The back half of TIFF is a pleasant experience. Most press and industry have left town, Festival Street is a distant memory, and being after Labour Day, most people are at work during the day. Morning screenings in particular, though they do often fill up on that second Friday, come with a lot less stress. The streets are less crowded, and the halls of the Scotiabank are emptier. I like it. It’s the time in the festival when, generally speaking, the real work is done, and it all comes back to a question of what I feel like seeing at any given time.
It’s also the part of the festival that feels most like things are over, which means I end up having less patience for seeing films I might not be into. My focus on these days tends to be films that I either couldn’t make it to during the first few days, or had heard buzz about through the festival, giving me a heads-up about something I might like. There’s value in trying out smaller movies that nobody’s talking about, and I have in the past had great experiences with those, discovering cool new movies that may never come my way again. Just as often, though, what I get from those is a middling film dressed up in art movie trappings for festival audiences. Not exactly inspiring. Easier, then, to stick with what I’m quite sure I’ll like and just enjoy those last few days.
Waking up on Friday, I decided to finally hit up a screening of Chandler Levack’s Mile End Kicks, her second feature, the follow-up to I Like Movies, a charming debut that has found a real audience over the last couple of years. I liked I Like Movies, which admirably hinged its coming-of-age story on a protagonist who is, at least at times, a real jerk to the people around him. At the end of the film, the way he is not quite let off the hook for his poor treatment of his best friend, struck me as a bold, honest choice for a semi-autobiographical crowd-pleaser. Chandler’s new film pulls the same trick, but with even more deftness. Set in Montreal in 2011, the film follows a young music writer, Grace, who moves from Toronto in order to immerse herself in the Montreal scene while writing a 33 1/3 book about Alanis Morissette. A 20s coming-of-age movie. Mile End Kicks is open about the struggles of being that age and wanting to take on the world, while also running away from more difficult realities, and plunging oneself into a series of bad decisions. Grace is less of an outright asshole than Lawrence in I Like Movies, but the layers of her character allow for a more complex rendering of the same idea: that amid a storm of insecurity, a kind of narcissism takes hold. That Chandler is able to get that across in a fairly raw fashion, while still making a film that’s this charming, funny, and all-around enjoyable, is impressive. There’s a Hollywood version of this movie that sands off the rougher edges and is much worse for it. Instead, what we get is a movie with all the satisfactions of a certain strip of Hollywood storytelling, but a far more honest core.
After getting out of Mile End Kicks at the Scotiabank, I made my way down to the Lightbox to stand in a rush line for Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams. I hadn’t seen Bentley’s previous film, Jockey, though I’ve been meaning to. I also have yet to see Sing Sing, which he co-wrote with Greg Kewdar, who also shares screenplay credit on this new film. After seeing Train Dreams, I really must correct that. This is a beautiful, beautiful film. Based on the novella by Denis Johnson—another major blind spot for me—the film tells the story of a railroad worker and logger working in the Pacific Northwest during the very early decades of the twentieth century, spending months away from home, away from his wife and baby girl. With a wonderful sense of patience and beauty in nature, Train Dreams allows the weight of history—American, natural, global, cosmic—to sit on the shoulders of its protagonist, played by Joel Edgerton. This sense of import, and often doom, is contrasted with a remarkably intimate approach to character. The palpable vulnerability of Edgerton’s Robert Grainier, the depths of his emotional life, are incredible to see in a period film like this, and that extends to all the characters. They feel real. Not real because the costuming and dialogue are accurate, but real because they are written and performed to remind the audience that people 100 years ago were no different from us. They loved like us, and cried like us, and felt depression, and alienation, and pain, and aching longing.
Edgerton is incredible in the film, as are a slew of supporting turns from actors like William H. Macy and Kerry Condon. It looks absolutely gorgeous, just soaking up that mountainous forest landscape. But more than anything, Train Dreams is alive with the feeling of continuity, in both history and people. It’s a film about loss and struggle, but also “the newness of the experience,” those things in life that pull us forward, both into the future, and into a better place personally. Or at least a more peaceful place.
Ater Train Dreams, I tried out another film, and while not a bad film by any stretch, I was feeling like myday at TIFF was over, and my patience was wearing thin watching something I’d likely forget about a couple days later. Better close things out on Train Dreams, so about 20 minutes into the next one, I walked out, and went off to Grange Park to read a bit before heading to a non-TIFF movie event.
Up at the Paradise on Bloor, Drag Me to the Movies’ Weird Alice hosted the Toronto book launch for Will Sloan’s Ed Wood: Made in Hollywood USA, a critical study of the quote-unquote Worst Director of All Time. Ed Wood was not the worst director of all time, not by a long shot, but more than that, Will makes the case for understanding him as an artist whose work reflected his life in meaningful ways that lift his films to a genuine sort of greatness, despite their shoddy construction. None of his films is a better example than Glen or Glenda, which Will programmed at the Fox not too long ago, but which I was happy to see again. Not least because it was also an opportunity to pick up a copy of Will’s book—and get it signed! y’know, for the investment, as Will said during the introduction—which I’d missed the window on for an early delivery pre-order.
Book in hand, I hopped on a bike down to a friend’s place, where a kegger was happening. Like with an actual keg of beer. Like we were 19 again. It was a great time, and a great close to a pretty chill day at the Toronto International Film Festival.