TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL Comedy, drama, excess

Here's a look at some of the festival offerings.
By Milan Paurich
Vindicator Correspondent
TORONTO -- The most buzzed about flick at this year's Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) was the one that almost no one saw.
Marco Tullio Giordana's 6 1/2-hour "The Best of Youth" became the talk of the festival circuit in Cannes, where it was rapturously received by the international press and, shockingly, acquired (in a fit of corporate philanthropy?) by Miramax for domestic release.
How do you market a subtitled film in the United States that runs an ungodly 383 minutes?
For even the most dedicated journalist, squeezing in a movie of that length when your TIFF screening itinerary is already jam-packed with dozens of competing titles -- from a playing field of 336 -- felt like a foolhardy endeavor.
So, with apologies to Signor Giordana, here's a recap of what I did manage to see in nine typically overstuffed, chaotic days of sleep (and sensory) deprivation, audio-visual delight (and torture), and lots of vitamins and bad Canadian coffee.
4 STARS
"Code 46." Michael Winterbottom's dreamy, star-crossed futuristic romance starring Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton is good enough to be mentioned in the same breath as "Minority Report" and "Gattaca," the two best sci-fi movies of the past decade. Hopefully United Artists will have better luck marketing this than they did previous Winterbottom treasures like "24-Hour Party People" and "The Claim." I'm not holding my breath, though. (Four stars.)
"Dogville." After escaping from some sinister gangsters, Nicole Kidman (simply dazzling) is taken in by the inhabitants of a Depression-era Rocky Mountain mining town. Shot on a cavernous soundstage in Denmark with minimal props, Lars von Trier's rigorously stylized, tirelessly inventive three-hour Passion Play resembles a production of "Our Town" if Thornton Wilder's warhorse had been written by Bertolt Brecht. The amazingly eclectic cast includes Lauren Bacall, James Caan, Stellan Skarsgard, Paul Bettany and Patricia Clarkson. (Four stars.)
"Elephant." A Columbine-style high school massacre is the focus of Gus Vant Sant's absolutely staggering tour-de-force that won him the Golden Palm AND Best Director at Cannes. Van Sant's refusal to affix blame or even explain the random, senseless acts of violence committed by two seemingly ordinary teenage boys is precisely the film's point. After all, how do you rationalize tragedy? (Four stars.)
"The Fog of War." Groundbreaking documentarian Errol ("Mr. Death," "Gates of Heaven") Morris's utterly riveting portrait of former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara is his strongest, most important nonfiction work since 1988's "The Thin Blue Line." Morris was given extraordinary access to McNamara who, at the age of 87, is both remarkably lucid and astonishingly candid about his controversial past. (Four stars.)
"In the Cut." In the performance of her career, Meg Ryan plays a New York school teacher who discovers the dark side of passion when she becomes involved with the tough homicide cop (a terrific Mark Ruffalo) investigating a series of neighborhood murders. Based on Susanne Moore's best-seller, this psychological thriller from "Piano" director Jane Campion is disturbing, unabashedly erotic, and, thanks to some scorching scenes between Ryan and Ruffalo, guaranteed to generate a storm of controversy when Sony releases it in late October. (Four stars.)
"Lost in Translation." Sofia Coppola follows up "The Virgin Suicides," her critically acclaimed '00 directorial debut, with this masterful, achingly lovely tale about a washed-up movie star (Bill Murray in a performance that deserves to be remembered at Oscar time) who befriends an American newlywed (Scarlett Johnansson) while shooting a whiskey ad campaign in Tokyo. The Japanese setting is apt since Coppola's remarkable achievement is a lot closer to a cinematic haiku than it is to current Hollywood or even indie fare. (Four stars.)
3 STARS
"Bright Young Things." A group of high society gadflies traipse across 1930s London, seemingly oblivious to the threat of World War II. Adapted from Evelyn Waugh's early novel "Vile Bodies," actor and author Stephen Fry's enthusiastically received directing debut featured the festival's most glittery cast (including Peter O'Toole, Jim Broadbent, Emily Mortimer, Dan Aykroyd and Stockard Channing). Co-produced by the very busy Michael Winterbottom who directed two stellar TIFF entries himself. (Three-and-a-half stars.)
"Out of Time." Respected Florida police chief Denzel Washington races to solve a double homicide before becoming a suspect himself. A nice return to form for director Carl Franklin after last year's dismal "High Crimes," this stylish and assured commercial thriller favorably recalls Sunshine State noir classic "Body Heat." Former TV Superman Dean Cain is first-rate as a really bad dude. (Three stars.)
"School of Rock." After getting kicked out of his band, incorrigible Jack Black gets hired as a substitute fourth grade teacher at a snooty private school. Once there, he turns a bunch of pampered, overachieving nerds into rock-and-roll savants. Cult director Richard ("Dazed and Confused") Linklater's smart and funny bid for mainstream success looks to be an almost certain hit when it's released next month. (Three stars.)
"Shattered Glass." True story of Stephen Glass ("Attack of the Clones" star Hayden Christensen), the celebrated journalist who fell from grace when it was discovered that he'd fabricated 27 of 41 articles for The New Republic. Strong stuff compellingly done, and with a performance by Christensen that proves what a fine young actor he is when working with someone other than George Lucas. Produced by Tom Cruise. (Three stars.)
"The Singing Detective." While languishing in a hospital bed with a nasty case of psoriasis, Robert Downey Jr. maps out a screenplay in his head about a cynical private eye who doubles as a dance band singer. This bold, vividly acted, and immensely entertaining American reimagining of Dennis Potter's legendary BBC miniseries flopped at Sundance but looked just fine at TIFF. Producer Mel Gibson plays Downey's shrink. (Three-and-a-half stars.)
"The Station Agent." A dwarf train aficionado (Peter Dinklage), a Cuban-American hot dog vendor (Bobby Cannavale), and a kooky artist (Patricia Clarkson) form an unlikely friendship in the sleepy little burg of Newfoundland, New Jersey. Winner of the Sundance Audience Award, director Tom McCarthy's small-scaled, beautifully observed debut is a wisp of a movie with a very big heart. (Three-and-a-half stars.)
"21 Grams." The destinies of three strangers -- a college professor suffering from cardiac disease; a reformed party girl turned housewife-mother; and a born-again ex-con -- collide in "Amores Perros" director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's first American film. Although the screenplay is a tad schematic (we know exactly where it's headed 45 minutes in) and Inarritu hits the same note of grim despair once too often, lead actors Sean Penn, Naomi Watts and Benicio Del Toro are all spectacular. Watts finally lives up to her "Mulholland Drive" promise with the year's most unforgettable performance. (Three-and-a-half stars.)
"Wonderland." This seamy, true-crime melodrama about L.A.'s infamous 1981 "Wonderland Murders" in which faded porn king John C. Holmes (a career revitalizing turn by Val Kilmer) became a prime suspect plays like a compulsively watchable episode of "E! True Hollywood Story." It's a kick watching hot young actors like Josh Lucas, Lisa Kudrow and "Blue Crush" surfer chick Kate Bosworth get down-and-dirty in their scumbag roles. No sex or nudity, but the bloody violence is sickeningly off-the-charts. (Three-and-a-half stars.)
2 STARS
"The Cooler." Until it overdoses on hokey melodrama and cheap irony in the final reel, director Wayne Kramer's feature debut is a nicely atmospheric, Vegas-set character study of two losers (William H. Macy and Maria Bello) who beat the odds and find love. As a feral casino boss, Alec Baldwin delivers an Oscar-caliber performance. (Two-and-a-half stars.)
"Dallas 362." Terminal screw-ups Scott Caan and Shawn Hatosy bungle their way through life on Los Angeles' mean streets. Caan's not unpromising writing-directing debut is ultimately undone by a lack of narrative focus and protagonists who don't add up. Flavorful dialogue and decent performances, though, particularly by Hatosy who's on the verge of major stardom. (Two stars.)
"Pieces of April." Katie Holmes is persuaded by live-in boyfriend Derek Luke ("Antwone Fisher") to invite her estranged suburban family over for Thanksgiving dinner at their grungy Manhattan walk-up. Clocking in at a scant 80 minutes, this charming and winningly performed ensemble dramedy (Patricia Clarkson and Oliver Platt play Holmes's mom and dad) feels curiously incomplete. It's as though the producers ran out of money before they finished the movie. (Two-and-a-half stars.)
"Veronica Guerin." Directed by Joel ("Phone Booth") Schumacher, this fact-based account of the titular Irish journalist (Cate Blanchett) assassinated by drug dealers was one of TIFF's biggest letdowns. Except for a dynamic cameo by Schumacher muse Colin Farrell, it's strictly dullsville all the way. A less glossy, if more compelling version of the same story was filmed previously with Joan Allen as Guerin. (Two stars.)
1 STAR
"The Brown Bunny." A man drives -- very slowly -- across America searching for his lost love. The end. Stripped of thirty minutes since its infamous Cannes premiere where it got hooted off the screen, director-writer-producer-editor-cinematographer-star Vincent Gallo's gargantuan ego-trip remains an unreleasable fiasco. Not even a late inning hardcore sex scene between Gallo and poor Chloe Sevigny could rouse an A.M. press screening audience out of its stupor. (One star.)
"The Company." Is this positively insipid behind-the-scenes ballet drama starring "Party of Five"/"Scream" ingenue Neve Campbell the worst Robert Altman film ever? Or does it just seem that way after the director's sublime "Gosford Park" two years ago? Either way, this deadly dull collaboration between Altman and the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago will appeal only to balletomanes thanks to some fluidly shot performance footage that only makes the off-stage "action" seem that much punier. "The Red Shoes" it's not (One-and-a-half stars.)
The Grudge." The only remarkable thing about this creakily-paced Japanese ghost story -- done without any particular style, wit or ingenuity -- is that Sam Raimi ("Spider-Man") has chosen to produce an American remake of it. More silly than spooky, it's nothing we haven't seen before -- or better. (One-and-a-half stars.)
"The Human Stain." An affair with a troubled janitor (Nicole Kidman) has devastating consequences for ex-college professor Anthony Hopkins in Robert ("Places in the Heart," "Kramer vs. Kramer") Benton's spectacularly misconceived Philip Roth adaptation. This Miramax Oscar wannabe was TIFF's biggest disaster, thanks in large part to the berserk miscasting of Hopkins as a black man passing as a Jew. This plays like an irony-free cross between 1940s chestnut "Gentlemen's Agreement" and Douglas Sirk's immortal weepy "Imitation of Life." (One star.)
Foreign Films
"In This World." The second Michael Winterbottom movie at TIFF was this digitally shot wonder about two refugees from Pakistan attempting to make their way to London. Winterbottom combines the ethnographic appeal of Iranian landscape movies with a Western adventure film's vibrating pulse. The result -- which won Winterbottom the Golden Bear at February's Berlin Film Festival -- is revelatory. (Four stars.)
"Intermission." The little Irish movie that Colin Farrell managed to squeeze in between his recent Hollywood blockbusters was one of TIFF's most heatedly debated films. First-time director John Crowley's Dublin-set ensemble piece references everyone, including Robert Altman, Quentin Tarantino, Mike Leigh and Danny Boyle, yet still remains a complete original. Farrell's bravura turn as a vicious hoodlum is scarily effective. (Four stars.)
"Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself." Chronically depressed Wilbur (star-in-the-making Jamie Sives) and taciturn older brother Harbour (Adrian Rawlins) compete for the affections of the same woman ("Intermission" scene-stealer Shirley Henderson) in the first English-language effort from "Italian for Beginners" director Lone Scherfig. Set in perennially overcast Glasgow, Scherfig's bittersweet charmer casts the same moonstruck glow as Bill ("Housekeeping," "Gregory's Girl") Forsyth's melancholy character comedies. (Four stars.)
"The Barbarian Invasions." Family members and lifetime friends gather around a cancer patient's bedside during his final days. Tartly sardonic rather than touchy-feely, Montreal native Denys Arcand's impeccably acted semi-sequel to his Oscar-nominated "The Decline of the American Empire" was a smart, crowd-pleasing choice as TIFF's opening night film. (Three-and-a-half stars.)
"Bon Voyage." 1940 France is the rich setting for this sumptuously produced, vastly entertaining movie-movie by Jean-Paul Rappeneau, director of art house hits "Cyrano de Bergerac" and "Horseman on the Roof." Playing a vain, spoiled actress navigating the treacherous waters of her country's new Vichy government, Isabelle Adjani shines in a rare comedic turn. With stellar support from Gerard Depardieu and Virginie Ledoyen, this looks like another box-office winner for Rappeneau when Sony Classics releases it next March. (Three-and-a-half stars.)
"Danny Deckchair." Rhys Ifans and Miranda Otto who previously teamed for Charlie Kaufman's underrated "Human Nature" make a charming couple in this daft screwball romance that never makes the mistake of italicizing its quirkiness. While director Jeff Balsmeyer's sweet modern-day fable reminded me of previous "seize-the-day" cult staples like "Harold and Maude" and "King of Hearts," this is probably too slight to go anywhere commercially outside its native Australia. (Three stars.)
"Distant." In Istanbul, a middle-aged photographer's life is thrown into a tizzy when his unemployed country cousin pays an extended visit. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize in Cannes, Turkish critic's darling Nuri Bilge Ceylan's poetic meditation on spiritual dislocation and loneliness is spare, eloquent, haunting, and so deliberately paced you might nod off before it's over. (Three stars.)
"Girl With the Pearl Earring." Based on Tracy Chevalier's acclaimed novel, director Peter Webber's immensely accomplished first film details the erotically charged but unconsummated relationship between 17th century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer (Colin Firth) and the young maidservant (Scarlett Johansson) who became his most famous model. Thanks to world-class cinematographer Eduardo Serra (Oscar-nominated for 1997's "Wings of the Dove"), this actually looks like a Vermeer painting. (Three-and-a-half stars.)
"Les Triplettes de Belleville." As quintessentially French as Wallace and Gromit are distinctly British, Sylvain Chomet's wackily surreal 'toon is the movie Jean-Pierre Jeunet of "Amelie" and "Delicatessen" fame would make if he tried his hand at animation. (Three-and-a-half stars.)
"Nathalie." When Fanny Ardant suspects that husband Gerard Depardieu has been cheating on her, she hires prostitute Emmanuelle Beart to seduce him, then pumps the working girl for all the sordid details. Anne Fontaine's provocative look at a marriage in crisis is so frank about sex and grown-up sexuality that it practically screams "French art film." Not that there's anything wrong with that. (Three-and-a-half stars.)
"Young Adam." Ewan McGregor does a lot of shagging in this bleak neo-noir about an unrepentant rogue in 1950s Scotland whose libido gets him into a heap of trouble. Thanks to director David MacKenzie's experiments with narrative chronology, this reminded me of Nicolas Roeg's sexy 1970s puzzle movies like "Don't Look Now." (Three stars.)
"Kitchen Stories." A Swedish home science company hires corporate drone Folke (poker-faced Tomas Norstrom) to observe the kitchen habits of typical Norwegian male Isak (Joachim Calmeyer). Before too long, the men start adapting each other's tics, habits and idiosyncrasies, forging an odd couple comradeship. Director Bent Hamer's bone-dry, slavishly whimsical international hit might catch on as a cult item stateside, but you probably have to be Swedish to locate the laughs. (Two stars.)
"Rosenstrasse." German New Wave pioneer Margarethe von Trotta examines another side of the Holocaust in this overlong, awkwardly structured film about a WW II detention center that housed German Jews married to Aryan women. By continually switching back and forth between an uninvolving present-day narrative and 1943 Berlin, von Trotta shoots herself in the foot. What should have been unbearably moving is instead remote and fatally abstract. (Two stars.)
"The Saddest Music in the World." As a promotional sales gimmick during the Great Depression, beer baroness Isabella Rossellini hosts a global competition to find "the saddest music in the world." Canadian visionary Guy ("Careful") Maddin's visually dazzling but dramatically malnourished curio is, regrettably, more interesting to talk about than it is to watch. Maddin, whose short film "The Heart of the World" was a highlight of TIFF '00, still remains a formidable talent despite this disappointing effort. (Two stars.)
"I'll Sleep When I'm Dead." Murky British gangster revenge drama fatally crippled by a total lack of urgency. Director Mike Hodges and star Clive Owen previously teamed up for the vastly superior "Croupier" three years ago. Not even nuanced support from Charlotte Rampling, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers and Malcolm McDowell could salvage this nonstarter. (One-and-a-half stars.)
"Time of the Wolf." Isabelle Huppert reteams with her "Piano Teacher" director Michael Haneke for this turgid post-apocalyptic fantasy in which an unpleasant group of Parisians squabble noisily amongst themselves after being stranded in the woods. Halfway through this snooze-fest I began hoping that the brain-munching zombies from "28 Days Later" would materialize and barbecue these whiners for lunch. (One-and-a-half stars.)
"Twentynine Palms." An American man and a woman from Eastern Europe, neither of whom speaks the other's language, take an erotic journey into the California desert. Until the jarring final reel which quotes "Duel," "Easy Rider," "Deliverance" and even "Psycho," absolutely nothing of consequence occurs in this stultifying indulgence. Sadly, this was directed by the brilliant young French director Bruno Dumont whose "Humanity" placed No. 4 on my 2000 best list. The "feel-rotten" movie of the festival. (One star.)