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Toronto Film Fest, Day Three
Another day, another mixed bag. Oh, and Orlando Bloom's squeeing fangirls delayed the start of the midnight screening of The Machinist by 45 minutes. Bloody Orli. Apologies to any Orli fans on my flist.
Title: In My Father's Den
Director: Brad McGann
Country: New Zealand/U.K.
P's Rating: Not-so-good
This was one of the films I was most looking forward to, so it was a major disappointment to find I didn't much care for it. Matthew MacFadyen (of Spooks/MI-5) plays a war photographer who returns to his hometown in New Zealand for his father's funeral. He ends up staying and working as an English teacher in the local high school. He also strikes up a friendship with the daughter of his old girlfriend,who may, or may not, be his daughter. MacFadyen is great, as I'd expected, and the central relationship between him and the girl is extremely well drawn. My two big problems with it are the structure and the plot. The filmmaker's have chosen to wrap a big murder mystery plot around the whole thing that it really could have done without, and the construction of the whole thing is stuttered and halting. (Mind you, it's not nearly as bad a After the Day Before, so I suppose I should be grateful.) Still, my feeling at the end was frustration for what could have been.
Title: Enduring Love
Director: Roger Michell
Country: U.K.
P's Rating: Okay
Roger Michell's adaptation of Persuasion is one of my all-time favourite movies, so I always look forward to seeing what he's done. This time, it's an adaptation of an Ian McEwan novel, and that should have been my first warning bell. (Another McEwan adaptation, The Cement Garden is one of my most-hated film fest experiences ever.) The story starts when university prof Joe (Daniel Craig) takes his girlfriend Claire (Samantha Morton) to the country for a picnic. His attempt at a proposal is halted when a hot air balloon runs into difficulties and Joe and a number of other men try to come to the rescue of the boy trapped in it. One of the would-be rescuers is killed, while Joe catches the notice of Jed (Rhys Ifans). Jed develops and obsessive love for Joe and takes to stalking him, resulting in much emotional messiness and, eventually, violence. Michell's direction is as well-measured as always and the acting is top-notch, but in the end, it's just another silly stalker movie with the trappings of being a meditation on the nature of love. (I don't know what Joe's a prof of exactly, but he's always delivering rants to his students on how love is just biology.) I'm giving it an Okay rating for the direction and the action, but otherwise I can't entirely recommend it.
Title: The Machinist
Director: Brad Anderson
Country: Spain
P's Rating: Highly Recommeded
This is the film for which Christian Bale famously dropped 55 pounds from his already trim frame. He plays Trevor Reznik, a machinist in a factory who's year long bout with insomnia has seen all the flesh shed from his bones. As he drifts further and further into the land of the unwell, he's beset by hallucinations that have a very real effect on the world around him. Shot in an extremely washed-out palette, the film has the feeling of a dream drifting increasingly into nightmare. Really good stuff.
Title: In My Father's Den
Director: Brad McGann
Country: New Zealand/U.K.
P's Rating: Not-so-good
This was one of the films I was most looking forward to, so it was a major disappointment to find I didn't much care for it. Matthew MacFadyen (of Spooks/MI-5) plays a war photographer who returns to his hometown in New Zealand for his father's funeral. He ends up staying and working as an English teacher in the local high school. He also strikes up a friendship with the daughter of his old girlfriend,who may, or may not, be his daughter. MacFadyen is great, as I'd expected, and the central relationship between him and the girl is extremely well drawn. My two big problems with it are the structure and the plot. The filmmaker's have chosen to wrap a big murder mystery plot around the whole thing that it really could have done without, and the construction of the whole thing is stuttered and halting. (Mind you, it's not nearly as bad a After the Day Before, so I suppose I should be grateful.) Still, my feeling at the end was frustration for what could have been.
Title: Enduring Love
Director: Roger Michell
Country: U.K.
P's Rating: Okay
Roger Michell's adaptation of Persuasion is one of my all-time favourite movies, so I always look forward to seeing what he's done. This time, it's an adaptation of an Ian McEwan novel, and that should have been my first warning bell. (Another McEwan adaptation, The Cement Garden is one of my most-hated film fest experiences ever.) The story starts when university prof Joe (Daniel Craig) takes his girlfriend Claire (Samantha Morton) to the country for a picnic. His attempt at a proposal is halted when a hot air balloon runs into difficulties and Joe and a number of other men try to come to the rescue of the boy trapped in it. One of the would-be rescuers is killed, while Joe catches the notice of Jed (Rhys Ifans). Jed develops and obsessive love for Joe and takes to stalking him, resulting in much emotional messiness and, eventually, violence. Michell's direction is as well-measured as always and the acting is top-notch, but in the end, it's just another silly stalker movie with the trappings of being a meditation on the nature of love. (I don't know what Joe's a prof of exactly, but he's always delivering rants to his students on how love is just biology.) I'm giving it an Okay rating for the direction and the action, but otherwise I can't entirely recommend it.
Title: The Machinist
Director: Brad Anderson
Country: Spain
P's Rating: Highly Recommeded
This is the film for which Christian Bale famously dropped 55 pounds from his already trim frame. He plays Trevor Reznik, a machinist in a factory who's year long bout with insomnia has seen all the flesh shed from his bones. As he drifts further and further into the land of the unwell, he's beset by hallucinations that have a very real effect on the world around him. Shot in an extremely washed-out palette, the film has the feeling of a dream drifting increasingly into nightmare. Really good stuff.
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The director said that Bale's wife was keeping close tabs on him to make sure he wasn't killing himself with the weight loss, and would even check to make sure he was still breathing in the middle of the night. Scary stuff.
Part of the reason I love Bale so is that he throws himself completely into a role, but he certainly went above the call for this one.