TIFF usually front-loads the festival with all its high-profile, A-list films, and then things kind of fizzle out as the week goes on. In picking my screenings for 2011, I worked in the opposite direction: I had only a smattering of films over the first eight days, and then a jam-packed final weekend.
I began my Saturday with The Awakening (6/8), a good old-fashioned ghost story starring Rebecca Hall as Florence Cathcart, a skeptic and debunker of the paranormal in 1920s London, England. Now, let the record show that, like the screening of Your Sister's Sister, I chose this film based solely on the fact that it featured Rebecca Hall -- whom I find immensely appealing and entirely charming -- in a lead role. It was only when I decided to read the actual plot synopsis (all I could remember was that the plot had something to do with an investigation at a boarding school) that I learned I'd signed up for a scary movie.
Oh, dear.
I'm generally not a fan of movies about ghosts, but I remember having the same concerns when I went to see Belén Rueda in The Orphanage back at TIFF 2007 and being pleasantly surprised at how not scary that film actually was, so I hoped for an equally non-traumatizing experience.
Happily, though über-creepy and chilling and overflowing with atmosphere, The Awakening relies more on implied scary things than actual scary things… and it totally works. The story follows Florence after she's called to a countryside boys' school to investigate stories from the students, who report seeing a preteen spectre wandering the halls, popping up in class photos and generally spooking everyone on the premises.
Director Nick Murphy slowly cranks the tension as the school gets emptier and the ghostly encounters get more frequent, and his undersaturated palette gives the film a perfectly grey and grim look. Hall is superb, as usual, and co-stars Dominic West and Imelda Staunton turn in strong supporting performances. My only real issue with the film is that its big surprise isn't much of a surprise, and that there are a number of been-there-seen-that conventions that make the story feel a little less original than it might have otherwise.
My second film of the day was the documentary First Position (6/8), which tracks a half-dozen aspiring ballet dancers (all between nine and 19 years of age) as they prepare for, and compete in, the Youth America Grand Prix -- a prestigious competition that rewards its high-flying young winners with scholarships to ballet academies, work contracts and massive exposure in the industry.
Like other films in this kids-competing-at-something genre, the film gives us six compelling characters to follow -- from spritely 11-year-old Aran, who's got talent well beyond his years, to self-proclaimed "princess" Rebecca, a 17-year-old hoping to leave the Grand Prix with a job, and Sierra Leone orphan Michaela, who was adopted by an American family and enters the competition with a potentially career-ending injury.
While the kids in the doc are all undeniably gifted and their stories alternately heartwarming, heartbreaking and hugely inspiring, I kind of wished for something a little extra from the film itself. Don't get me wrong, it's very good, but it also feels a bit like it follows a very familiar format first put forth by Spellbound. Despite some earlier-round mishaps and setbacks, I didn't sense there wasn't really any genuine tension, in terms of how the kids would do.
Waaaaaaay at the other end of the tension spectrum was my final screening of the day, actor Paddy Considine's feature-directing debut, Tyrannosaur (5/8), which is pretty much 90 minutes of unrelenting tension and misery onscreen. For starters, its brutal opening scene features its lead character kicking his dog to death… and the story kind of keeps descending from there. Superbly superbly acted by Peter Mullan, Olivia Colman and Eddie Marsan (in a truly terrifying turn), the serious downer of a film revolves around a drunken rage-aholic (Mullan), who's befriended by a sweet thrift-store employee (Colman) with an abusive husband (Marsan) who makes her life a living hell.
Considine, whose work I've always enjoyed, writes and directs what I think is meant to be a redemptive story about a man battling his demons, but I'm not entirely sure he's successful. Performance-wise, it couldn't be any better -- all three actors are absolutely terrific, and Colman is especially wonderful and luminous… especially given the dark, dark material she's given. But, narratively, it just feels like an unending downward spiral from which, save for a somewhat joyful bar scene scene midway through the film, there is zero relief. Just one bad thing after another being heaped upon the people onscreen. Even its conclusion felt like it was lacking in a balanced resolution for one of its characters.
Then again, maybe I'm wrong and film has nothing at all to do with redemption, and a depressing ending makes perfect sense. I'm not sure, but I do know it was (for me) easily the feel-bad movie of 2011 so far.
And, while it certainly wasn't great, I'm pleased to report that Violet & Daisy (4/8) wasn't overly terrible. It was more disappointing than anything, I think. I didn't walk out or want to leave, even! And, frankly, I think casting Gilmore Girls alum Alexis Bledel, who's wooden and one-note, as an assassin was probably the filmmakers first, and biggest, mistake. I kept thinking how much better the movie would have been with someone more capable (just about any working actress 25 and under) playing her part instead. Alas.
