43rd Toronto International Film Festival Coverage: Day Three
Saturday, September 8th, 2018 by Ian Evans
Everybody Knows courtesy of TIFF.
It’s the first Saturday of TIFF 2018 and the cinemas and streets are buzzing once again with activity.
The day started off with the Share Her Journey women’s rally, which included guests like Geena Davis and Dr. Stacy L. Smith, Founder and Director of the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative. The purpose of the rally was to discuss the inclusion and treatment of women in the film industry. It was followed by a screening of the documentary This Changes Everything which explores the systemic sexism in the film industry through conversations with Geena Davis, Meryl Streep, Sandra Oh, Jessica Chastain and many others. If there was an elephant in the room, it would be why a documentary about inclusion and treatment in the workforce had a male director and cinematographer.
Up next at RTH was a gala screening of Asghar Farhadi’s Everybody Knows, with the husband and wife acting team of Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz. The psychological drama takes us to a wedding in Spain, where a shocking crime uncovers long-buried secrets. Cruz said that working with Farhadi was very easy, adding that the director was very demanding, very honest but a sweet and kind person.
This Is Us’ Dan Fogelman wrote and directed the next gala, Life Itself, which stars Oscar Isaac, Olivia Wilde, Annette Bening, Olivia Cooke, Mandy Patinkin, and Antonio Banderas. Its interwoven narrative crosses continents and decades as it explores life and love. Olivia Wilde told press on the carpet that Fogelman’s script was an emotional read while another Olivia, Olivia Cooke, mentioned that Fogelman’s work is grounded in reality.
The night at Roy Thomson ended with the gala for Steve McQueen’s Widows. Starring Viola Davis, Daniel Kaluuya, Liam Neeson, Jacki Weaver, Colin Farrell, and Michelle Rodriguez, Widows tracks a group of women whose partners’ criminal pasts leave them with a debt to pay after their deaths. Davis told reporters on the carpet that it was “awesome working on a film where the women were actual women. They were real. They were rooted in truth. They weren’t any mould of male fantasy.”
Things were buzzing over at the VISA Screening Room at the Princess of Wales Theatre, starting with the premiere of The Hummingbird Project. Directed by Kim Nguyen, it stars Jesse Eisenberg and Alexander Skarsgård as cousins who plan to build a thousand-mile-long four-inch-wide data cable tunnel to give themselves a millisecond advantage on trades on the New York Stock Exchange. Their plans put them at odds with their ruthless former employer, played by Salma Hayek. Nguyen says he hopes it enlightens people to the fictitious nature of the stock exchange, creating value where value doesn’t exist, but then taking that fiction and using it to separate real people from their money.
Julia Roberts continued her TIFF visit with the screening for Ben Is Back, which co-stars Lucas Hedges, who is also in the TIFF films Boy Erased and Mid90s, as her drug-addicted son returning from rehab for Christmas. Though it appears her son is on the right track, Julia’s character will do what it takes keep it that way. Actor Courtney B. Vance told press on the carpet that the subject matter is tough but “It’s basically a love story between a mother and a son and a family. A family trying to find its centre again.”
Activity at the PoW concluded with the screening for The Sisters Brothers. Adapted from Patrick deWitt’s novel, it stars Joaquin Phoenix and John C. Reilly as two brothers sent to kill a prospector accused of stealing from a crime boss. The cast also includes Jake Gyllenhaal and Riz Ahmed. The film was the culmination of a long road for Reilly, whose production company bought the film rights to the novel back in 2011.
The seats were also kept warm over at the Elgin Theatre, which was home to several screenings throughout the day. Michael Winterbottom’s The Wedding Guest stars Dev Patel in a thriller about a mysterious man whose plans unravel as he travels to Pakistan for a wedding.
Marielle Heller’s Can You Ever Forgive Me? stars Melissa McCarthy in the real-life story of Lee Israel, a failed biographical author who turned to forging and selling letters by famous writers and actors. McCarthy said she found Israel to be “a challenging, incredibly witty, smart and difficult woman.”
Paul Greengrass, who tackled terrorism before in United 93, turns his attention this time to the 2011 Norwegian terror attacks in 22 July. Greengrass looks at the events that had one man strike in two places, killing 77 and wounding over 200.
The night at the Elgin closed off with a screening of David Gordon Green’s Halloween. Set 40 years after its namesake, the film follows Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) as she once again battles escaped serial killer Michael Myers while protecting her daughter and granddaughter. The film has a current ring to it, as three generations of women confront an abusive male.
The highlight over at Ryerson was the screening of Jason Reitman’s The Front Runner, which looks at the 1988 presidential campaign by Gary Hart (Hugh Jackman). Also starring Vera Farmiga and J.K. Simmons, the film looks at the scandal that brought down the candidate, which almost seems quaint compared to the current porn stars and playmates situation that’s fuelling the news cycle but not moving the political needle. Jackman told the press on the carpet that he felt in safe hands working with Reitman, or the “local hero” as he joked, seeing as the TIFF Bell Lightbox is on Reitman Square, land that had been in his family for decades. Jackman hoped that audiences would leave the film having a conversation about what’s important in their candidates and their personal lives.