TIFF 2025: Kokuho, Frankenstein, and Train Dreams
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It’s day…something of the Toronto International Film Festival (I have lost count) and so fa it has been quite the journey. From epic tales of kabuki theater to movies set in the Pacific Northwest, much has unfolded at this festival. Let’s dive into a couple more movies:
Kokuho: Easily the best movie I’ve seen at TIFF so far, it’s a movie so beautifully shot and acted that I almost forgive and forget it not including a crucial scene as it marched towards its climax. With a premise like having the son of a yakuza boss and the heir to a kabuki acting dynasty becoming rivals, the movie was sure to intrigue me, but the film directed by Sang-il Lee, eschews really easy wins and goes for the more interesting human moments. Watching these two boys, then men, help and ruin each other’s lives as well as their own, is so thrilling. Kudos to the actors who played the main characters (Ryo Yoshizawa and Ryusei Yokohama as adults and Soya Kurokawa and Keitatsu Koshiyama as teens) who brilliantly ground their characters and let the operatic nature of tale unfold.
Frankenstein: Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation of Mary Shelley’s iconic novel is a tale of two halves. The first half of the film is so engrossing as we watch Viktor’s pursuit of immortality via scientific discovery and the creation of/rejection of his monster. It’s there that the movie’s best performances occur, even as the movie is hinting at the harbinger of doom that will come as we transition to the second half. Through no fault of Jacob Elordi’s, whom I quite liked as the monster, the second half of the movie flattens out tremendously as many of the bigger swings del Toro attempts just end up not wringing true. In what essentially becomes a story of abusive fathers and how that abuse translates across generations, the movie ends on a note that’s meant to be hopeful but doesn’t feel earned with some of the side bits we had to sit through. The costume design is fun but I could not help but feel like this movie hewed a smidge to close to the PD and cinematography of Crimson Peak.
Train Dreams: I think that a movie can feel too slight and Train Dreams unfortunately fits into this mold. It’s exquisitely shot and blissfully short (which is nice for a festival), but ultimately it’s a film that feels inconsequential due to the brevity it employs. Joel Edgerton gives a soulful performance as a logger who has life experiences, many of them tragic, but it just feels like we shuffle through them. We see a man on the periphery of things involving race and technology but never makes him have to take a stand or have a meaningful opinion before we move on to the next shot of a tree falling. Clint Bentley gets the soul of the story but seems lost in the mood and surface of a tale than anything with remarkable depth.
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