TIFF 2023: Top 10 Most Anticipated Films
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The Toronto International Film Festival kicks off this week and for the first timeI will be in attendance! I will be taking part in the Media Inclusion Inititative and getting a chance to go to a festival I’ve never been to.
The year, TIFF obviously takes place amid the work stoppage as the WGA and SAG- AFTRA are currently striking for the future of the industry, likely meaning that a festival which has become an unofficial Oscar launching ground will have a different tenor.
Regardless, this year’s schedule is chock full of some very interesting movies. I’ve included the 10 that I am most excited to see and I’ll be doing some reviews and some video content over on my TikTok while there, so follow me there for all the extra info!
Most Anticipated TIFF 2023 Movies
The Boy and the Heron
Already acclaimed as a masterpiece in Japan, Hayao Miyazaki’s new film begins as a simple story of loss and love, and rises to become a staggering work of imagination.
Already acclaimed as a masterpiece in Japan, Hayao Miyazaki’s new film begins as a simple story of loss and love, and rises to a staggering work of imagination. Coming after the maker of Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke announced his retirement, The Boy and the Heron is an especially precious gift, and possibly the final film we will see from one of cinema’s greatest artists.
As a boy, Miyazaki read Genzaburo Yoshino’s novel How Do You Live? and embraced it as his favourite. This film was initially announced as an adaptation of that book, but Miyazaki uses it instead as one of many layers in a dazzling tapestry that draws even more upon his own youth.
During the Second World War, young Mahito Maki (Soma Santoki) suffers a heartbreaking family tragedy and must move immediately to the countryside, where his father (Takuya Kimura) works for a family making planes for Japan’s military, as Miyazaki’s own father did.
Isolated, Mahito begins exploring the mysterious landscapes and encounters a grey heron, persistent in its presence. The boy also happens upon an abandoned tower. Curious, he enters. From there, The Boy and the Heron expands into a wondrous, often-startling phantasmagoria.
Visually, the film shows Miyazaki at the height of his powers, filling the frame with gorgeous compositions, vibrant colour, and arresting movement. As it draws you deeper into its mysteries, The Boy and the Heron becomes richer, stranger, and more profoundly beautiful. This is a singular, transformative experience in film, and not to be missed.
A Normal Family
Based on the celebrated Dutch novel Het Diner (The Dinner) by Herman Koch, which has sold more than a million copies and has been translated into several languages, A Normal Family is the latest work by renowned Korean filmmaker Hur Jin-ho. A drama about privilege, nepotism, and moral decline, the film explores the darker side of normalcy in a transglobal tale of binding blood ties that end up disintegrating the lives of its protagonists.
Jae-wan (Sul Kyung-gu), a successful lawyer, takes on the case of a rich executive’s son, who has purposely run over and killed a man and left his daughter seriously injured. It’s Jae-wan’s job to defend a murderer, just another rung on his career’s golden-stepped ladder. His younger brother (Jang Dong-gun), on the contrary, is a scrupulous and upstanding paediatrician, who always puts the health of his patients over profit and money, often contravening the rules of the private clinic where he works.
The brothers meet once a month with their wives for fine dining in expensive restaurants, but when an unexpected situation involving their teenage kids arises, their consciences are questioned and their usual dinner conversation takes an unexpected turn. As tensions heighten, their apparent fraternal closeness dissolves like snow in the sun.
Exploring the dichotomies between right and wrong, remorse and forgiveness, and what is said and not said, Hur’s solid direction and impeccable performances from the cast add weight and finesse to this dysfunctional story of the life of a family.
Woman of the Hour
Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut examines uncomfortable gender dynamics with the stranger-than-fiction story of Rodney Alcala’s appearance on The Dating Game in the middle of his 1970s murder spree.
In the 1970s Rodney Alcala went on a murder spree, luring women by posing as a photographer looking for models. Though already a registered sex offender and recently released from prison, he infamously appeared on The Dating Game, a show that introduced a set of three new bachelors each week, hidden from view as a woman asked them amusing questions before choosing a winner to go on an all-expenses-paid trip with her.
Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut uses this stranger-than-fiction story to examine the distressing dynamics of gender. In addition to directing, Kendrick also plays Cheryl Bradshaw, the struggling actor who decided to book an appearance on the show where she would have a chilling run-in with Alcala. While this confrontation serves as the spine of the film, we’re taken backward and forward through time, exploring Alcala’s murders, with a performance by Daniel Zovatto that captures the disquieting hubris of a man who knows he’s operating in a world too skewed to catch him.
Instead of dwelling on the gruesome details that often preoccupy true-crime tales, Kendrick uses the case to make an incisive statement on the way women are forced to navigate their encounters with men. In addition to being an intelligent metaphor for those uncomfortable nuances, Woman of the Hour also harbours a dark truth: when you’re confronted by the rage of men, the only way to make it out alive is to play the game.
Concrete Utopia
In the opening moments of Um Tae-hwa’s riveting new disaster epic, an earthquake renders much of Seoul a smouldering ruin. But as survivors begin efforts to restore order, it seems the real calamity has only just begun.
An earthquake renders much of Seoul a smouldering ruin in the opening minutes of this riveting post-apocalyptic epic from director Um Tae-hwa (Vanishing Time: A Boy Who Returned). But as survivors begin efforts to restore order, it seems the real calamity has only just begun.
From their balcony at the Hwang Gung apartment complex, Min-seong (Parasite’s Park Seo-jun) and Myeong-hwa (Park Bo-young) look out on nothing but corpses and rubble. It seems a miracle their building remains standing when all the others are destroyed. A stranger and her small child soon arrive at Min-seong and Myeong-hwa’s door begging to be let in, followed by dozens of others from the surrounding area desperately seeking food and shelter. As days pass and no rescue teams turn up, the tenants assemble, survey their limited resources, and vote to evict the “outsiders.” When Yeong-tak (I Saw the Devil’s Lee Byung-hun), the tenants’ elected leader, announces that the outsiders must leave Hwang Gung, all hell breaks loose. From this point on, tenants must be prepared to protect their property by any means necessary.
Not unlike his fellow countryman Bong Joon-ho, Um brilliantly fuses wry social critique with spectacular genre storytelling. Based on the second part of Kim Sung-nyung’s Cheerful Outcast webtoon, Concrete Utopia is a sobering parable, following its characters’ gradual descent into ruthless tribalism in a way that eerily mirrors so many contemporary global events. Only when all hope is lost do we glimpse the possibility of generosity, and some much-needed self-determination.
American Fiction
Jeffrey Wright stars in Cord Jefferson’s adaptation of Percival Everett’s Erasure — a wicked satire about the commodification of marginalized voices and a portrait of an artist forced to re-examine his integrity.
Starring Jeffrey Wright in one of his most beautifully nuanced performances, American Fiction is both a wickedly smart satire about the commodification of marginalized voices and a bittersweet portrait of an artist forced to re-examine the terms of his integrity.
Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (Wright) is a respected author and professor of English literature. But his impatience with his students’ cultural sensitivities is threatening his academic standing, while his latest novel is failing to attract publishers; they claim Monk’s writing “isn’t Black enough.” He travels to his hometown of Boston to participate in a literary festival where all eyes are on the first-time author of a bestseller titled We’s Lives In Da Ghetto, a book Monk dismisses as pandering to readers seeking stereotypical stories of Black misery. Meanwhile, Monk’s family experiences tragedy, and his ailing mother requires a level of care neither he nor his trainwreck of a brother (Sterling K. Brown) can afford.
One night, in a fit of spite, Monk concocts a pseudonymous novel embodying every Black cliché he can imagine. His agent submits it to a major publisher who immediately offers the biggest advance Monk’s ever seen. As the novel is rushed to the printers and Hollywood comes courting, Monk must reckon with a monster of his own making.
Adapted from Percival Everett’s novel Erasure, Cord Jefferson’s directorial debut is a wildly entertaining send-up of our hunger for so-called authenticity. Featuring stellar supporting turns from Issa Rae and Erika Alexander, and a string of cheeky cameos, American Fiction is a timely reflection on the fictions we tell ourselves about race, progress, and community.
Dear Jassi
With his first film set in India, Tarsem Singh Dhandwar (The Fall, TIFF ’06) returns to the big screen to tell the shocking true-life tale of a young couple desperate to be together.
Tarsem Singh Dhandwar’s first story set in India tells the true-life Romeo and Juliet tale of a young couple who are desperate to be together but are kept apart by time, distance, and familial expectations.
In the ’90s, on a trip to visit her extended family in Jagraon, Jassi (Pavia Sidhu) meets Mithu (Yugam Sood), a sweet rickshaw driver who lives down the street. She quickly falls for him, but their time is cut short as Jassi is expected to return with her mother to their home in Canada. The sweethearts begin exchanging love letters, and Mithu starts making travel plans. But when Jassi sees her family lash out at one of her cousin’s suitors, she realizes there’s no easy way to pursue their relationship. As their romance continues, we become so invested in their sincere and intimate love story that it’s easy to forget what terrifying consequences could await them.
After eight years away from the big screen, Tarsem’s latest film marks a new chapter in an already wide-ranging oeuvre, which includes his illustrious epic The Fall (TIFF ’06). Both a true work of art and an unblinking chronicle of continuing injustice, Dear Jassi demonstrates immense storytelling talent and filmmaking rigour while capturing the brutality that lies on the other side of a beautiful sunset, if you’re brave enough to turn the camera.
The Zone of Interest
Jonathan Glazer won the Grand Prix at this year’s Cannes for this horror about Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss and his wife, who quite literally live amongst the ashes of their actions.
Master of portraiture Jonathan Glazer (Under the Skin, TIFF ’13) was awarded the Grand Prix at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for The Zone of Interest, adapted from a 2014 novel of the same title by Martin Amis. The film centres on the domestic life of Hedwig (Sandra Hüller, also at the Festival in Anatomy of a Fall) and Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), beneficiaries of lebensraum, whose family home — nestled between train tracks and gas chambers — is spitting distance from Auschwitz, the infamous German concentration camp located in occupied Poland, where Rudolf serves as commandant.
Towards the final days of the Holocaust, Hedwig is fixated on self-preservation, while Rudolf is increasingly burdened by his duties. We reside inside the family’s encampment, with background voices of ghost-like prisoners muffled by the perpetrator’s quotidian musings. At one point, Hedwig and her atrocious friends joke about their new luxury goods, received from Canada — the nickname of the storage facilities where such items, after being confiscated, were stored — at the demise of their former neighbours.
Shot on location, The Zone of Interest weds banal and overt acts of evil with unforgettable reminders of resistance (it was shot in monochrome by thermal-imaging cameras). And just as we can’t take any more, the film gives a crushing nod to Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing (TIFF ’12). Hauntingly scored by Mica Levi and shot by Łukasz Żal (Cold War, TIFF ’18), this film will stay with you for a lifetime, for better or for worse.
Flora and Son
The latest from writer-director John Carney (Once, Sing Street) features a revelatory performance from Eve Hewson as a young mother trying to connect with her teenage son through a shared love of music.
In films like the beloved Oscar winner Once and Sing Street, Irish writer-director John Carney (Begin Again, TIFF ’13) has reinvented the musical, swapping ornately choreographed razzamatazz for a disarmingly earnest indie simplicity. With Flora and Son, Carney has crafted his most soulful song cycle yet, setting a young single mother on a journey of self-discovery.
Flora (Eve Hewson) is something of a hot mess. She’s feisty, charismatic, and a trouble magnet. She loves to party — but she loves her 14-year-old son Max (Orén Kinlan) more, even if it seems like all they do is quarrel. In an effort to bridge the gulf between them, Flora gives Max a guitar, but Max’s ideal musical instrument is his computer, which he uses to construct infectious dance tracks.
Rather than let the guitar collect dust, Flora opts to develop her own musical chops, taking online lessons from Jeff (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a handsome troubadour who shows Flora how to form basic chords and introduces her to the genius of Joni Mitchell. Flora falls for Jeff, despite the fact that she’s in Dublin and he’s in Los Angeles. But as Jeff pierces Flora’s heart, he also inspires in her a creative urge that might lead to a whole new way of connecting with Max.
Carney’s films convey a profound understanding of how music lifts us out of life’s dead-end distractions and carries us to a place where we can be our best selves. Flora and Son is a soaring realization of this idea. It also marks the arrival of a major talent: with her magnetic, emotionally layered performance, Hewson is a revelation.
Rustin
George C. Wolfe brings Bayard Rustin’s story to life, with a joyous performance by Colman Domingo as the activist who organized the 1963 March on Washington while being forced into the background because of his sexuality.
Sixty years on, the March on Washington is remembered as the watershed point in civil rights history where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. There were many people who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to make that moment possible, with their efforts led by one important figure: Bayard Rustin. George C. Wolfe’s latest film tells Rustin’s story, as the activist who brought together an alliance of civil rights, labour, and religious organizations, while being forced into the background of the movement because of his sexuality.
An advisor and close friend to Dr. King, Rustin has a difficult time convincing the reluctant group of leaders that he can organize what would be one of the largest political rallies in American history. While pushing ahead, he’s reinvigorated by a burgeoning relationship. Afraid that his gay identity will harm the movement, members of the coalition start to take issue with Rustin being the face of the march and, wary of sparking a media scandal, he becomes torn between the needs of the cause and his personal life.
While that struggle weighs heavy, Colman Domingo (also at the Festival in Sing Sing) gives a joyous performance as Rustin. His rousing spirit and determination pull everyone together as we start to see history fall into place, piece by piece. Rustin’s story not only gives us insight into the mechanics of protest, but also serves as a crucial reminder that freedom doesn’t mean much if all of us can’t march towards it together.
Your Mother’s Son
The relationship between a hard-working mother and her layabout son is challenged when she invites one of her students into their home, in the latest from prolific director Jun Robles Lana.
Love can take all shapes and sizes, and Jun Robles Lana’s (Bwakaw, TIFF ’12) latest chamber drama explores and challenges just that idea. What are the boundaries that define love, and where do we draw the line between morality and amorality, normality and abnormality?
Sarah is a middle-aged woman who hustles as the sole breadwinner of her family of two. As she scrambles to teach online courses and meet her food orders to provide for her son, her helper, Amy, wonders why her boss works so hard. Sarah’s son Emman doesn’t have a job and is often killing time at Amy’s by getting high and having sex. He’s a delinquent from all angles, but strangely possessive of his mother. One day, Sarah brings one of her students, Oliver, home to give him refuge from his violent father. Like throwing a catfish into a tank of sardines, Oliver’s appearance stirs Emman’s life and impacts his atypical relationship with Sarah. The change soon begins to crack Emman’s tank, and all the shocking secrets flood out uncontrollably.
On the surface, Lana’s newest film seems to delve into the theme of the Oedipus complex, yet it invents a category of its own. The odd, intimate relationships are skilfully brought to life by his talented cast — particularly Sue Prado and Kokoy de Santos — who play crucial roles in blowing up the balloon of intensity till its final burst at the climactic ending.
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