TIFF20 REVIEW: Like a House on Fire [2020]

And then I ran out of air. Anxiety is high at the start of Jesse Noah Klein‘s Like a House on Fire. We hear Dara (Sarah Sutherland) breathing heavily in the bathroom of a train car before finding her seat. From there it’s a taxi and the not so confident stroll to a house’s front door—the laughter of a child behind its barrier stopping her in her tracks and forcing her to run across the street and hide as her breathing grows heavier yet again. She lowers herself even further…

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REVIEW: Never Steady, Never Still [2018]

I’m full of memories. I’m full of hope. I’m full of regrets. With a riveting central performance by Shirley Henderson as a woman dealing with advanced Parkinson’s, you wouldn’t be blamed for thinking Kathleen Hepburn‘s Never Steady, Never Still (adapted from her short of the same name) was simply about the tragedy of the disease. A different version of this story would probably go that route because it’s the “flashier” path towards recognition. The Vancouver native, however, decides to go further by delving beneath the surface by exposing the hardships…

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REVIEW: American Animals [2018]

Like what? The more you hear about privileged white kids shooting-up schools because they’re under such “debilitating” pressure alienating them from the “cool” kids, turn “alt-right” with a projection of hatred that stems from a hatred in themselves courtesy of a false notion that they’re somehow “special,” and find themselves acting out of boredom in an attempt to cry for help, the more you have to look at the over-arching issues: community, upbringing, parentage. Too often we hear “He was such a good boy” from family, friends, and pillars of…

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