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Plenty of Star Power as Toronto Film Fest Opens

The Roy Thompson Hall, one of the main venues for the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on September 5, 2024. (Photo by VALERIE MACON / AFP)
The Roy Thompson Hall, one of the main venues for the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on September 5, 2024. (Photo by VALERIE MACON / AFP)
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Plenty of Star Power as Toronto Film Fest Opens

The Roy Thompson Hall, one of the main venues for the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on September 5, 2024. (Photo by VALERIE MACON / AFP)
The Roy Thompson Hall, one of the main venues for the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on September 5, 2024. (Photo by VALERIE MACON / AFP)

Hollywood's A-list stars are convening in Toronto for North America's largest film festival -- a 10-day extravaganza of Oscar bait movies, timely documentaries and glamour that opens Thursday.

This year marks a return to form for the event, after twin strikes by actors and writers kept top talent from promoting their work here last year. Though the 2023 lineup of films was starry, the red carpets were not, in line with union protocols.

This time around, Jennifer Lopez, Angelina Jolie, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Salma Hayek, Cate Blanchett and Nicole Kidman are just some of the boldfaced names expected in Canada's biggest city to unveil new projects.

"Toronto is known for its audience excitement, and that excitement reaches a fever pitch when the biggest stars in the world are here," Cameron Bailey, the CEO of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), told AFP.

"We're glad that we are having a festival without some of the constraints of last year, although I do think we were able to do the very best we could given the circumstances."

Ben Stiller kicks it off late Thursday with family dramedy "Nutcrackers," his first film in seven years, about a Chicago real estate developer who must head to Ohio to care for his four nephews when tragedy strikes his sister's family.

Ron Howard's super-secret "Eden," a survival film set in the Galapagos islands and starring Ana de Armas and Sydney Sweeney, is among the other closely awaited world premieres in Toronto. The film debuts on Saturday.

Fresh off the Venice success of her portrayal of opera legend Maria Callas in "Maria," Jolie comes to Toronto with her latest directorial effort -- "Without Blood," a tale of early 20th-century family and revenge starring Hayek.

In all, there are a whopping 278 films on the slate, and while Bailey said it was too difficult to name his favorites, he did say it was a "particular honor" to host the world premiere of British director Mike Leigh's latest work, "Hard Truths."

John and Springsteen will be in town with new documentaries about their epic careers -- and they are just some of the recording industry royalty expected to hit the red carpet.

Andrea Bocelli, Robbie Williams, Paul Anka, and singer, producer and fashion designer Pharrell Williams are also due to appear at screenings of new films about their personal and professional lives.

Bailey said the music-heavy programming started as a "crazy accident" and then "just began to kind of gather its own momentum."

"We couldn't turn one way or another without finding another movie that was really infused with music. And we decided, 'We're going to give in'." he told AFP.

Among other documentaries on tap are "The Last Republican," about former US congressman Adam Kinzinger and his break with his own party, and "Men of War," about a wild 2020 attempt to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

TIFF is part of a fall flurry of film festivals, along with Venice and Telluride, that preview the movies pundits and producers believe will vie for Oscars glory.

But the Toronto event -- where screenings are open to paying customers, not just media and industry insiders -- also showcases feel-good crowd pleasers such as "Nutcrackers" and "The Wild Robot," the latest from DreamWorks Animation.

And there is a crop of inspirational true-story sports dramas on the schedule, including "Unstoppable," about a college wrestler (Jharrel Jerome) without a right leg who dreamed of going pro. Lopez co-stars as the boy's mother.

Also making its world premiere is "The Fire Inside," about boxer Claressa Shields's journey to Olympic gold.

TIFF runs from Thursday through September 15.

On the event's final day, the People's Choice Award -- voted for by audiences -- is handed out.

It has become something of an early Oscars bellwether, predicting eventual Academy Award best picture winners such as "Nomadland" and "Green Book."

Last year's winner was "American Fiction," which went on to earn five Oscar nominations, and win the statuette for best adapted screenplay.

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Entertainment

Movie Review: Coon, Olsen and Lyonne Await a Father’s Death in ‘His Three Daughters’ 

This image released by Netflix shows, from left, Elizabeth Olsen, Carrie Coon and Natasha Lyonne in a scene from "His Three Daughters." (Netflix via AP)
This image released by Netflix shows, from left, Elizabeth Olsen, Carrie Coon and Natasha Lyonne in a scene from "His Three Daughters." (Netflix via AP)
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Movie Review: Coon, Olsen and Lyonne Await a Father’s Death in ‘His Three Daughters’ 

This image released by Netflix shows, from left, Elizabeth Olsen, Carrie Coon and Natasha Lyonne in a scene from "His Three Daughters." (Netflix via AP)
This image released by Netflix shows, from left, Elizabeth Olsen, Carrie Coon and Natasha Lyonne in a scene from "His Three Daughters." (Netflix via AP)

Death isn’t like it is in the movies, a character explains in “His Three Daughters.” Elizabeth Olsen’s Christina is telling her sisters, Katie (Carrie Coon) and Rachel (Natasha Lyonne), a story about their father, who became particularly agitated one evening while watching a movie on television in the aftermath of his wife’s passing.

It’s not exactly a fun memory, or present, for any of them. This is, after all, also a movie about death.

The three women have gathered in their father’s small New York apartment for his final days. He’s barely conscious, confined to a room that they take shifts monitoring as they wait out this agonizingly unspecific clock. But even absent the stresses of hospice, tensions would be high for Christina, Katie and Rachel, estranged and almost strangers who are about to lose the one thread still binding them. Taken together, it’s a pressure cooker and a wonderful showcase for three talented actors.

Writer-director Azazel Jacobs has scripted and filmed “His Three Daughters,” streaming Friday on Netflix, like a play. The dialogue often sounds more scripted than conversational (except for Lyonne, who makes everything sound her own); the locations are confined essentially to a handful of rooms in the apartment, with the communal courtyard providing the tiniest bit of breathing room.

Jacobs drops the audience into the middle of things, dolling out background and information slowly and purposefully. Coon’s Katie gets the first word, a monologue really, about the state of things as she sees it and how this is going to work. She’s the eldest, a type-A ball of anxiety, the mother of a difficult teenage daughter and the type of person who can barely conceal either disappointment or deep resentment.

Katie also lives in Brooklyn, not far from her father, but rarely ever visited. Caretaking duties were left to Lyonne’s Rachel, an unemployed stoner who never left home, likes to bet on football games and is poised to inherit the apartment – to the not-so-subtle resentment of her sisters. The youngest is Christina, a head-in-the-clouds, conflict averse yogi and Grateful Dead follower who lives across the country and has had to leave her 3-year-old for the first time.

Jacobs is unafraid of allowing both drama and humor to coexist, to seep into moments unexpectedly. There is an undeniable absurdity to the act of writing an obituary for a loved one in a fraught time like hospice that actually captures a life and a person and doesn’t sound like a laundry list of biographical facts and positive attributes. Add to that the fact that Katie is also frantically trying to get a medical professional to the apartment to witness a DNR order. The women are torn in premature grief, wanting him to stay alive but also go quickly.

They’re all richly drawn and perfectly mysterious too, even to themselves; Jacobs is too smart and attuned to how humans are to give anyone a simple, straightforward explanation. Everyone is making assumptions about others — many of them are wrong, or, at the very least misguided. Coon, with her booming, theatrical voice, is particularly suited playing this slightly terrifying, massively judgmental perfectionist. Lyonne, so good at cool deflection, gets to use that otherworldliness to hit a different kind of note: quiet heartbreak. And Olsen, playing a character, really shines in her non-verbal choices: A reaction, a moment alone that she doesn’t know is being observed. It won’t be surprising if any or all get some recognition this awards season (unfortunately in a system that is uniquely ill-equipped to fete small ensembles with three leads).

There are some movies that die quiet deaths on streaming-first (this did receive a bit of a theatrical run), but “His Three Daughters” is one that seems right on Netflix just for its ability to reach a larger audience than it would stand a chance to at the multiplex. It’s never not riveting watching it all unfold, even with the temptation of the phone nearby. Whether you make it a solo viewing experience or a group one might have everything to do with your own relationship with family members.

And to that initial indictment about movies not getting death right? It’s still probably true. But movies like “His Three Daughters” might help us all make a little bit more sense of the inevitable.