Saturday morning was The Descendants, the latest from director Alexander Payne (Sideways, Election) which stars George Clooney as the patriarch of a large extended family in Hawaii. He's the family trustee and the final decision maker on what to do with 25 acres of land which is being sought by developers. He's also dealing with the fact that his wife has been in an accident and lies comatose in the hospital and is trying to navigate through the tragedy as well as his relationship with his two young daughters, 17 year old Alex (Shailene Woodley) and 10 year old Scottie (Amara Miller).
Maybe my expectations were too high for this movie, as I'd heard wonderful things about Clooney's performance and the film has been popping up on the list of Oscar contenders, but I was a bit underwhelmed. The movie is very good and the performances are indeed wonderful (the biggest pleasant surprise for me was Woodley) but it didn't blow me away. If it were anyone other than George Clooney playing the role I don't know that it would be getting this level of attention (though I guess that should go without saying).
Saturday evening was Hysteria, the indie romantic comedy about the invention of the vibrator in 1880's England from director Tanya Wexler. The credits of the film kick off with the standard -this film is based on true events- claim only to be followed by -really- immediately afterwards. Yes, apparently women back in the day were often medically diagnosed with hysteria, the most common treatment of which was "pelvic massage" in order to induce "paroxysm". Not to get off on a feminist tangent (and an orgasm is probably good for all that ails you) but it is laughable looking back and seeing how men basically figured out a way to make any undesirable thoughts or behaviors from the women in their lives a medical issue.
The film stars Hugh Dancy as Mortimer Granville, a physician taken as an assistant into the women's treatment practice of Dr. Dalrymple (Jonathan Price). Dr. Dalrymple has two daughters who are as different as night and day. Emily (Felicity Jones) is the perfect, poised, piano playing, demure future potential wife and Charlotte (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is the progressive, outspoken, independent woman who argues with her father about the medical necessity of his practice and spends her time trying to teach and care for other women and children in an unfunded shelter. Which woman do you think is the right one for him?? Yes, we all know where the movie is going but it is a very entertaining trip nonetheless. The invention of the vibrator comes out of necessity (the poor man's hand is about to fall off) and accident through a discussion with his cheeky technology obsessed friend (Rupert Everett and dear god man, what the hell did you do to your formerly attractive face?!?).
I quite liked the movie. The performances were all good, particularly Gyllenhaal who was playing a character I liked, was compellingly watchable on screen and had a great accent (to my non-native ears anyway...but then my last example of an American playing an Englishwoman was Anne Hathaway in One Day so Maggie may be better off for the comparison).
This morning I lined up at Ryerson for the last time until next year for my final movie of the festival. Page Eight is a spy thriller from writer/director David Hare that was developed for and aired on the BBC this summer and is set to air here across the pond on PBS in November. Hare is best known as a playwright, though he has also written some major screenplays (The Hours, The Reader) and this is the first time he's directed a film since 1989.
The movie stars Bill Nighy as as Johnny Worriker, an old school MI5 agent. His boss Benedict (Michael Gambon) is also his best friend and confidant and when he dies suddenly after discussing a top secret file with Johnny and his coworker Jill (Judy Davis) he is reasonably suspicious. Over the same time period he has a far to coincidental (for his tastes) run in with his neighbour Nancy (Rachel Weisz) who has ties to the middle east and is trying to find out what really caused the death of her brother and is trying to hold together a relationship with his artist daughter (Felicity Jones) who has stuff going on in her own life.
It's a quite good, straightforward thriller made better by the amazing cast pulled together for the TV project. According to Nighy that is all based on the fact that everyone is willing to do whatever they need to do in order to work with Hare. Yes, did I mention that both David Hare and Bill Nighy attended the screening on the last day of the festival to do an intro and a Q&A? They were lovely and classy and made the movie better for being there. They discussed their long history of collaboration (this is their 7th project together), the political climate in the UK and the potential issues with US release and reaction, the differences working on stage, film and for television and the possibility of the character continuing into a second or third film. A fully satisfying end to TIFF for the year.
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