more about activating one’s life and coping with death. Writer/directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel have adapted the novel for the big screen with profound, insightful sensitivity and filled the cast with character actors and actresses who fit right in with the NYC world Nunez imagined.
More importantly, they’ve cast their two leads perfectly. We can all agree that Oscar nominee Naomi Watts has been underserved in Hollywood for some time now. Starting her career in a series of attention-grabbing roles, she’s struggled in recent years with quality material that she can dissolve into. In one of her best performances in ages, Watts takes viewers through grief, doubt, anger, and humility as she realizes that emotional support can (and should) go both ways.
Then there’s Bing. Can a dog be nominated for an Oscar? The majestic Great Dane doesn’t just steal the movie away from the likes of Watts, Bill Murray, Carla Gugino, and Noma Dumezweni; he snatches it up and runs around the block with it. The movie isn’t trying to simply tug at your heartstrings or squeeze your tear ducts; it wants viewers to see the importance of connection in every/any form and why that needs to be protected. Now, if that involves writing and performances compassionate enough to move you to cry, bring a hankie (I went in with none…a mistake). And I’ll just say “No” to the question on your mind and leave it at that.
THE END
A post-apocalyptic Golden Age musical about a rich family living in a salt mine converted into a luxurious home. The earth around them has apparently been destroyed, but their son has never seen the outside world. As a young girl appears at the entrance of the bunker, the balance of the family is threatened.
I’d always heard that you can’t say you’ve had the TIFF experience until you’ve seen the premiere of a strange musical, so when I saw Joshua Oppenheimer’s THE END pop up on the schedule and read that it wove in elements from the Golden Age of musicals, I was hooked. Tilda Swinton starring in it was a delightful bonus. Of course, this being the first narrative feature film from the Oscar-nominated documentarian, interest was high to see what Oppenheimer could deliver, and the buzz from Venice was that it was AOK but YMMV.
Having seen the 158-minute film now, I’d say that this story of a chosen family living out their lives in an underground salt mine/bunker decades after a devastating world event wiped out all humanity and frequently singing about it isn’t the great challenge for viewers that was suggested but rather an often stunning, always beautiful, gracefully risk-taking reward for those open to the experience. Oppenheimer wrote the lyrics, and Josh Schmidt composed the delicately moving music sung (mostly well) by Swinton and co-stars George MacKay, Moses Ingram, Michael Shannon, Bronagh Gallagher, Tim McInnerny, and Lennie James.
It’s a flawless cast, with Gallagher and McInnerny being afforded golden nuggets of asides that will break your heart. Mikhail Krichman’s cinematography creates several images that are forever seared into my mind, and the overall production design is a thing of true wonder. Most studios don’t take opportunities on big swings like this; it’s nice to see Elevation Pics (in Canada) and NEON (in the US) getting behind this type of work.
SKETCH
Still reeling from the unexpected loss of his wife, a single dad navigates uncharted territory when his daughter's comically dark, scribbled drawings begin to come to life and wreak havoc on their small town.
When it comes to creature features, I generally like ‘em gooey and scary but will take wildly comic as long as their imagination is untethered by norms and expectations. Coming into TIFF, I wouldn’t have pegged Seth Worley’s SKETCH as a candidate for one of the most creative and good-hearted experiences I’d have, but the writer/director provides the kind of slam-dunk monster comedy that appears once in a full moon.
A young girl’s sketchpad accidentally dropped into a pond catalyzes the freaky fun in Worley’s riff on ‘80s/90s classics like The Gate and Jumanji. The pond can repair what’s broken as well as bring the inanimate to life (the rules of the pond, like the title, are sketch), so when young Amber’s book filled with her monstrous creations gets soaked and comes out with the creepies having vanished from the pages, it’s only a matter of time before she and brother Jack are fighting off her nightmarish creations along with their widowed father, aunt, and school bully turned comrade in cartoonish battle. Worley hits all the right notes necessary for the genre and even throws in a believable dose of sentimentality as the children and father continue to come to terms with the loss of their mother/wife.
The acting is solid (especially the kids), the visuals are extremely effective, colorful, and kitschy fun with how big and bold the designers went with their ideas, and Madison Braun’s production design gives the Tennessee-shot film a nice ‘Anytown’ look, maintaining nostalgia for a simpler time not so dependent on technology that would age the film prematurely.
NIGHTBITCH
A woman pauses her career to be a stay-at-home mom, but soon her domesticity takes a surreal turn.
I had to work my way up even to write out the full title of Rachel Yoder’s 2021 novel NIGHTBITCH, which comes to the screen in an adaptation by director Marielle Heller. Yes, you’ll hear all about this #TIFF24 film starring Oscar-nominee Amy Adams as a suburban mom of a two-year-old who gradually realizes she may be turning into a dog because of its strange premise. However, the canine curveball is just that, a twist to a story that’s bigger than a metaphor anthropomorphized into reality, a curious oddity that serves as Heller’s rocky path to an attic window she wants viewers to crawl into and observe how familial roles have changed over time and how much they’ve stayed the same.
Adams is the mom to a two-year-old (played by adorably scene-stealing twins) who benignly demands all her attention as any toddler would be expected to. Far from being in the Terrible Two’s, her son needs her constantly, leaving her no time whatsoever for herself, and with her husband gone most weeks for work, she’s essentially a single mother with no outside help, family, or friends who can bail her out. When she notices sharper teeth, heightened senses, and other bodily changes I won’t go into here, she concludes that she’s literally going to the dogs.
How that changes her approach to her marriage and parenting is what Heller is most interested in exploring, and yes, that does allow Adams to unleash a highly physical, feral side to her acting, pushing her to explore new corners of her craft. It’s an outstanding performance in a film that otherwise isn’t breaking any significant ground in outlining the imbalance that still exists in the expectations of mothers and fathers.
HOLD YOUR BREATH
In 1930s Oklahoma amid the region's horrific dust storms, a woman is convinced that a sinister presence is threatening her family.
As the saying goes: wherever Sarah Paulson doth go, I thee follow. So it’s just my continued luck the extraordinary actress has a fondness for genre films/TV series. Four years ago, Paulson scored with the Hulu release of Run in which she played a mother willing to go to extreme measures to keep her disabled daughter close.
Now, in HOLD YOUR BREATH, she’s a mother living in the Oklahoma panhandle in 1933, contending with dust storms, paranoia, sleepless nights, hunger, and maybe an evil entity out to snatch her daughters. The debut feature from Karrie Crouse and Will Joines had its world premiere at TIFF before debuting on Hulu in October.
While Crouse’s script takes a while to warm up, Paulson is full-bore from the start. Tightly wound and formal, the severity of their solitude becomes too much for her, and she snaps. Amiah Miller is also fairly excellent, playing the eldest daughter tasked with keeping watch over her deaf younger sibling and protecting them against a mother slowly losing her grip on reality. Zoë White’s cinematography is on a grand scale, indeed the reason the Searchlight Pictures film caught the eye of the TIFF programmers.
Several frankly stupid events happen throughout the film that lessen its grip on the viewer, which is a shame because the performances are so committed you wish the script rose to meet them at their level instead of good actors like Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Annaleigh Ashford bending over backward to accommodate what might be missing.
Edited to create jump scares instead of making them (though one involving a sewing needle was a stroke of genius), the directing duo was lucky to snag Paulson after Claire Foy dropped out. It’s cautiously recommended, but you have to really love Paulson to explain away some of its flaws.
SHELL
Down on her luck actress Samantha Lake is invited into the ultra-glamorous world of Zoe Shannon, CEO of wellness company SHELL. When SHELL patients begin to go missing, Samantha realizes Zoe may be protecting a monstrous secret.
Before the world premiere screening of SHELL at TIFF, director Max Minghella told the late-night audience that his new horror film was meant to be scary and fun, with references to mid-90s mid-budget thrillers and irreverent/camp comedies like Soapdish. I think Minghella was selling SHELL significantly short because while it tips its wide-brimmed hat to previous body horror cautionary features, it’s an almost ludicrously enjoyable B-movie boasting a cast that devours the catty material as well as the sets, the props, and one another.
Elisabeth Moss plays an L.A. actress who once had a hit show but is now plagued with over-the-hill self-doubt and itchy psoriasis. On the advice of her agents, she seeks out Shell’s service, a wellness company with a treatment that can keep you looking younger and longer through a revolutionary (secret) process pioneered by Kate Hudson’s high-powered HBIC character. Of course, nothing last forever and the process has some grotesque side effects.
Sure, there’s no big mystery to solve regarding where things are headed because time has told us where Jack Stanley’s script will most likely travel. It’s Minghella’s journey, not his destination, on which you should focus. Moss and Hudson are a dream team, and Hudson (decked out in an endless supply of Verhoeven killer blonde outfits) appears to be enjoying every moment she’s onscreen. The film is most alive and attractive when the two share scenes.
Elizabeth Berkley, Kaia Gerber, Arian Moayed, and Este Haim round out the bold and beautiful screen stars. This was one of my most unexpected favorites: the sleek, slick, sexy, and seductive Shell.
THE WILD ROBOT
After a shipwreck, an intelligent robot called Roz is stranded on an uninhabited island. To survive the harsh environment, Roz bonds with the island's animals and cares for an orphaned baby goose.
So much skill and thought now go into films like THE WILD ROBOT, the margin between what makes a quality animated film compared to live action is getting even thinner. Watching THE WILD ROBOT the newest property from Dreamworks, which held its world premiere at TIFF, is a perfect illustration (har har) of how this formula is adding up to big wins.
Based on the series author Peter Brown created in 2016, former Disney screenwriter turned Dreamworks director Chris Sanders has brought Brown’s tale to the screen with a wondrous view on personal responsibility, family ties, and individualism that will speak to children and their parents alike. Lupita Nyong’o is a ROZZUM unit robot that has crash-landed in a world where there are no humans, only animals who prefer to keep their distance from anyone higher up on the food chain. ROZZUM (“Roz” as she likes to be called) is programmed to find a task and see it through to completion; that’s how she winds up the mother to a baby goose who took a shine to her, imprinting post-egg-crack.
Helped out by Pedro Pascal’s crafty fox, Roz takes her task seriously and begins working on the hatchling Brightbill to prepare him for his winter migration. While not the earth-shattering emotional journey I thought it would be (in my defense, it was an early showing), Sanders has filled the cast with actors gifted in drama and comedy, allowing them to navigate between two modalities easily.