Toronto International Film Festival | www.jaredmobarak.com

TIFF21 REVIEW: Violet [2021]

2021/09/062021/10/20 Jared Mobarak

Don’t you feel better now? While the first voice to tell Violet (Olivia Munn) she was worthless came from a woman (her mother), it’s unsurprising that writer/director Justine Bateman turns the one incessantly pushing her around from the inside out today a man’s (Justin Theroux). Part of it probably stems from the fact that she works in Hollywood and thus deals with men oscillating between cruelly objectifying and cruelly belittling every single day, but the biggest reason is surely because of the world in which she lives. Men “built” this…

TIFF21 REVIEW: Terrorizers [2021]

2021/09/062021/09/11 Jared Mobarak

You really like roses. On first blush, Wi Ding Ho‘s (co-written by Natasha Kang-Hsin Sung) Terrorizers looks like a love story six years in the making. That’s when a young, blonde-haired dishwasher named Xiao Zhang (J.C. Lin) gave roses to a pretty girl named Yu Fang (Moon Lee). Now he’s returned from sailing abroad as a chef, reconnecting with his uncle for breakfast before starting his new job at a local restaurant. She just so happens to be working at the diner they visit. While Xiao knows exactly who she…

TIFF21 REVIEW: Farha [2021]

2021/09/052021/09/11 Jared Mobarak

What brought you back? The text reads: Palestine, 1948. That’s all you need to know to understand what’s coming. A year earlier was the start of the Palestinian Civil War between Jewish and Arab residents after the United Nations recommended the land’s separation in a Jewish and Arab state. Israel declared independence in May of 1948 and, as some history books describe it, a mass exodus arose to render about half of the nation’s pre-WWII Arab population (700,000) into refugees without a home. To simply call it an exodus, however,…

TIFF21 REVIEW: Ali & Ava [2022]

2021/09/042022/05/24 Jared Mobarak

From stop to seventy. Their differences are plenty. Her heritage is Irish. His is Pakistani. She lives in a part of Britain where he knows to worry about getting stones thrown at him while he lives amongst a diaspora of immigrants from Europe and Asia. She has four kids and five grandkids. He has a wife with whom he’s separated yet still unable to admit it to his family because they wouldn’t approve of letting her stay while she finishes school. The one thing Ava (Claire Rushbrook) and Ali (Adeel…

TIFF21 REVIEW: Matar a la bestia [To Kill the Beast] [2021]

2021/09/032021/09/10 Jared Mobarak

When people cause you pain, it’s better to stay away. A beast has arrived at a small town on the border between Argentina and Brazil. People talk about it being the spirit of an evil man, transforming into different animals to stalk its prey. Women are told to be afraid just as they’re told they’ll be protected. Whether businessmen, men of God, or neighbors, no one will rest until the creature is caught. Except, of course, that it never will. Because while we see it as a bull watching from…

TIFF21 REVIEW: The Wheel [2022]

2021/09/022022/07/08 Jared Mobarak

The happiest place to be sad. Despite only being twenty-four years old, Walker (Taylor Gray) and Albee (Amber Midthunder) head into the woods from their Los Angeles existence to try saving their eight-year marriage (they’re from Texas). Well, he’s trying to save their marriage. To look at their interactions is to wonder why Albee hadn’t left years ago. We catch glimpses of a smile every now and then, but mostly her head is buried in her phone or coldly lamenting why Walker has taken her to the middle of nowhere…

TIFF21 REVIEW: Julia [2021]

2021/09/012021/09/12 Jared Mobarak

Nothing was too much trouble if it was going to produce a beautiful result. Booked to talk about Mastering the Art of French Cooking on public access channel WGBH-TV, Julia Child took it upon herself to call the station and request a hotplate for demonstration purposes. She wanted to show a recipe in action to the people watching rather than mere conversation and the extra effort turned the segment into a sensation earning enough calls and letters to offer her a pilot. This cookbook that took twelve-years to write via…

TIFF21 REVIEW: Ste. Anne [2021]

2021/08/312021/09/14 Jared Mobarak

She scolded God. It’s been four years since Renée (Rhéanne Vermette) left home without a word. Four years that her brother Modeste (Jack Theis) and his wife Elenore (Valerie Marion) have spent raising her daughter Athene (Isabelle d’Eschambault) as their own. Their reunion is thus not without its confusion as the little girl is suddenly caught between two mothers: one she knows and one she barely remembers. What little does stick in her mind feels different from the woman now set in front of her too just as everything else…

TIFF21 REVIEW: Sis dies corrents [The Odd-Job Men] [2021]

2021/08/292021/09/10 Jared Mobarak

What could go wrong? It’s an important week for three handymen in Barcelona. Pep (Pep Sarrà) is retiring after decades on the job. Moha (Mohamed Mellali) is showing what he can do as his potential replacement. And Valero (Valero Escolar) is left to reconcile their swap’s extreme change to his routine with an empty stomach due to a last-minute attempt to lose weight before a family member’s wedding that weekend. There’s a bit of “old man yelling at clouds” with Pep’s last hurrah providing the opportunity to tell builders how…

TIFF21 REVIEW: Cicha ziemia [Silent Land] [2022]

2021/08/282021/09/11 Jared Mobarak

Guests are always welcome here. Desperate for respite from their bourgeois lives in Poland, Adam (Dobromir Dymecki) and Anna (Agnieszka Zulewska) decide to vacation on a tiny island in Italy to get away. They wanted a big house with a pool and scenic view to spend as much time alone on the property as possible. While a genial local (Marcello Romolo‘s Fabio) promised exactly that, the pool is found empty and in disarray. He offers a discount. They refuse. He offers a free dinner at his trattoria in town. They…

TIFF21 REVIEW: A Banquet [2022]

2021/08/192021/10/19 Jared Mobarak

What if this is just me now? It’s a question we ask throughout the duration of our lives: What’s the point? Maybe you say those words in search of meaning where humanity as a species is concerned. Maybe it’s to find purpose as an individual when nothing seems to be going right. Jason (Richard Keep) wonders what the point of surviving is when his fate has already been sealed. His wife Holly (Sienna Guillory) is being forced into the role of caretaker while also wading through the reality that she’s…