Toronto Film: Best of fest
TORONTO — The press pass has been put away and the house lights are up, which means another Toronto International Film Festival is in the can.
The event, held since 1976, was filled with A-list talent and projects, stars new and old, and a variety of genres — plus, we’re starting to see who might be a contender come Jan. 14, when Oscar nominations are announced.
There were a bunch of movies seen and, naturally, there are opinions to be had. So here are the five best things we saw in Toronto this year:
I Saw the Light (in theaters Nov. 27)
… and it was good. While he makes for an iconic comic-book trickster god, too, Tom Hiddleston turns in a career-best performance as Hank Williams, a talented country crooner with heaps of talent and vices — and wives — who died too young at age 29. It’s got a great soundtrack of old Hank tunes, all sung with twangy gusto by Hiddleston, and the actor and Elizabeth Olsen (as first wife Audrey Williams) make a tremendous and fiery duo. Get out the tissues, too: One of the more memorable scenes involves Hank and Audrey quietly singing a duet of I Saw the Light to baby Bocephus (aka Hank Jr.)
The Martian (Oct. 2)
“I’m going to science the (stuffing) out of this.” And so Matt Damon does in director Ridley Scott’s sci-fi flick, maybe the most mainstream of all the movies that played in Toronto. Damon brings a lot of humor to the role of astronaut/super-botanist Mark Watney, who spends nearly two years stranded on Mars thanks to a nasty planetary storm that separates him from his crew. The Mars stuff is fantastic, there’s drama on the homefront and if Tom Hanks can get an Oscar nomination for talking to a volleyball, Damon should get one for conversing with potatoes.
Room (Oct. 16)
It’s a Sophie’s choice of child-centric dramatic gut punches between this and the Idris Elba war-torn film Beasts of No Nation out the same weekend, but Room gets the pick for one reason: Brie Larson. One of the few seeming locks going into award season, the young actress gives a knockout performance as a mother forced to live with her 5-year-old son (Jacob Tremblay) in a shed. It’s essentially two movies in one, but throughout the run time, Larson hits every beat on the emotional spectrum, dynamics between mom and son shift, but the power of their love and their need for survival are extremely palpable.
Spotlight (Nov. 6)
There was no better project on paper than the drama based on The Boston Globe’s investigation of clergy sex abuse in the early 2000s, and it did not disappoint. It’s a tense two hours of old-school reporting — some could call it All the President’s Men for the Millennial crowd — that is full of standout performances, from Mark Ruffalo’s go-getting, slightly neurotic investigative journalist to Michael Keaton and Liev Schreiber playing hard-nosed editors who wring the best out of everyone. Definitely expect some nods from the Academy for this one.
Where to Invade Next (release date to be determined)
Michael Moore is enough of a polarizing filmmaker that many were worried what he was going to unleash. But it was telling that his new documentary (which is still seeking a distributor) received a better reception than the film that took Toronto's opening-night spectacular spot, the Jake Gyllenhaal film Demolition (April 8). A look at what people around the globe do better than we do, Next is funny, enlightening, worldly, on point in many instances and a tribute to what used to be the American way — and could be again.