Last Saturday, the 2008 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival drew to a close with the Cadillac People’s Choice Award screening of Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire. Famous for his cult hits Trainspotting and 28 Days Later, Boyle’s latest is a romance about money, change and society in the slums of Mumbai, India. Its selection as the festival’s most popular film is a welcome surprise. Such popularity for a film with relatively little hype is one of the incredible things about TIFF. Films that range vastly in genre, budget, style and star-power fill the seats with equal importance and equal reception. With more than 300 films screened, you’d still miss out on roughly 85 per cent of the festival even if you were to see a film in every time slot of every day.
Some of the flicks lived up to their hype, some most definitely fell short, while many—such as Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire and Darren Aronofsky’s humble offering The Wrestler—came out of nowhere to achieve myriad accolades. Here’s a recap of those I enjoyed the pleasure—or endured the pain—of seeing.
RockNRolla
Guy Ritchie’s latest bumbling London crime capper sizzled on opening night, restoring the recently plagued director to his status as an engaging entertainer. Gerard Butler seems more than confident in the role of a hard-headed, small-time gangster trying to negotiate a world of manipulative femme-fatales (Thandie Newton), crazy crayfish-feeding mob bosses (Tom Wilkinson) and wild junkie rock stars. After Zach Snyder’s 300 and the Hilary Swank Rom-Com P.S. I Love You, Butler is assuming the mantle of a leading man with a definite swagger. Unfortunately, both Jeremy Piven and Chris “Ludacris” Bridges are woefully underused as nervous music producers trying to keep their heads above water. But, as always in a Ritchie flick, the ensemble cast comes together to create a real sense of fun and excitement that never wanes. Coupled with Ritchie’s frenzied directing style, the film consumes the audience in his all-too-real fantasy land of the London underworld.
Burn After Reading
An A-list cast, including George Clooney, s McDormand, John Malkovich and Brad Pitt excels in the Coen Brothers’ hilariously nihilistic screwball comedy about spies and idiots in America’s capital. The Coen Brothers do an absolute 180 from the ominous weight of No Country for Old Men and return their quirky and absurd comic antics to the screen.
Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist
This picture, depicting a one-night journey of the broken-hearted through the ever-alive streets of Manhattan, turned out to be my personal favourite of the festival. By no means is it a revelation in film-making—it’s neither brilliant nor ground-breaking—but sometimes all a film needs to be is honest.
Centred on two broken-hearted teens thrust together for one night in New York City as they both try to find the elusive indie band “Where’s Fluffy?”, Nick & Norah’s deals with themes of growing up, discovering your own independent identity and giving love that terrifying second chance. Searching for the band’s secret concert leads the pair on the trail of Manhattan graffiti rabbits, drawing the unavoidable allusion to Alice in Wonderland. The incomparable Michael Cera and effective newcomer Kat Denning are the believably earnest duo of lovelorn high-school grads beginning to look at life through the looking glass.
At its core, Nick & Norah’s is a modern bildungsroman, portraying the growth of the male and female protagonists as they find themselves and, inevitably, find each other. Inexplicably, no matter how many times Michael Cera repeats his endearingly awkward George-Michael Bluth shtick, the hilarity of it all is still refreshing. Refreshing may in fact be the best way to describe this film. It’s simple and straightforward, never contrived, always heartfelt and at times, uncomfortably sincere.
Miracle at St. Anna
Spike Lee’s epic about African-American Buffalo Soldiers in the Second World War is overwhelming. A view of the horrors of war and humankind is set in sharp juxtaposition with the hope and belief in universal goodness. After publicly criticizing Clint Eastwood last year for not including African-American characters in Flags of our Fathers, Spike Lee makes racial and personal identity the heart of his picture.
This interesting question of identity, with which the soldiers constantly struggle, asks why they should fight for a country that crushes their spirit and spits on them day after day. As the soldiers get caught behind enemy lines in Italy, they find comion and acceptance in a small village. They feel equal and, indeed, human for the first time in their lives. There are good American soldiers and abhorrent ones; there are brave Italian resistance fighters and reprehensible ones; there are mercilessly evil Nazis and comionate ones. A poignant story of personal salvation and self-determined identity—though executed, for the most part, with great sensibility—the film suffers from a lacklustre second act that drags any momentum it may have had into the muddy Italian front.
By the time the nearly three-hour film reaches its conclusion, the audience is so drained by all the visceral brutalities and the inconsequential subplots that they don’t know what to make of it as a whole. Miracle at St. Anna is harrowing in every sense of the word—exhausting you emotionally, intellectually and spiritually.
Che (Parts I & II)
Director Steven Soderbergh seems to revel in a challenge, and what greater challenge than to attempt to document in intricate specifics the life of revolutionary legend Che Guevara. While it helps to have the undeniable talent of Benicio Del Toro losing himself in the role of the infamous Argentinean, such an undertaking is sometimes just too great a task.
The division of the four-hour subtitled colossus into two feature length halves, sees the first part deal with Che and the Castro brothers’ successful guerrilla campaign to overthrow the Cuban dictatorship in the early ’60s. Spliced with retro-stylized black and white excerpts from Guevara’s post-revolution visit to the United Nations, Soderbergh’s first part simply succeeds. It maintains cohesion and, though intensely detailed, carries momentum towards a poignant anticlimax on the road to Havana. Del Toro is, of course, terrific, and manages to lend a broken humanity to a visage which, for some, represents selflessness and freedom and for others, cruel violence and murder. He plays Che with a quiet power and a subtle strength that draws the audience into his every word.
Part Two is another matter. Focusing on Guevara’s campaign to export the revolution to the jungles of Bolivia, along with his eventual capture and execution, this second half seems largely an afterthought to what could be a great stand-alone movie in Part One. As a whole, it lags. Soderbergh goes a bridge too far and ends up wasting the audience’s appreciation of the opening act leaving it with a bitter, discontented taste in its mouths.
For coverage of the RockNRolla premiere and an in-depth review of Burn After Reading visit queensjournal.ca or see the Sept. 9 and Sept. 12 issues of the Journal.
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s) in Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be ed, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to [email protected].