TIFF18 REVIEW: Kingsway [2018]

I’ve been on speaker? Love and suicide. Those are the words director Bruce Sweeney says inspired him to write Kingsway and are very much at the forefront of his dramedy about the dysfunctional Horvat family. And both are treated with humor despite never in a way that belittles their respective import. It’s not about laughing at suicide or those distraught and lost enough to contemplate the act. We smile instead because of our ability to see ourselves in the subject’s heaviness and a tumultuous aftermath that can lead towards a…

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REVIEW: The Sweet Hereafter [1997]

“Wiggle your noses and have fun” **spoilers** How much money is your child worth? Is that a question you could ever fathom yourself asking? Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter broaches the subject with devastating results, showing the many ways in which one could lose their offspring and the pain and suffering it causes. But can that pain be tempered by a monetary settlement or a name being punished with a slap on the wrist? No, of course not. Vengeance will only feed your lust for blood; it will only make…

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