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| Mommy. Photo courtesy of TIFF. |
The annual question arises now that the Toronto
International Film Festival has announced its Canadian line-up: What film will
be Canada’s Oscar pick? That question, however, seems awfully redundant as we
approach the best launching pad for Canadian films and Oscar hopefuls alike on
the fall festival circuit. The real question for Canadian film fans and Oscar junkies
circa TIFF 2014 is really, “Can anything top Mommy?”
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| Evelyne Brochu in Tom at the Farm. Photo credit: Claire Palady / Les Films Séville. |
Speaking of Laurence
Anyways, Dolan film regular Monia Chokri is surprisingly absent from the
TIFF Canadian selections as her latest project, David Lambert’s All Yours (Je suis à toi), isn’t on the list. No TIFF boost probably means
that All Yours, which scored a Best
Actor prize at Karlovy Vary for Nahuel Pérez Biscayar earlier this summer, isn’t in the running.
All Yours has neither Canadian nor
American distribution though, and those two factors, especially the Canadian
distributor, are essential since the film needs to run in Canada for at least a
week before September 30th.
Canada’s non-Mommy
potentials actually seem stronger if one looks to last year’s festival
holdovers rather than to the potentials within the 2014 TIFF line-up. Sébastien
Pilot’s Le démantèlement is a lovely film with a poignant (and award-winning) central
performance by Gabriel Arcand. Robert Lepage and Pedro Pires’ Triptych
is a beautifully brainy opus. Maïna
is a well-intentioned facepalm with little claim to quality, but Canadians got behind
it during the Canadian Screen Awards when it hadn’t even screened in Canada or
at any of the qualifying festivals. (The awkward English voiceover also makes
it a tricky choice.) Daniel Grou’s Miraculum,
on the other hand, boasts an outstanding ensemble, but the film barely received
notice outside Quebec and it will probably have to content itself with trickle-down
interest for the performances of Mommy’s
director-actor combo of Dolan and Dorval. Dolan’s Tom at the Farm, finally, is a frequently effective psychological
thriller that might sit more easily with audiences than Mommy might thanks to the unusual restraint of Dolan’s signature
style.
All these films have probably maximized their theatrical
potential in Canada at this point, though, so their respective strengths have
considerable hurdles to pass if they want to be viable choices. Canada has only
sent one film that was old news to the Oscars in recent memory, which indicates
that the films listed above, as good as some of them are, probably aren’t
contenders. That one film with staying power, though, was Deepa Mehta’s Water and it earned a nomination for
Best Foreign Language Film of 2006 after opening in Canada in November 2005.
If those films are the long-shot contenders outside the TIFF
2014 selections, then here are four possible Canuck contenders that could make
a run for Oscar gold.
Mommy
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| Photo courtesy of TIFF. |
Dir. Xavier Dolan, Special
Presentations, Toronto Premiere
Release: Sept. 19 (Les Films Séville/eOne)
Synopsis: In a
fictional Canada, where a new law allows distressed parents to abandon troubled
children to the hospital system, Die Despres, a feisty widow, tries to cope
with Steve, her wild yet charming ADHD son. While they both try to make ends
meet and live under the same roof, Kyla, their mysterious neighbour, offers her
help. As Kyla’s heartwarming presence becomes increasingly intense, questions
emerge about her own mysterious life, and the way her destiny may ultimately be
linked to that of Steve and Die. Starring Anne Dorval, Suzanne Clément and
Antoine Olivier Pilon.
One contender clearly leads the pack. Mommy feels like a coronation of sorts for Xavier Dolan after his Cannes
Jury Prize earlier this year. The fact that Dolan got the third place prize
still feels a bit backhanded given the rapturous reception for Mommy over some of the other films in
the competition, but the film easily has some of the best buzz a Québécois film
has seen since Incendies. Critics
love the visual audacity of Mommy’s
1:1 aspect ratio and the reportedly powerhouse performances. The raves for Mommy keep on coming as it hits festivals
outside North American post-Cannes. Movie Mezzanine’s Tom Clift, for example, calls it “A stunningly affecting
piece of filmmaking” in his round up of the Sydney Film Festival. (Links to
rave Cannes reviews may be found here.)
Mommy’s Oscar
potential, which includes Best Actress dark horse Anne Dorval, looks even
better now that it has American distributor Roadside Attractions behind it.
Roadside previously repped Sarah Polley’s Stories
We Tell and they made a very strong bid for a Best Documentary Feature
Oscar nomination (despite snubbing Canadian critics in the awards campaign) despite
missing a nomination slot in a competitive year. Distribution, especially in
American, generally seems to be the obstacle that keeps Dolan’s films from
enjoying greater success—Tom at the Farm
hasn’t even hit the US yet and I Killed
My Mother took years to open in the States—so Roadside’s commitment to the
film (they’re bringing it to Telluride before TIFF) is enough to hint that Mommy will get the green light.
Tu dors Nicole
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| Photo credit: Sara Mishara / Les Films Séville |
Dir. Stéphane Lafleur, Contemporary World Cinema, Toronto
Premiere
Release:
August 22 (Les Films Séville; no US distrib)
Synopsis: Making
the most of the family home while her parents are away, 22-year-old Nicole is
enjoying a peaceful summer with her best friend, Véronique. When Nicole’s older
brother shows up with his band to record an album, their vacation takes an
unexpected turn and the girls’ friendship is put to the test. Amidst a rising
heat wave, Nicole’s insomnia — and romantic misadventures — mount each day. Tu
dors Nicole takes a humorous look at the beginning of adulthood and all its
possibilities. Starring Julianne Côté, Juliette Gosselin, and Marc-Andre
Grondin.
An under-the-radar alternative to Mommy lies in Stéphane Lafleur’s well-received Cannes’ hit Tu dors Nicole, which bowed on the
Croisette in the Directors’ Fortnight. Nicole
is Lafleur’s third feature after Familiar Grounds and Continental: A Film
without Guns, although he’s probably best known as the editor of 2011’s
Oscar nominee Monsieur Lazhar. Nicole
has her own share of reviews to match Mommy
with The Playlist giving it a full-on A, calling it the hidden gem of Cannes, and saying,
“it's a comedy that comes across as a sort of French-Canadian take on Frances
Ha, but also stands as its own unique, and equally brilliant, beast.”
The Hollywood Reporter also makes a Frances
Ha reference, raving that Lafleur “delivers an affecting, funny and
eccentric -- in the best sense of the word -- meditation on that in-between
state that people in their early twenties find themselves…”
Tu dors Nicole
sounds young and hip, but young and hip hardly characterizes the Academy’s
tricky relationship with films, especially foreign ones. Nicole’s charm therefore has some trouble when Mommy appeals to the same demographic, but also carries a Cannes
endorsement and a more recognizable name, although the film's producers are Kim McCraw and Luc Déry, who previously took Canada to the Oscar with Incendies and Monsieur Lazhar (and made a worthy bid last year with Gabrielle). (It's also curious that McCraw and Déry's latest appears in the comparatively less glamorous Contemporary World Cinema programme whereas their last four TIFF appearances have been in the Special Presentations bar.) These factors probably explain why Nicole’s producers are opening the film in Quebec on August 22. This date might help generate positive word
of mouth both to compete with Mommy
and to ensure that Nicole enjoys a
healthy theatrical run. The producers usually release their films following a
TIFF launch, so Nicole’s debut a
month before the usual Oscar announcement date gives additional distance to Mommy’s lead.
An Eye for Beauty (Le règne de la beauté)
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| Photo: Les Films Séville. |
Dir. Denys Arcand, Special Presentations, Toronto Premiere
Release: May 16 in Quebec (Les Films Séville/eOne)
Synopsis: Luc, a
talented young architect, lives a peaceful life with his wife Stephanie in the
stunning area of Charlevoix. He has a beautiful house, a pretty wife, dines
often with friends, plays golf and tennis, and goes hunting — leading a perfect
life, one might say. One day, he accepts to be a member of an architectural
jury in Toronto. There, he meets Lindsay, a mysterious woman who will turn his life
upside down. Starring Éric
Bruneau, Mélanie Thierry, Melanie Merkosky and Marie-Josée Croze.
It doesn’t say much when a Denys Arcand film opens quietly
in Quebec while everyone’s attention is trained on Cannes. Arcand, whose Barbarian Invasions won two prizes at
the fest and the 2003 Foreign Film Oscar for Canada, didn’t get the best
reviews of his career when his latest film debuted earlier this year. The infidelity
drama An Eye for Beauty has nowhere
near the chorus of boos akin to, say, Atom Egoyan’s The Captive, but most of the reviews are mildly negative to coolly indifferent.
Take The Montreal Gazette, which says, “We don’t feel the heat of the moment,
but rather the awkwardness of Arcand’s contrivance.” Ditto La Presse, which says that Arcand misfires by focusing on imagery, rather
than the wordplay that often serves as the highlight of his films. Voir
agrees and says in its tepid review that Arcand’s visual fascination with
Toronto is as lovely as it is annoying. A trend is clear.
Canada loves to send Arcand to the Oscars, though, so maybe
a better reception in Toronto will boost his chances. We even sent the abysmal Days of Darkness into the ring for 2007
and it (somehow) made the January short list. Arcand might therefore be the
safest bet among a relatively green field of contenders. Half of Canada’s
Foreign Film nominations bear his name and he still has our only win, and that trump
card never loses its appeal.
Probably not happening, but worth mentioning:
Corbo
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| Photo courtesy of TIFF. |
Dir. Mathieu Denis, Discovery, World Premiere
Release: TBA (Equinoxe Films)
Synopsis: Montréal,
1966. Jean Corbo, an idealistic 16-year-old of Québécois and Italian descent,
befriends two far-left political activists and joins the FLQ (Liberation Front
of Québec), an underground movement determined to spark a socialist revolution.
Jean thus begins an inextricable march toward his destiny. Starring Anthony
Therrien, Antoine L'Écuyer, Karelle Tremblay and Tony Nardi.
Corbo sounds and
looks the most promising of the Francophone World Premieres happening at the
fest this year. Few films dramatize the FLQ movement and the October Crisis, so
Corbo is a notable Canadian
production for its subject matter alone. It might therefore seem too local
given the specificity of its subject matter, especially since Canadian films tend
to be going global when using the Oscars to increase our profile. (And the support
from Mommy on the international front
is already significant, even if Dolan’s film contains Quebec vernacular.) If newcomer
Mathieu Denis stands out amongst a promising field of new Canadian directors,
then Corbo could potentially be in
the running, but probably not this year. Equinoxe Films also has Maïna in contention, so given the
relatively blind support for that film, I’d assume it’s the more likely bid of
the two unless it’s a big hit and they make some magic happen very quickly.
Add to this quartet of contenders three more non-Anglo TIFF
films: In Her Place, Felix and Maria, and Love in the Time of Civil War, the latter of which might gain the most
attention of the three since star Alexandre Landry (Gabrielle)
is one of TIFF’s Rising Stars this year. All three films sound promising and all of them have
Canadian distribution, but none for America. They seem like great discoveries
for the festival, but they could be too small for the awards front when a hefty
and long-awaited front-runner is finally hitting its home turf.
