INDEPTH: TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL
Annette, Neve and Nick
CBC News Online | September 9, 2004
This year's opening-night gala is Being Julia, which stars Annette Bening. It's a safe choice to kick off the festival – this is a breezy, mannered piece of work about a stage actress in the London of 1938 whose age is catching up with her.
Hmmm… an aging actress plays an aging actress? That's not much of a stretch, although the role does call for Bening to affect an accent. It also calls for her to say things like "Real actresses don't make films," thus winking at the audience without ever moving her eyes.
Actor Annette Bening smiles as she arrives at the gala screening of Being Julia at the Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto Thursday Sept. 9, 2004. Actor Warren Beatty is seen in background right. (CP PHOTO/Aaron Harris)
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Opening night at the Toronto International Film Festival, as you may or may not know, is always reserved for a high-profile film with a Canadian pedigree. Being Julia qualifies because it was produced by Canada's Robert Lantos, the filmmaker known as much for CanCon classics like In Praise Of Older Women as he is for his prickly responses when reporters ask him about the Canadian-ness of his productions.
The plot revolves around Bening's affair with a young American (Shaun Evans), an eager lad who is all "Gee!" and "Gosh!" and "Great!" on the surface, but who may also be harbouring ulterior motives. Many who see this film will enjoy the way pre-Second World War Britain is recreated in loving detail, but the real treat is how actors from the True North are used to fill out the cast. There's Bruce Greenwood and Sheila McCarthy, but not nearly enough of either. Even Moses Znaimer, he who used to be the driving force behind Citytv, has a cameo.
As you might predict, Maury Chaykin steals every scene that he's in, so let's hope when Bening composes her Oscar speech – and this movie is clearly Oscar bait for Mrs. Warren Beatty – she remembers the portly Canadian character actor.
Boy, that Neve Campbell sure has come a long way. Those of us with far-reaching memories can still recall a time, ages ago, when the best gig she could get was being an extra on The Kids In The Hall. Now she's blossomed into a Serious Actress.
Actor Neve Campbell arrives for the premiere of The Company during the Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto Monday Sept. 8, 2003. (CP PHOTO/Aaron Harris)
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How serious? Serious enough to collaborate with some of the best directors in the business; at last year's festival it was Robert Altman, and this year it's James Toback – the Altmanesque director behind such efforts as Black And White. If you saw that magnificent 1999 comedy, you'll have a good idea what to expect from his current movie, When Will I Be Loved.
Toback's new offering starts out as an exercise in improvisation and freewheeling intercutting before the plot gradually takes hold. Campbell plays Vera, a New York ingénue making her way in a world of dealmakers and social climbers. Just when you think things can't get more, um, Altmanesque, Campbell takes a walk through Central Park and bumps into Lori Singer, playing herself and talking about her role in Altman's Short Cuts. The snake isn't just eating its own tail here, it's feasting on it.
But the most pleasing scene by far is the one in which Campbell butts heads with an Italian media mogul played by Sopranos star Dominic Chianese. The verbal sparring between the rising star and the veteran performer is a delight, and it's at this moment that the audience begins to understand that Vera's heart really is made of ice.
It isn't Campbell, however, who gets the movie's most Canadian throwaway line – it's Chianese, who compares Glenn Gould to a Mercedes (all other pianists being mere Lincoln Town Cars). Do you think Campbell had anything to do with Gould getting a plug?
Oh yeah – there are also three sex scenes, not counting the opening-credits sequence in which a naked Neve masturbates in the shower. This ain't Party Of Five.
In the Canada/France/U.K. co-production Clean, Nick Nolte plays the same kind of character Peter Fonda brought to life so memorably in Ulee's Gold. Nolte's British Columbian grandfather is an emotional cripple, a man whose belief in forgiveness is tested by the overdose death of his rock-star son. Unfortunately, Nolte appears on screen only sporadically.
Actor Nick Nolte walks with the help of a cane as he arrives for the world premier of his new film The Good Thief at the Toronto International Film Festival on Friday, September 6, 2002. (CP PHOTO/J.P. Moczulski)
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The bulk of this movie rests on the shoulders of actress Maggie Cheung, who plays the rock star's girlfriend, a sort of Yoko Ono figure. Even though she appears in almost every scene, Clean comes to life only at those times when Cheung interacts with the cast's heavy hitters, notably Nolte. James Dennis, the boy who plays Cheung's precocious son, also pulls the best out of her.
What's worse, it's hard to have much sympathy for Cheung's Emily. Her big struggle in life is that she can't cope with being demoted from the ranks of rock royalty, and must get a real job. In other words, she hates having to be like the rest of us. "It's the life most people live," a friend tries to explain. So being an Average Josephine with a real job is some kind of curse?
As Cheung recovers from heroin addiction, the story shifts from Ontario to B.C. to Paris to London. In every new setting, director Olivier Assayas makes a point of reflecting the ambient lighting off Cheung's delicate features; near the beginning of the action, when Cheung shoots up in her car, she does so bathed in the industrial glow of Hamilton. Steeltown has never looked like it held more mysteries, the urban equivalent of Twin Peaks.
The lesson Clean teaches is that not every performer is equally adept at playing an emotional cripple. It's also a reminder that if you are trying to tell an unrelentingly grim story, moments of levity are crucial. This is why Don McKellar's presence in Clean's opening third is such a relief.
In fact, it leaves you wishing that a whole movie could be wrapped around McKellar and Nolte on their own.
Will such a movie ever be made? We can always dream.
Dan Brown will be attending the Toronto International Film Festival for its entirety, from Sept. 9 to 18. Throughout the festival he will bring you reports on the latest Canadian films. Read his dispatches and follow his comments by clicking on the links.
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Dan Brown is the site's senior arts editor/reporter. Before joining us he was a lineup editor and senior writer for Newsworld International. Dan helped to launch the National Post's Arts & Life section, where he was a columnist and reporter. A former editorial writer, copy editor and journalism instructor, Dan has degrees from three universities.
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