TIFF24 Recap

They said it couldn’t be done. Of the 278 films screened over the 10 days at the 49th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), I was able to see 37 of them. Never mind that my eyesight has probably gotten much worse, my skin is even paler than before, and that someone broke the world record for most movies watched at a film festival by eclipsing 80 films within the same timeframe.

This year’s edition of TIFF was a rousing success for both myself and the festival as a whole. I maintained a perfect schedule throughout, seeing everything I wanted to, ranging from glitzy world premieres in the biggest venues to independent international films in the back of the Scotiabank Theatre.

The best came first on Friday (well, technically third since I saw Presence and William Tell on Thursday) in the form of The Brutalist, which met the sky-high hopes I had placed upon it through its placement on my Most Anticipated of 2024 list. Although I had to reluctantly accept a 35mm presentation of the film instead of the 70mm print that was being shown at the public screenings, there’s no denying that this is one of the most beautiful films of the year. It’s a new American epic that I will certainly catch again later this year whenever A24 decides to start their rollout, which I assume will emulate the molasses pace of classic Hollywood roadshows. This needs to be treated as a cinematic event on the same level as Oppenheimer. See it on the biggest screen possible, and plan a dinner afterward to reward both your body and mind.

While the feasibility for The Brutalist to win the coveted People’s Choice Award was slim, both in terms of logistics regarding the runtime and mass appeal, I did end up seeing the actual top dog a few hours later at its world premiere. Unfortunately, I didn’t share the same enthusiasm for The Life of Chuck compared to everyone else, with Flanagan’s approach to the material being a little too disjointed and schmaltzy for my liking. However, being in the same as the cast and crew, as well as the raucous audience, was more than worth it.

John Crowley’s charming two-hander We Live in Time provided a nice break in the disappointment streak, which would continue the next morning with The Room Next Door and Hard Truths. In a bubble, both are fine movies with exceptional qualities to them. But when you factor in the talent involved, it’s impossible not to view them as less than they should have been. It was extremely shocking to walk out of The Room Next Door to the news that it had won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, a prize that seemed destined for The Brutalist.

Ron Howard’s Eden, still without distribution as of this print date, served as my only Gala premiere within Roy Thomson Hall. After he showed humanity at its best with his previous film (Thirteen Lives), Howard drags us down to its most vile state. The pulpy tone and starry cast are what sell the experience. Overall it’s nothing special, which is why it’ll likely get punted to streaming, where it’ll probably be a big hit.

Sunday was a double Ralph Fiennes day. Edward Berger’s Conclave is a soap opera with as much page-turning substance as it has a prestige-like style, while The Return, Uberto Pasolini’s adaptation of Homer’s The Odyssey, was a snooze-fest. Bookending The Return was two fun thrillers: Justin Kurzel’s The Order and A24’s Heretic. The former contains some exceptional action setpieces and moments of chilling true-crime violence, while the latter has a devilishly delicious Hugh Grant performance.

Things started slowing down a bit as the weekdays rolled around. David Mackenzie’s Relay was a smoky cool way to start a Monday morning, while Luca Guadagnino’s abstract adaptation of Queer was a puzzling way to end the night. Thankfully I had some sleep between that film and Tuesday morning’s Better Man, the CGI-monkey starring biopic on Robbie Williams. Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here and Malcolm Washington’s The Piano Lesson provided glimpses into fractured families reckoning with their past and future. Halina Reijn took that familial structure and burned it to the ground with Babygirl, a perverse tale of sex and power featuring knock-out performances from Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson.

I saw two slow cinema titles carrying over from Venice on Wednesday: Harvest and April. While the former spun its wheels a few too many times, the latter mixed abstract visuals with real-life horrors to excellent results. Capping off the night was The End, Joshua Oppenheimer’s narrative feature debut after years of success as a documentarian. I was by far the biggest fan of this somber musical about the last surviving family, with the audience within the Princess of Wales growing more restless as the 148-minute feature went on. To be fair, TIFF didn’t do its audience many favors this year as they scheduled several long and challenging films for the 9:30 pm slot, which always starts at least twenty minutes late.

The final Thursday-Sunday was reserved for catching up on several titles I had a passing interest in. The Fire Inside and Millers in Marriage turned out to be the only two that I came out with a positive reaction, while stuff like Without Blood, On Swift Horses, and The Cut ranged from disappointing to downright terrible. Somewhere in the middle was Bring Them Down, The Deb, and The Friend.

Despite my eyelids carrying the same weight as dumbbells, I decided to cap the festival with the Midnight Madness screening of The Shadow Strays, the new film from Indonesian action aficionado Timo Tjahjanto. It was one of my most anticipated of the festival, and the energy from the crowd and the film was more than enough to sustain me throughout the 140-minute runtime.

One could debate the pros and cons of watching so many movies in such a short amount of time. But there’s nothing like having a cinematic buffet such as this, and the experience of gorging is unbeatable. Now I’ll take an extended break, as the mere thought of watching a movie gives me a headache.

FULL RANKING

1. The Brutalist

2. Conclave

3. The End

4. Saturday Night

5. The Order

6. April

7. I’m Still Here

8. Relay

9. We Live in Time

10. Heretic

11. The Shadow Strays

12. Presence

13. Harbin

14. The Piano Lesson

15. Babygirl

16. Queer

17. Eden

18. The Fire Inside

19. Millers in Marriage

20. The Room Next Door

21. Hard Truths

22. William Tell

23. Harvest

24. The Life of Chuck

25. Better Man

26. The Friend

27. Shell

28. Bring Them Down

29. The Deb

30. The Assessment

31. Nightbitch

32. The Return

33. On Swift Horses

34. Without Blood

35. The Last Showgirl

36. Hold Your Breath

37. The Cut