TIFF 2024 Coverage Day 1 & 2: OH, CANADA, THE SUBSTANCE, SATURDAY NIGHT & More

by Joel Edmiston

This is my first year covering the Toronto Film Festival with a press pass, but I am no stranger to this land. I worked for the festival as a production assistant for nine years. With that job came the perks of being able to watch as many movies as I could. My record is 25 movies in one festival. I plan to break that record.

In two days, I have already seen eight movies and, on Thursday, stood in a concession line in front of Johnny Knoxville. It’s all about stamina, which I have learned -- taking breaks when needed, knowing when to switch to decaf, setting alerts on my phone to remind me to eat and drink water between screenings (a trick I learned from Mike Flanagan’s Oculus).

Writing is a new animal, an animal I plan to wrestle for your pleasure, F This Movie readers. I have, in my life, been a comedian and the articles I’ve written for this site have been on the lighter side. However, since I am at a fancy film festival, I am trying my best to not write like the buffoon I am. I have so far refrained from simply writing “This thing just fuckin’ rips,” but over the course of this week, as I watch more and more movies and my brain melts with all the Coke Zero and hot dogs I’ve been consuming, and if I watch a movie that just fuckin’ rips, perhaps the buffoon will show his nasty head.

In this article, I have rounded up some thoughts on a handful of the films I saw in the first two days of the festival. I went a bit long on the first film I saw, but tried to keep to the point with the rest. I apologize for being so meta, but I am curious if these thoughts will be the most clear-headed ones you’ll get for the next week and a half or if my greenness in film-writing will come through and maybe I’ll become better and better at writing about this stuff through the fest. Stay with me folks.

Oh, Canada (2024)
Dir. Paul Schrader

This year, I began the festival properly…with our National Anthem. Well, actually, it’s a film that shares the title of my nation's favourite song, writer/director Paul Schrader’s latest drama, Oh, Canada. Schrader has once again made a character study of a complicated man, this time telling a story more vast than his recent works but which feels just as intimate.

There’s a couple reunions going on here. He has Richard Gere as his lead, 44 years after working with him on American Gigolo. Schrader is also once again adapting a novel by Russel Banks, his second after Affliction from 1997. Affliction, by the way, was shot in Canada, which is why it features many actors from Canadian television from the '90s, including Wayne Robson from everyone’s favourite, The Red Green Show (just an aside).

Richard Gere plays Leonard Fife, an ailing filmmaker recounting to a documentary crew of his former students his life leading up to his decision to leave America and start over in Canada, dodging not just the draft, but his whole life.

Fife is played in flashback by Jacob Elordi, who is perfectly cast as a young Gere. His effortless handsomeness and seeming unawareness of the effect his confidence has on others is reminiscent of Gere’s early work, including Schrader’s American Gigolo. Cutting back to Gere, sick and gray-skinned, is jarring almost every time. Elordi’s performance is muted, which lets the audience fill in what’s leading him to make his decisions, what kind of guy is he, what does he stand for -- clearly something.

Meanwhile, Gere is troubled and perturbed to have to tell his story, scowling and grumbling between supervised visits to the washroom (bathroom in Canadian). It begs the question: why is he telling this story? He has moved on, found ways to bury his regret, his guilt? Why is he digging it up now, in front of cameras and with a microphone taped to his lapel? That mystery is really what Schrader seems most interested in. The key to this is Leonard’s wife Emma, played by Uma Thurman. She is phenomenal in the role.

Due to Leonard’s deteriorating brain (and Schrader’s fascination with small details), many of his recollections are meandering, sometimes even frustrating as an audience member. The movie locks in whenever Thurman is onscreen. She is not only the most interesting character in the movie, but also makes Leonard more interesting. It left me wanting more exploration of the thirty years they spent together. She clearly has, similarly to Leonard, buried the truths about her husband’s past, some of which she could only guess about. There is a sense of betrayal from her as he confesses. She is protective of not only his legacy, but hers as well.

Canada is represented well here, particularly in the look of Leonard’s documentaries. It is reminiscent of things teachers made us watch in school or movies that would come on TVO (Television Ontario) after TVO Kids was over. There is also dialogue about Gemini awards and a grant from the CBC that had my audience tittering. Oh, Canada indeed…

Paying For It (2024)
Dir. Sook-Yin Lee

Co-writer/director Sook-Yin Lee’s Paying For It tells the true story of a man exploring a new life, paying for sex in early 2000s Toronto. There’s some juicy info that’s fun to know going into this one. Lee and her co-writer, Joanne Sarazen, have adapted this from Chester Brown’s graphic novel of the same name. Lee herself was Brown’s girlfriend, who broke up with him, spurring his journey into john-life, all of which is represented in this film. Full disclosure here: I know a lot of the actors in this movie, but it’s a great cast of Toronto actors and comedians. It’s one of the most Toronto movies I’ve seen in a while. It’s funny, sad, and thought-provoking. I kind of loved it.

Nutcrackers (2024)
Dir. David Gordon Green

As a fan of both David Gordon Green and Ben Stiller, I was excited to find out they made a movie together. Green has been all over the map with genres and his latest, Nutcrackers, finds him in a similar mode as he was with Prince Avalanche, somewhere between broad comedy and quiet drama (Michael Myers does not make an appearance here, nor does any sort of exorcist). I couldn't help but be a little let down by how well-trodden the territory he’s chosen to explore here is. Stiller plays an uptight businessman who is beckoned to his late sister’s farm to care for her 4 orphaned sons. It goes through all the cliches and I could list them, but one that was particularly eye-roll-inducing was the social worker played by Linda Cardelini who cares a lot about these boys and believes in Stiller’s character and the potential romance is written on the wall as soon as you meet her and she’s holding a clipboard. But listen, Siller is one of my guys. It’s great to see him back in this mode. Also, I am an uncle. I couldn’t help but be moved by a couple scenes.

The Luckiest Man in the World (2024)
Dir. Samir Oliveros

Paul Walter Hauser is excellent as a con artist-turned-game show contestant in Samir Oliveros’s The Luckiest Man in the World, a ripped-from-the-headlines period piece. Set mostly over the course of one crazy day on the set of the show Press Your Luck, Hauser plays a guy on a total heater, so hot it raises suspicion. The cast is stacked full of character actors including David Strathairn, Walton Goggins, Patti Harrison, the aforementioned in this article Johnny Knoxville, and Bill Pullman’s son Lewis. The standout of the supporting cast is Shamier Anderson as a producer who hates Hauser’s character the moment he lays eyes on him. It wasn’t until he walked onstage for the Q and A that I realized that he was The Tracker in John Wick 4. He is so damn good in that as well, playing a completely different character. I’m buying stock in that guy. This movie really runs out of steam by its final third. It becomes clear that the filmmakers have added scenes and elements that didn’t actually happen in the true story they’re telling. Compared to the events leading up to them, which feel very believable and lived in, these fabrications are very difficult to go along with. However, it played really well with my crowd and I can see it being a huge crowd pleaser when released.

The Substance (2024)
Dir. Coralie Fargeat

This one is for the sickos. Coralie Fargeat’s follow-up to 2016’s Revenge, The Substance has been one of the most talked about movies of these first two days of the fest. Anyone’s who has seen it just gives you a look when you tell them you’re going to see it. They grin at you and chuckle under their breath. I’ll be honest, this thing knocked me around like a rag doll. I view myself as a pretty big horror fan and this was at times so intense I had to feel my pulse. I walked out of that theatre in a daze. This doesn’t happen to me. Maybe I’ve already eaten too many hot dogs, but the movie definitely contributed.

I won’t say too much about the plot, as I knew next to nothing about it going in and it very much heightened the experience for me. All I’ll say is it’s a horror-satire about beauty standards in the entertainment industry starring Demi Moore as a Hollywood fitness star who starts taking a mysterious drug to reverse the effects of aging. I saw it at a press and industry screening, which I’ve been going to for years and are typically quite muted and tame audiences. This was the most raucous press screening I’ve ever been to. People yelling at the screen, applause, walk-outs, squirming -- a lot of squirming. It’s long, and it feels long, but I can’t complain about the length because it constantly tops itself with how far it goes with the body horror. The climax is horrifying. Demi Moore and Margaret Quallry give two knockout, movie-star performances that compliment each other ferociously. It’s extremely neat that they’ve taken a risk on such a crazed film like this. Best thing I’ve seen so far, easily. Sickos, mark your calendars and see this as soon as you can, but make sure you have a big bottle of water to chug when it’s done. You’ll need it.

Saturday Night (2024)

Dir. Jason Reitman

Jason Reitman has made movies I love, such as Young Adult and Up in the Air.  He also made a Ghostbusters film a few years ago that I believe is one of the worst movies of all time. Saturday Night has him in a mode that I like, one that I don’t think we’ve seen him in before. He’s going for the tone of Birdman, Hail, Caesar!, or Uncut Gems, where one guy is taking in a lot of different voices, all the responsibility is on his shoulders, and the audience feels the weight as it piles on more and more. I like all those movies, so I was on board for this one. The story of Saturday Night Live’s first show fits perfectly with this tone. However, the movie really comes to a halt whenever Reitman shows his reverence for its subjects. I would argue that we don’t really need to be reminded of how great that cast was -- we know they are -- but the movie is very in awe of them. The actors all do a great job, though. Dylan O’Brien as Aykroyd is a standout. His hybrid balance between impersonation and performance is impressive and I say all this even though O’Brien is American and we all know Aykroyd really should’ve been played by a Canadian. Gabriel Labelle is very easy to root for in the lead role, playing impresario Lorne Michaels. I’ve heard people complain he’s too young. He is only 22, but he’s Canadian and so is Lorne, so I’m happy.