Oh Fall! Here’s to the Queen’s season synonymous with front porch chill seshes, ing how to navigate Mac-Corry and repeated and less-than-musical renditions of the Oil Thigh on loop well into the night. Back in the Big Smoke the autumnal air signals the beginning of one of Toronto’s most anticipated and high-brow fiestas: yes folks, the Toronto International Film Festival is upon us! Reels of flicks, boatloads of celebs, and—naturally—babbles of scandals are scheduled to hit the downtown core this September in what has traditionally been one of the most exciting times of the year to be in the T-dot. And if the rest of the fest is anything like these films, this year is going to be no exception to the rule. Here’s a smattering of what’s on tap:
Agora
Dir. Alejandro Amenábar
Three stars
Oh, the injustice of society! Think you got it bad? You should talk to Hypatia (Rachel Weisz), a monumental pagan philosopher-woman who kicked around circa 400 A.D. Not only was her beloved library of Alexandria pummeled by the rabble-rousing Christians, but the society in which she was once free to study and teach as she chose rapidly turned on her as the Christians gained power and proclaimed her a witch fit to be stoned to death.
The flick Agora details just that, with a few more romantic embellishments and spurting wounds along the way. The heart-wrenching tale is also pretty applicable today when you think about the plight of women in religiously and ideologically radicalized societies. The character development could use some work, but at the end of the day the message blares loud and clear; losing the freedom that so many womenfolk enjoy in the West is such a terrifying thought that it is indeed enough to give you Agoraphobia.
Harry Brown
Dir. Daniel Barber
Four and a half stars
Michael Caine is the ultimate gunslinging geezer in this awesome thriller in which, apparently, the kids are not alright.
What’s a retired British marine to do when he has no family and his only friend is murdered by a bunch of ne’er-do-well youth who pump their shared lower class hood with violence, drugs, and booze? He must take matters into his own hands, of course. Happiness for Brown is a warm gun, and his welfare estate quickly becomes the subject of much police interest after reports come in of an elderly vigilante dealing out tough blows for moral infractions.
Caine shines, the cinematography—choppy, frantic, and frenetic—is stellar and the sound editing gave me a new appreciation for sound editing (the most underrated of Academy Awards).
La Donation (The Legacy)
Dir. Bernard Émond
Two stars
What do you get when you cross House, Grey’s Anatomy, and northern Quebec? One hell of a mediocre movie.
Dr. Jeanne Dion (Elise Guilbault), an emergency doctor in Montreal, has sojourned up to Normetal, Quebec to try the elderly Dr. Rainville’s (Jacques Godin) very personal practice on for size. She quickly realizes how difficult the trials and tribulations of a small-town doctor really are. What could indeed be a very engaging flick fails to hook viewers into the hyper-character-driven plot that is ostensibly its core focus. Guilbault wears the same dead-pan expression throughout while there are so many deaths in the 90 minutes that—if my math is correct—there’s almost nobody left in Normetal when the credits begin to role. Big ups for Canada and Quebec, but unless you’ve got a fetish for the landscape of our home and native land, sit this one out.
Youth in Revolt
Dir. Miguel Arteta
Three stars
The lengths some will go to for love? Bounded by the limits of mere mortals. The lengths a teenage boy will go to get it on for the first time? It is the stuff of god-making space or it turns them into individuals with multiple personality disorder.
Nicholas Twisp (Michael Cera) suffers from a chronic case of teenage virginity of which he’s all too aware. Precociously cultivated, literarily-minded and possessed of impeccable grammar, Twisp naturally doesn’t stand a chance of getting laid because, as we all know, the pricks usually get the girls.
After a series of unfortunate events involving the navy and a banana, Twisp, his mom, and her boy-toy must skip town to a trailer park. There Twisp meets the beautiful Francophile Sheeni Saunders (Portia Doubleday) and his life changes forever. Before long, and by a virtue of a series of convoluted events, Twisp invents a French doppelgänger who helps him to commit a series of heroic and or idiotic feats of derring-do in order to win Sheeni’s love in the hopes that she will ditch her all-too-perfect boyfriend Trent—who is fluent in French, windsurfs, and writes percussive futurist poetry, among other things. While this caper is certainly endearing, the story is a tad contrived. The script is clever and there are certainly some moments where guffaws are appropriate, but Youth in Revolt isn’t earth-shattering by any means.
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].