(Photo by Getty Images (Alessandro Levati/Getty Images))
Freshly back from the kick-off of the fall festival season, we have a breakdown of the best of what we saw at Telluride, Venice, and the Toronto International Film Festivals. As the trio of fests represent the unofficial kick-off of the fall awards season, the odds are good that most of the eventual Best Picture nominees at the Academy Awards next year will likely be screened at one of them.
Several entries have made an impression on festival-goers and critics, though of these will take a while to reach general audiences. Cannes favorites Anora and Emilia Perez continued to get cheers, cementing their “future Best Picture nominee” pedigree, and docs like Piece by Piece and September 5 made solid cases for a spot in the Best Documentary category. Additionally, we are buzzing about several films’ featured performances, like Angelina Jolie in Maria and Amy Adams in Nightbitch, but look for our thoughts about those in our upcoming Best Actress predictions.
Didn’t see a festival favorite? Check out our scorecard for all the films screened in Toronto and Venice, ranked by Tomatometer, and read on for the eight Best Films we saw at the Fall Film Festivals.
Villainy looks quite good on Hugh Grant. Grant’s work in Scott Beck and Brian Woods’ Heretic is exceptional and one of the most surprising entries from the Toronto International Film Festival. Playing Mr. Reed, a quiet and hospitable man who meets a pair of nuns while spreading the good news of the Mormon faith, Grant is equally charming and sinister as he lures the unsuspecting girls into his twisted machinations. Daniel Bayer of AwardsWatch wrote, “Perfectly blending his undying charm with the dark side that has marked the latter half of his career, Grant sinks his teeth into the meaty role of Mr. Reed with the ferocity of a hungry tiger, always ready to pounce on anything the girls say.”
(Photo by Amazon Content Services / courtesy TIFF - Toronto International Film Festival)
Rachel Morrison proved she has a tender eye for character-driven performances and jaw-dropping cinematography with The Fire Inside, another entry that surprised many critics with its wholesome earnestness. Barry Jenkins’ script and Morrison’s work behind the camera were lauded at the Toronto International Film Festival, cementing the film as an instant sports classic. Their praise only paled compared to the response to the stars, Ryan Destiny and Brian Tyree Henry. They are captivating, playing Olympic boxing champion Claressa Shields and her Coach Jason Crutchfield. The film chronicles Shields’ humble days in Flint, Michigan, to her rise to the Olympics. Robert Daniels of Screen International wrote, “The Fire Inside, in a deceptively brilliant twist on the inspirational sports film, is a humanist story, whose every hard-hitting beat and aching emotion is also truly earned.”
Who knew a dead Pope could bring so much drama? Apparently, Edward Berger, the director of Conclave, did. In his first effort since Oscar winner All Quiet on the Western Front, Berger continues to distinguish himself as one of the most dynamic directors working in Hollywood. The film, which premiered at Telluride, dramatizes the ultra-secret process to find the next pope. Conclave is an edge-of-your-seat thrill ride heavier on twists and laughs than expected. Bouncing between backstabbing, secret revelations, and explosions while serving enough drama for a season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, Johnathan Lithgow, Stanley Tucci, Isabella Rossellini, and Ralph Fiennes shine. Nicolas Rapold of The Finacial Times writes Conclave is “[a] genuinely unpredictable drama [that] unfolds amid the monumental architecture and ethereal murals of the Vatican, and Berger likes to make us privy to arcane details of the conclave, such as the way ballots are handled.”
(Photo by Courtesy of Venice Film Festival)
In what could be perhaps the best feature-length exploration of horror from an episode of Black Mirror, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cloud is a suspenseful thriller that stunned the crowds in Venice and Toronto. In it, a young online reseller finds himself embroiled in an internet storm after a sale goes awry. Our protagonist is pursued by threats through the digital and physical landscape in a chilling dive into the dark side of modern connectivity. The film was recently selected as Japan’s entry for Best International Film, and Hannah Lodge of Screen Rex wrote, “Kurosawa’s unique ability to casually shuffle between genres – drama, horror, thriller, absurdist comedy? – keeps Cloud feeling vibrant and suspenseful as it scales up. But one constant throughout the film: the script’s sharp wit.”
(Photo by Photo courtesy Venice International Film Festival)
Just one first-look image of Halina Reijn’s Babygirl clued us in that this would be a film that would make an impression. And it did, on both critics and festival audiences. Possibly the top entry on a growing list of festival films this season that cast seduction, sexuality, and desire in a leading role, this workplace drama scorches under the heat provided by Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson. The steamy age-gap romance, which premiered at Venice, finds Kidman in a forbidden and dangerous affair with a young intern (Dickinson) who may hold the key to her sexual liberation. Kidman’s fearless performance earned her the Best Actress prize at the Venice Film Festival, and Kayleigh Donaldson of Pajiba wrote, “Reijn acutely captures the dizzying, oft-regrettable but frequently rewarding experience of falling in lust.”
(Photo by Photo courtesy Venice International Film Festival)
We singled out The Order, starring Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, and Jude Law, as one of the Must-Watch Films from the Venice Film Festival, and the taut historical crime drama did not disappoint. Based on the 1989 nonfiction book The Silent Brotherhood, the film chronicles one of the largest white supremacist FBI operations ever conducted. The radical group was first discovered when a lowly Idaho FBI agent noticed that a string of robberies and counterfeit operations were not as disparate and unrelated as they’d thought, but rather part of a complex racketeering scheme to fund a proper white nationalist movement. The script from Oscar-nominated screenwriter Zach Baylin (King Richard) under the direction of Justin Kurzel (True History of the Kelly Gang) plays like one part drama, one part action heist, as the intricate planning and execution of elaborate bank heists take center stage. “It is just as much an action film, with urgently composed bank robberies, gun battles between the police and masked terrorists, and a chase through a burning house shot so brilliantly that it feels as if hell itself has erupted,” writes Stephanie Bunbury of Deadline Hollywood.
Director Mike Leigh reunites with his Secrets and Lies star Marianne Jean-Baptiste, 27 years after their first collaboration snagged them a pair of Oscar nominations, for another searing drama poised to achieve the same feat. Rejected by Venice, Cannes, and Telluride, the famed British Director may have the last laugh as the bleakly hilarious family drama premiered at TIFF to rapturous praise. Led by another flawless performance from Jean-Baptiste, Hard Truths is a fierce, dark comedy that forces the audience to examine the ties that bind us. Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair wrote, “Leigh makes the audience confront the long-held fear held by many people of us as we age, that we too might become raving cranks, made so bitter and unlovable by the steady erosion of hope and possibility, and the steadier amassing of disappointment.”
Quite quickly after the Venice premiere of The Room Next Door, director Pedro Almodóvar was basking in the glow of rave reviews, particularly regarding leads Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton, in his first English language feature. The pair play childhood friends who reunite after years apart, as one of them grapples with the final stages of a terminal diagnosis. The Room Next Door won’t rival the best entries in the Spanish filmmaker’s filmography, but it won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival, and it’s still a favorite to make waves this awards season. Stephanie Zacharek of TIME Magazine wrote, “The colors of The Room Next Door are its secret message, a language of pleasure and beauty that reminds us how great it is to be alive. If it’s possible to make a joyful movie about death, Almodóvar has just done it.”
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