Saturday morning's downpour meant a soggy hour waiting in line to see The Railway Man at the Elgin. It didn't get much better when the movie froze about 25 minutes in to the screening. Thankfully the TIFF staff were great about keeping us up to date and were able to restore the screening after about a 20 minute delay. Even more thankfully, the movie was great and the cast and crew attended for a lovely Q&A for the second screening of the film.
The movie stars Colin Firth as Eric Lomax, a WWII victim of the "Death Railway" and tells the story of the search for his torturer encouraged by his wife Patti (played by Nicole Kidman). The story takes place both in the 1980s as Eric is finally dealing with the horrors he experienced during the war and in flashbacks to the war itself and I have to say that the casting of Jeremy Irvine as the younger version of Eric was fantastic, as well as the casting of the younger and older versions of Nagase (his torturer). Stellan Skarsgard also appears as a fellow survivor and has a few great scenes with Nicole Kidman as she tries to find out why her husband has night terrors and has shut her out. I thought it was a very good movie made all the more powerful by the fact that it was a true story and was made with the involvement of Eric and Patti themselves.
As mentioned, a big chunk of the creative team showed up to discuss the movie including both sets of the actors playing Lomax and Nagase as well as Patti Lomax herself. Eric passed away late last year and was unable to see the movie finished, though he did get a chance to spend some time on the set. The filmmakers discussed the 14 year journey to getting the film made (they jokingly said they had to wait until Firth was old enough to play the character). Patti told a lovely story about how her husband came to the realization that Firth was actually famous when they were told he was going to play the part. The actors talked quite a bit about how they worked together to create the older and younger versions of the characters (Irvine's initial response that he immediately started to work on his Colin Firth impression was charming).
It was a very good movie: A-
Tonight's film introduction started with "Welcome to the Jason Reitman theatre", and a promise (apology?) that he would not be back at the Ryerson again tomorrow night. Reitman then introduced the world premiere of Labor Day by noting that first, the TIFF/Ryerson audience is who he thinks about when making a film and then saying he hoped that we liked it (and weren't expecting a comedy) because it was a different film than he has made in the past. He also very touchingly dedicated it to his mother who was in the audience.
The movie stars Kate Winslet as depressed single mom Adele, who ends up providing a ride for a wounded, escaped convict Frank (Josh Brolin) on one of her few forays out of the house to buy some back to school clothes for her son Henry. As Frank, Adele and Henry end up spending the titular weekend together in her home while the town and authorities search for him they discover that he's more than they expected. Are they his hostages or not? Was he really guilty of murder? How can this situation possibly end in anything but tragedy? The tension level throughout the film was pretty high and I wasn't sure where things were going until the very end but was very satisfied by the outcome. Also in something of a theme today I have to mention that the casting of Tom Lipinski as the young Frank was fantastic.
Reitman and the cast took questions after the movie and there were many for Reitman about his motivation for making this more serious/darker movie (at one point he said he felt like he was in a therapy session :-) ). There was also a really awkward question for Kate on how she dealt with the (mild spoiler alert) unfortunate pregnancy plot point in the movie which elicited gasps from the audience. All credit to her, she handled it really well and gracefully, actually admitting that she slipped out for the screening because she found it "really weird" to watch right now.
Also a very good movie...two for two today! A-
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