TIFF '23: "Not a Word" finds mother and son at the world's edge

by Cláudio Alves

It's always curious how shared themes and repeated motifs can spread through a film festival's program. At TIFF '23, motherhood is among the hottest topics, especially concerning the bonds and barriers between single mothers and their adolescent sons. Another more unexpected trend is how many titles enjoying their North American or World Premieres recall Todd Field's TÁR, as if that work had echoed a shape-shift sound through the art film scene. None of this means cineastes are copying each other or that festival programmers are indulging in redundancy. It's merely a thought-provoking coincidence that can lead the viewer down the road to comparison and offer new avenues of analysis. Amid the similarities, you may grow to treasure each project's specificity, their points of divergence.

Consider Hanna Antonina Wojcik-Slak's Not a Word, where a busy orchestra conductor raising her son alone is confronted with the boy's inherent unknowability…

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Dan Stevens is a tempting romantic ideal in "I'm Your Man"

by Matt St Clair

Despite having otherworldly leading man looks, Dan Stevens has a clear affinity for playing eccentric character roles. That being said, some of those roles that he’s played, like flamboyant, implicitly gay Russian singer Alexander Lemtov in Eurovision Song Contest and the enigmatic titular character from The Guest, have allowed him to play into his sex appeal. The German sci-fi romance I’m Your Man, which is opening today in US movie theaters, is a continuation of that trend. 

Stevens plays Tom, an android designed to be the perfect companion, someone with perfect looks who is programmed to fulfill the every need of their human partner...

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