TIFF Diary #5: Disappointing Oscar bait and a surprise favourite

by Baby Clyde

Hugh Jackman and Florian Zeller on the set of "The Son"

Today I had no mid-film snooze problems. The screenings started at midday with Florian Zeller’s adaptation of his own play The Son. I saw the original London production back in 2019: Great performances. Terrible play. Though Zeller has ironed out some of the innate staginess of the source material The Son can’t overcome the fact that this is not a play about the teenage depression epidemic but rather about absurdly inept parenting. The choices made are so ludicrous and the reasoning so shallow I laughed out loud on numerous occasions. They also kept the queasily distasteful, possible twist as a coda which is no less objectionable on film than it was on the stage. Sir Anthony pops up briefly in what is presumably a reprise of his character from The Father. He makes more impact in three minutes than the rest of the cast do in the other two hours of contrived torment. Consider it the first proper clunker of this Oscar season.

Empire of Light was next and has seemingly been genetically engineered in a film lab to garner Oscar noms...

I will not be mad when it happens. I can’t be dispassionate about the flawed film because not only is it a love letter to cinema but it stars the always incredible Olivia Colman. What's more it's set in the Kentish seaside town of Margate, a place I know extremely well. It’s so much fun recognising all the locations. Dreamland, The Lido, the tidal pool, the stairs that lead down to the world's worst gay bar Sundowners. My brother managed to ruin a shot in the film by running to the station when they were filming down there earlier this year. He ran across the road, bumped into Micheal Ward and got shouted at by the First AD. Made his train though!

The film has its flaws. The central romance is entirely unnecessary, the racial stuff seems like box ticking and some of the tonal shifts are a bit jarring, but Olivia is terrific and it’s an all-round lovely movie visually. The Academy will lap it up, I’m sure.

I always  try to fit on some smaller interesting looking International Features, but this year the schedule’s been so full of big award-baity productions that the smaller ones have been overlooked. I did manage to fit in Charcoal though, one of the finalists (that didn't make it) for Brazil’s Oscar submission. It’s a hugely entertaining if morally ambiguous tale of a poor family’s interaction with a notorious drug dealer that was somewhat impaired by a questionable plot point right at the beginning that set an unnecessary pall over the rest if the proceedings. Having said that I love seeing these smaller pictures that I otherwise just add to a list of films I must get round to and then never do. Wish I’d made room for more. This would have made a very strong Brazilian entry. Looking forward to seeing Mars One, the film they’ve actually chosen.

My last film of the day was the festival's biggest ticket, Spielberg’s newest The Fabelmans.

I got to The Roy Thompson Hall with 5 minutes to spare only to see the volunteers moving the bag search tables and closing the doors. I got looked at disapprovingly when I rushed in as apparently the film started at 9.30pm rather than the 9.40pm I’d noted. It was only as I showed them my ticket on entry that I discovered whatever was showing at 9.30pm and it definitely wasn’t The Fabelmans.

Not only had I gone to the wrong theatre, I was at the wrong film, on the wrong day! 

My 9.45pm film turned out to be Cannes favourite Holy Spider at the TIFF Bell Lightbox further down the road. Thankfully I ran down there and just about made it. Turned out to be not just my favourite film of  the week so far but easily and away my favourite film of the year. It's a serial killer noir the likes of which you’ve never seen before.

Whilst the tropes may be familiar the Iranian setting made for an astonishing piece of work . Incredibly graphic but not the least bit exploitative the whole thing is anchored by Cannes best Actress winner Zahra Amir Ebrahimi who had been working as the casting director and only took on the lead role days before they started shooting, when the original actress dropped out. With its explicit depictions of sex, drug taking, prostitution and murder there is zero chance this will ever be shown in Iran. Luckily, this is a Danish production and will hopefully be chosen as the countries Oscar submission later this month (It’s on their shortlist of three). Director Ali Abbasi’s last film, the weird and wonderful Border made the Academy shortlist back in 2018 but failed to gain a nomination. Hopefully, he can clear that final step this time around.

FILM OF THE DAY: Holy Spider

OSCAR BUZZ: Whilst the critical reception hasn’t been wholly positive, I can’t see Empire of Light missing and surely Dame Olivia is a shoo in.

In Best International Feature I’ll be mad if Holy Spider doesn’t make the cut. 

STAR SPOT: Nothing. Nada. No one. Not a sausage as we say in England.