More is more! That was the vibe at the 50th annual Toronto International Film Festival, which was lousy with movie stars and had a cheery air of abundance (it concludes on Sunday). There were just so many interesting movies to see… and rarely have so many outperformed expectations. (Colleagues at Vogue teased me for liking seemingly everything.)
I’d managed to screen a few of the marquee films ahead of the festival, so I focused on smaller movies seeking distribution. This proved a good strategy. Maybe it was my curatorial prowess or just dumb luck but I caught nary a dud sprinting around the festival. Here are the ones that I am particularly excited about, three coming out this fall and the rest still seeking distribution (an especially rich category this year). If you keep a must-see movie list, put these on it.
Roofman
The charms of Channing Tatum have never been lost on anyone, but Roofman, a true crime romance co-starring Kirsten Dunst and set in a brilliantly realized 1990s North Carolina suburban landscape, is a winning reminder. Tatum plays Jeffrey Manchester, a veteran tangled haplessly up in good intentions and a life of petty crime. Director Derek Cianfrance is known for hard-hitting indies (Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond The Pines) but he’s up to something gentler here: a story of a naif who fumbles his desire to do good. Amusing and well paced, the movie never descends into sentiment, thanks to the careful rhythms of Cianfrance’s storytelling and the precisely grounded performances of its two mega-appealing leads.
Opens in theaters on October 10.
