11 Days of Canadian and International Cinema
TIFF 2024 Volume 6
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
PRESENCE
A family who moves into a new suburban house, only to discover that they are not alone. Strange and unexplainable phenomena begin to occur, leading them to believe that their houseguest might be more than human.
I was lucky enough to come into TIFF already having seen PRESENCE, catching its world premiere back in January at Sundance. Reports from that screening had people leaving because it was “too tense” and I can see why. As it did at the starry event in Park City, UT, there was a palpable buzz that preceded director Steven Soderbergh‘s film…and not just because it was being presented on Friday the 13th.
With a bare-bones premise to go off of and a tiny cast list, even though previews and posters have been released at this point, expectations are all over the map from audiences regarding what to expect from the latest collaboration between Soderbergh and KIMI screenwriter David Koepp. After taking in all ninety white knuckle minutes again, there is still a lot to discuss for those that have seen it. Unfourtnately, I can tell you very little.
Spoiling anything about this fantastically spooky tale will do you no favors (and I suspect will get ME haunted by angry PR reps), but I can assure you that you’ll enjoy what two masters have cooked up for you. What I could tell you is that PRESENCE is told entirely from one POV (filmed by Soderbergh himself) in a single location and follows a family (Chris Sullivan, Lucy Liu, Eddy Maday, and Callina Liang) that move into a house…but aren’t entirely alone.
Featuring the kind of spine-curling, toe-tingling shivers that linger like an icy chill, Soderbergh doesn’t forget the human element and has cast accordingly. Sullivan is wonderful as a conflicted patriarch, while Liu gets a particularly devasting bit of terror to deliver exceptionally well. Cast in a bit part, Julia Fox sets the ab-so-lute perfect tone to start the film. Calling this a scare machine would imply some sort of rote workmanlike effort, but when the device is crafted so well to do its task, what else can you say?
ANORA
Anora, a young sex worker from Brooklyn, meets and impulsively marries the son of an oligarch. Once the news reaches Russia, her fairytale is threatened as his parents set out for New York to get the marriage annulled.
Since Sean Baker’s ANORA took home the top prize, the Palme d’Or, at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, eager audiences across the pond have been anxiously awaiting its arrival at local festivals before it opens wide in the fall.
As has been the case in past years, the Cannes winner was added to the TIFF slate, and tickets for the public showings were snapped up, becoming a hot commodity (at one point, I saw them going for CAD 600 on Ticketmaster’s resale site).
I wasn’t going to make an effort, knowing that its release was imminent, but festival FOMO hit me hard, and I managed to find myself with a ticket for the final public screening a day before it became second runner-up for the People’s Choice Award. While I understand the enthusiasm about Baker’s newest project and its star Mikey Madison (who very nearly won Best Actress at Cannes for her bold, assured work), ANORA is often as wild and unfiltered as its titular character.
I could leave or take a good 20 minutes off of the 148-minute film but I love seeing how, with each film, Baker has become a better filmmaker and screenwriter. His eye for visuals is focused and frequently intoxicating, and he possesses a now finely tuned ear for stinging dialogue laced with sharp comedy. I’m not sure this is strong enough to break into the Oscar race. Still, with the Academy membership becoming more diverse and the age gap of members closing, it could be a surprise nominee in several categories.
Here is my full review of ANORA, published post-TIFF for its general release (note how the film sat better with me after I had more time to think about it)
IT DOESN'T GET ANY BETTER THAN THIS
Two horror fans buy a creepy duplex to shoot a film. They find cult members gathering outside in a trance. The friends investigate the phenomenon, their obsession escalating as they pursue real-life horror thrills.
There was a lot of excitement surrounding my final Midnight Madness title of TIFF because we knew in advance that the filmmakers had never planned to release their movie online, preferring that it only be shown in theaters and, even then, on a limited basis. I was running from one film to another, so I arrived just as the filmmaker’s introduction was starting, and it was then that I had an inkling we might be in a bit of danger.
Co-director Nick Toti was onstage leading the sold-out crowd in guided breathing, which, instead of raising the anticipation further for me, only brought down any of the remaining energy I had after six movies that day. It didn’t get any better from there, and it was around the halfway mark of IT DOESN’T GET ANY BETTER THAN THIS that I wondered, ‘But could it?’
Directed by Toti and his wife Rachel Kempf, it’s a found footage horror film created when they bought a dilapidated house to film a haunted house fright flick in. Turns out, the home they bought for a pittance was actually haunted…or was it? While there are some good ideas here and a few bone-shaking scares, the filmmakers are so obnoxious and poor salespeople on their concept that I mainly wanted to know what ghosts would ever want to stick around and bother these knobs. There’s an extended scene of actual vomiting, a sequence so pointlessly grotesque and designed for shock and awe that you can’t even award it points for originality.
The most terrifying thing in the movie is Rachel’s piercing cackle, and, if I’m honest, I was most entertained by the woman in front of me who was so freaked out she kept putting her face into her popcorn bag and screaming. It doesn’t get any better than THAT, folks.
THE SWEDISH TORPEDO
Summer of 1939. The outbreak of war in Europe is drawing ever closer, but Sally Bauer cannot tear herself away from the sea and her longing to cross the English Channel.
A year after NYAD premiered at TIFF, there’s another real-life story about a pioneering female swimmer, albeit one that has taken up less of the spotlight than Diana Nyad.
I have to wonder what the filmmaker of THE SWEDISH TORPEDO, Frida Kempff, has been working on getting this film made for nearly a decade, thought when they saw not only NYAD’s release but the 2024 releases of Young Woman and the Sea and Vindication Swim. Both films follow the first female swimmers from America and England, respectively, to traverse the English Channel.
Though I count Young Woman and the Sea as one of the most electrically charged films of the year, it’s aimed squarely at families and has been stripped of the extremes explored in Kempff’s more land-centered film. Featuring some truly stunning and immersive scenes in the ocean and absolutely gorgeous cinematography on land, audiences looking for another sea-based travelogue on a swimmer’s plight to travel the Channel might be surprised to see how much THE SWEDISH TORPEDO focuses on Sally Bauer’s personal life standing on two feet.
A single mother who struggled to make ends meet while proving to herself, her family, and the world that she could meet her goals, Bauer often had to make sacrifices at the expense of her young son to achieve her dream and make a better life for them both. As Sally, Josefin Neldén isn’t afraid to be unlikable or unkempt, making a rushed and slightly tall-tale-ish ending easier to float by the viewer. Kempff’s film could be shorter overall, making it leaner to glide through the cinematic depths.
SUPERBOYS OF MALEGAON
The journey of an aspiring filmmaker as he bands together his group of friends to make a film for his town, Malegaon.
The 2008 documentary Supermen of Malegaon followed a group of friends in a tiny Indian town with a shared love of film that set out to make a localized version of 1978’s Superman. Through the doc, viewers understood it wasn’t just about admirably passionate DIY filmmaking but about a bind of friendship that helped these men and their community forget their troubles for a brief moment in time.
Now, an adaptation has expanded on this premise for the upcoming SUPERBOYS OF MALEGAON which held its world premiere at TIFF. Director and co-writer Reema Kagti has constructed a skillfully made, if often almost frustratingly workmanlike, tale of five friends with a dream that see ambition pull them apart only to be brought back together for an emotional finale that may not give them the Hollywood ending they want.
The characters can seem less like real people and more like archetype devices to bridge one act to another. However, the film pulses with a life and energy, thanks to Kagti’s terrific visual direction and a hypnotic score. Designed to be an audience pleaser above all else, it hits its target but doesn’t go very deep.
JANE AUSTEN WRECKED MY LIFE
A desperately single bookseller, lost in a fantasy world, finds herself forced to fulfil her dreams of becoming a writer in order to stop messing up her love life.
Movies, especially delicate rom-coms, are often described as ‘sparkling,’ but I find they can barely manage a twinkle.
The TIFF world premiere of JANE AUSTEN WRECKED MY LIFE however, is practically glowing with glitter thanks to writer/director Laura Piani’s gift for creating snappy dialogue with terrific zingers, finding comedic situations that feel both painfully real yet fantastically surreal, and casting an enormously appealing company speaking in both French and English.
Falling in love via Jane Austen has served as the jumping-off point for modern romances before, but Piani’s story of Parisian bookseller and author Agathe (Camille Rutherford), frustrated with writer’s block and being single, is sent by her co-worker (and maybe romantic interest?) to a writers retreat operated by Austen’s descendants. A rocky start with Jane’s great-great-great-great grandson (Charlie Anson) gives off major Darcy vibes. However, this isn’t another experiment in writing parallel with Austen’s works and weaving her stories into a modern narrative.
Piani sends Agathe on her journey, taking unexpected and sweet primrose paths to a sentimental finale that Austen would have swooned over. Rutherford and Anson (looking eerily like Hugh Grant at times) have the connective chemistry of equals, making it a delight to watch them spar and fall for one another.
This is 94 minutes of pure pleasure, impossible to walk away from without a spring in your step.
THE DEB
A high school outcast who teams up with her city-slicker cousin to crash the annual debutante ball in their small Australian town
In the introduction of her world premiere directorial debut, THE DEB, Rebel Wilson told the closing night audience of TIFF that she first thought of getting behind the camera while working on this infamous 2019 musical, CATS.
True or not, it jogged memories (pun intended) of how that film went wrong, making the opening moments of Wilson’s film, an adaptation of a 2022 stage production by Megan Washington & Hannah Reilly that emerged as a commission from a scholarship Wilson began at the Sydney youth theater she grew up in, come as such a relief.
The first song, with a title I can’t post here, sets the tone for the teen coming-of-age story that pokes fun at the mega-woke and maxi-mean. The first hour is the strongest, with leads Natalie Abbott & Charlotte MacInnes showing off tremendous voices. They top line a cast of paint-peeling singers, everyone belting their face off in 17-part harmony while moving to Rob Ashford’s kinetic choreography. Even if it starts to drag and fall into staid machinations in its latter half, feeling like the writers and Wilson got bored with its construction, it came out of the gate with so much force that the energy more than carries it through.
Wilson casts herself in a supporting role that, while allowing her to exercise her trademark irreverent deadpan delivery, occasionally feels like she’s cutting to herself to fix editing problems. Still, she has a good instinct for how to film a buoyant, cheeky, very vulgar musical that, more often than not, hits the bullseye.
A great send-off to a solid TIFF 2024!
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