TIFF 2014 - Lots of movies Monday

Monday was a monumental day for me in TIFFing (sure, it's a verb) with my first ever 4 movie day.  Even better than that - they were all various degrees of good to great.

The day began with This Is Where I Leave You the star studded adaptation of Jonathan Tropper's novel (who also wrote the screenplay).  I loved the book and have really been looking forward to seeing the movie, which is frankly how I justified seeing it at TIFF when it's actually hitting theatres in less than 2 weeks.  Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Corey Stoll and Adam Driver play siblings who are brought back to the family home with their mother (Jane Fonda) to sit shiva after the death of their father.  It's a great family drama, with wonderful touching, funny and sad moments throughout and includes a bunch of other fantastic cast members including Rose Byrne, Timothy Olyphant, Connie Britton, Kathryn Hahn etc etc.  

Director Shawn Levy showed up for the morning screening to introduce the movie and seemed very excited to be presenting the movie at TIFF.  I would highly recommend it when it opens later this month (A).

My afternoon movie, Whiplash, was a giant hit at Sundance this year, winning both the jury and audience awards and generating buzz for the performance of Miles Teller, with very good reason.   Teller plays Andrew, a student at a prestigious music school trying to make it as a jazz drummer under the abusive tutelage of J.K. Simmons' Terence Fletcher.   Teller is has been on the cusp of breaking out over the past few years and this movie should definitely do it for him.  The scenes of Andrew pushing himself to improve, with bloody hands to show for it, where pretty mesmerizing.

The movie was written and directed by Damien Chazelle based on his own experiences and it was clearly a very personal story.   He took to the stage along with the two stars of the movie for a Q&A to the effusive applause of the audience.  Teller spoke about his background as a drummer and how much work he did to prepare for this very demanding role (after which Simmons added that he had to work on waving his hands around).   Chazelle discussed casting Teller (who he had thought of for the part based on his performance in Rabbit Hole) and Simmons (he credited Jason Reitman for hooking them up).  He also discussed the challenges of filming the musical performances and a little about the 18 minute short that he screened at Sundance in 2013 that served to generate funding for the feature length production.  The movie was quickly snapped up at Sundance this year and will be getting a release - I'd highly recommend seeing it when it does (A).

Adult Beginners, with a story by Nick Kroll who also produces and stars, is a great little movie.  An adult coming of age story about Jake (Kroll) an entrepreneur who has blown his savings and that of his investors on a product launch and retreats to his childhood home to crash with his sister  Justine (Rose Byrne) and her husband Jake (Bobby Cannavale).  They agree to let him stay if he will care for his 3 year old nephew to help alleviate some financial pressures of their own.  Jake and Justine have some unresolved family issues to deal with and Jake also unwittingly finds himself in the middle of his sister's marriage as he figures out what to do with the rest of his life.

Pretty much the entire cast attended and held a Q&A after the screening (Rose Byrne was there for the intro but had to catch a plane to get back for her Broadway performance today).  When you get a bunch of comedians and other funny people on stage you can expect an entertaining Q&A and these folks did not disappoint.   Kroll talked quite a bit about how 'the love of the game' got people involved in making this small movie, from short shooting times, people sharing small dressing rooms and girlfriend Amy Poehler doing craft services (that one was a joke, and a nice deflection from someone who asked why she was included in the thank yous at the end of the credits).   They compared the tone of the movie to wanting to make a more comedic You Can Count on Me and I think they succeeded.  I expect it will get picked up and it's worth putting on your list (A-).

The day ended on a somewhat heavier note with the Canadian premiere of 99 Homes, the story of Dennis Nash (Andrew Garfield), a father struggling to make ends meet and get his family home back after being evicted under shady circumstances.  The disreputable and greedy real estate broker (Michael Shannon) who evicts them recognizes his capabilities and makes him an offer can't refuse, putting him to work forcing other families out of their homes and through the same awful situation he just experienced.  Inevitably, as he justifies doing this in order to get his own house back, he finds himself getting pulled into the business and a little bit seduced by the things that money can get him.  At some point things come to a head as he faces a crisis of conscience and the movie doesn't leave us with a clean cut ending with simple answers.  Newcomer Noah Lomax does a good job as Dennis' son and Laura Dern is terrific as his struggling mother - why doesn't she work more?

Garfield, Shannon, Dern and Lomax and director Ramin Bahrani gamely took late night questions from the crowd.  As I expected with the subject matter of the film, much of the focus of the questions for Bahrani was fairly political, and he referenced many statistics about the wealth disparity that exists across the world (but most particularly in the US).    My favourite moment was when discussing the history of rather dark roles that Shannon has played over his career Garfield suggested that he would love to see him in a Disney movie.  My suggestion for Garfield would be to shave off that awful beard - it is not a good look for him.  This one goes solidly into 'middle of the pack' for me so far (B).