TIFF21 REVIEW: Petite maman [2021]

We might not see each other again. It’s difficult grappling with the reality that we can never know when our latest “goodbye” to a loved one might prove the last we’ll ever share with them. The act itself is so commonplace and routine that we find ourselves performing on reflex. The assumption is that it’s really a “so long”—an ellipsis awaiting its next word whenever and wherever it may arrive next. Then the day comes when you realize two dots disappeared while you were away to reveal a period of…

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TIFF21 REVIEW: Du som er i himlen [As in Heaven] [2022]

Dreams should not be taken lightly. Lise (Flora Ofelia Hofmann Lindahl) couldn’t be happier now that she knows her mother’s (Ida Cæcilie Rasmussen‘s Anna) determination has successfully overcome her father’s (Thure Lindhardt‘s Anders) objections about sending her to school. It’s the late 1800s after all. A big reason why a farming family such as theirs has so many children is to work the land. Sending off the eldest at fourteen isn’t therefore conducive to their home’s machinery—especially since Anders has no qualms with leaving the daily chores to his sister,…

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TIFF21 REVIEW: The Middle Man [2021]

You’ve just got to take things as they come. Frank Farelli (Pål Sverre Hagen) has been unemployed in a dying town for quite some time. The area used to attract visitors in the past—not many, but enough to staff a hotel that’s now been closed for years. So too has the local movie theater. As the so-called “Commission” (Paul Gross‘ Sheriff, Nicolas Bro‘s Pastor, and Don McKellar‘s Doctor) explains it, they may not be able to keep the streetlights going thanks to a dwindling budget caused by a lack of…

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TIFF21 REVIEW: Mlungu Wam [Good Madam] [2021]

It seems this house doesn’t like Mama. A matriarch passes and the family swarms to poach whatever they can in the aftermath. Tsidi (Chumisa Cosa) tells herself it won’t matter—she’s been the one taking care of her grandmother and thus has a claim over that which she has called her home for years, but “fair” doesn’t factor in where tradition is concerned. Her uncle (as the eldest) allows Tsidi’s cousins to put her in her place as new construction plans made while the recently departed was still alive become colored…

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TIFF21 REVIEW: Listening to Kenny G [2021]

I don’t think I’m a personality to people. I think I’m a sound. While the premise of Penny Lane‘s Listening to Kenny G unfolds through the comedic question, “Why do so many people hate Kenny G?” it quickly reveals itself a rather intriguing tight rope walk upon the line separating art from commerce. Because this question cannot be answered without first acknowledging who the “people” are. Kenny G has fans. A lot of them. He’s sold seventy-five million records to become the best-selling instrumentalist of all-time. So, they aren’t those…

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TIFF21 REVIEW: Jagged [2021]

There’s hope even when the song is hopeless. It really is strange to look back almost thirty years later and realize just how huge and seminal Alanis Morissette‘s Jagged Little Pill was to rock music. I was only thirteen at the time of its release and therefore didn’t understand then what I can with hindsight now. “You Oughta Know,” “Hand in My Pocket,” and “Ironic” were on constant rotation every time the radio was turned on, but my brain processed them as songs just like any other. When you hear…

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TIFF21 REVIEW: You Are Not My Mother [2021]

I can’t do this anymore. Despite leaving writer/director Kate Dolan‘s feature debut You Are Not My Mother with a lot more questions than answers, I don’t think that reality is necessarily a bad thing. Maybe if I was better versed in Irish lore, I’d be more familiar with the supernatural elements at play and therefore less in the dark about the unspoken details the film doesn’t seem to realize it might need to share for better understanding. But it’s not as though knowing would add too much beyond context. And…

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TIFF21 REVIEW: Violet [2021]

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…

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TIFF21 REVIEW: Terrorizers [2021]

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…

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TIFF21 REVIEW: Farha [2021]

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,…

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TIFF21 REVIEW: Ali & Ava [2022]

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…

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