Entertainment / Our Top Reasons Why We’re Excited About #TIFF2017

Our Top Reasons Why We’re Excited About #TIFF2017

Entertainment Sep 06, 2017

by Matthew Currie

The Toronto International Film Festival is once again upon us! Check out our top reasons why we’re excited about #TIFF2017.

Suburbicon

Directed by George Clooney and written by his frequent collaborators the Coen Brothers (Fargo, No Country for Old Men), one of the year’s most anticipated films stars Matt Damon as a 1950s family man who’s drawn into the dark underbelly of his idyllic community. There, betrayal, racism, criminal conspiracy and ruthless suburban self-interest await. The darkly comedic crime caper co-stars Julianne Moore and Oscar Isaac.

The Brawler

After making his mark on TIFF several years ago with his epic two-film crime saga Gangs of Wasseypur, prolific Indian director Anurag Kashyap returns to put his inimitable spin on the well-worn underdog boxing drama. Based on a true story, the movie follows a lower-caste boxer (Vineet Kumar Singh) who falls for a woman (Zoya Hussain), crosses a local match promoter and must fight for his life and his love.

Downsizing

TIFF is always a launchpad for the year’s Oscar heavyweights. The latest from Nebraska and The Descendants helmer Alexander Payne certainly qualifies. This one’s a long-gestating passion project for Payne. Here he delves into sci-fi for the first time, though he still seems poised to deliver an intimate, clever, deeply human exploration. Once again, the leading man is Damon (it’s going to be a big year for him, apparently). He stars as a chap who opts to participate in a unique, world-saving experiment. With overpopulation threatening to end life as we know it, Norwegian scientists offer a solution: conserve resources by shrinking people to 13 centimetres tall. Damon and his wife (Kristen Wiig) agree to be among the first guinea pigs — but when he goes through with it and she backs out at the last minute, an understandable rift opens in their marriage along with the door for a trenchant satire of modern America.

mother!

Speaking of films that will probably win Oscars, this mind-bending psychodrama is already electrifying the festival circuit. This latest flick from Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan, Requiem for a Dream) stars Jennifer Lawrence as a young, pregnant mother whose life is suddenly upended when her older husband (Javier Bardem), an acclaimed author, ignores her needs and opens their home to an array of strangers. As The Hollywood Reporter’s Todd McCarthy sums up, mother! is “a very Rosemary’s Baby–like intimate horror tale that definitely grabs your attention and eventually soars well over the top to make the bold concluding statement that, for some creators, art is more important than life.” Michelle Pfeiffer, Kristen Wiig, Domhnall Gleeson and Ed Harris also star.

Omertá

Director Hansal Mehta, the man behind the 2012 festival favourite Shahid, returns with another harrowing fact-based drama, unravelling the complex life story of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh (Rajkummar Rao), the man who, in 2002, kidnapped and killed Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. The film employs a “non-linear structure,” tracking its subject’s fraught progression from frustration to activism to terrorism.

Unicorn Store

Two years after taking TIFF by storm with her enthralling lead performance in Room, Oscar winner Brie Larson returns with her directorial debut. She comes bearing a comedy that she not only directs but also stars in. Larson takes on the role of a wayward young woman who finds herself drawn to a magical “store” where she’s given the opportunity to fulfill a lifelong dream of owning a unicorn — provided, of course, she can prove she’s worthy.

Molly’s Game

Another directorial debut sees Aaron Sorkin — the vaunted screenwriter behind such big- and small-screen hits as The West Wing, The Social Network and A Few Good Men — ,stepping behind the camera to tell the fact-based tale of Molly Bloom (Jessica Chastain), a former Olympic skier who went on to run “the world’s most exclusive high-stakes poker game” for actors, sports stars and titans of industry. Alas, a few Russian mobsters also made their way into the mix, leading to her downfall at the FBI’s hands. Also on board to tell the tale are heavy hitters Idris Elba, Kevin Costner, Michael Cera and Chris O’Dowd.

Victoria and Abdul

Dame Judi Dench anchors this recounting of the unlikely bond forged between Queen Victoria (Dench) and an obscure Indian chap named Abdul Karim (3 Idiots’ Ali Fazal). In 1887, Abdul unexpectedly found himself tasked with a key role in the Queen’s Golden Jubilee. Even more unexpectedly, his connection to the most powerful woman on Earth didn’t end there. Victoria took a liking to him, leading to a friendship that altered the monarch’s perspective on both her own life and the world — much to the court’s displeasure.

I, Tonya

Lars and the Real Girl director Craig Gillespie revisits one of the 1990s’ most infamous flashbulb moments, casting Suicide Squad’s Margot Robbie as disgraced figure skater Tonya Harding. During the 1994 Winter Olympics, Harding enlisted a man to break the leg of her competitor, Nancy Kerrigan. Robbie is one of Hollywood’s hottest talents, and Harding may represent the greatest chance she hasn’t yet been afforded to truly shine.

Main Image Photo Credit: tiff.net

Matthew Currie

Author

A long-standing entertainment journalist, Currie is a graduate of the Professional Writing program at Toronto’s York University. He has spent the past number of years working as a freelancer for ANOKHI and for diverse publications such as Sharp, TV Week, CAA’s Westworld and BC Business. Currie ...

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Our Top Reasons Why We’re Excited About #TIFF2017

by Matthew Currie

Matthew Currie

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