November 21, 2025

Welcome to the TFCA weekly, a round-up of reviews and coverage by members of the Toronto Film Critics Association.

In Release this Week

The Carmen Family Deaths (dir. Yon Motskin)

“The film also plays like a cat-and-mouse game between the investigators (police and prosecuting attorney) and the defendant,” notes Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto. “Director Motskin plays the film more as a missing-persons story: his film becomes a full-blown murder mystery involving a rich (Greek) family and a potential motive tied to money and inheritance. It works.  For those not familiar with Nathan’s story, there is a shock ending.”

Champagne Problems (dir. Mark Steven Johnson)

“This rom-com clearly lacks any imagination, despite being a French festive setting, but also lacks any bubbly humour or any authentic drama, with the chemistry between the two leads being ok at best,” says Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto.

The Follies (dir. Rodrigo Garcia)

“The 6 stores are all intriguing, and they touch different aspects of ‘madness’ and the means of discovering oneself.  The pace intensifies as the film heads towards its conclusion, though the last vignette lacks bite and proper closure to the stories,” adds Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto.

Rental Family (dir. Hikari)

“The movie is beautifully cast, and everyone brings something essential to the table in the film. But in such a quiet film, what makes it really special is Brendan Fraser.  It’s a performance that radiates vulnerability and empathy and such a deep well of kindness that it is like medicine,” says Karen Gordon at Original Cin. “His performance is so light on its feet and yet so sincere and truthful that it’s a salve for the soul. It’s an antidote to a short attention span, ego-driven, competitive and too often nasty culture that pushes us forward, and has removed so many of us from the things that give us a sense that we have a purpose here. In the lightest way, Rental Family suggests that we can find ours too, if we’re willing to be open to it.”

“Both stories are designed to jerk tears and tug heartstrings, but the film’s mononymously named writer-director Hikari (best known for directing episodes of Netflix’s 2023 series Beef) cannot bring herself to go even an inch past base-level expectations,” writes Barry Hertz at The Globe and Mail. “The stories unfold in exactly the way you’re imagining having just read the brief synopsis above, and any potential sense of cultural specificity is washed away by a directing style that feels motion-smoothed to minimize any flicker of visual impact. Even the bright, bustling, colourful imagery of Tokyo feels stitched together from stock-footage reels – it is almost an anti-advertisement for the city’s electrifying energy.”

Selena Y Los Dinos (dir. Isabel Castro)

“Despite Selena’s tragic murder, the film does not focus on the incident but looks at the brighter side, emphasising her legacy, cultural impact, and the joy and power of her life, making the doc more relevant and watchable for a Netflix audience,” says Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto. “Selena is also a bubbling personality, making her a pleasure to watch.”

Wicked: For Good (dir. John M. Chu)

“Understandably carried over from the first instalment are the performances. Erivo once again shows off her incredible vocal talents — perhaps the best of any performer in a modern movie musical. You can virtually feel every run inching her closer and closer to the Oscar that would see her attain well-earned Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony-winning EGOT status,” says Jackson Weaver at CBC. “And Grande exhibits perhaps the most fascinatingly layered showing by any actor coming to the role of Glinda. Needing to simultaneously balance the flighty, airheaded countenance of her character while also crooning emotionally conflicted, technically proficient and genuinely funny lyrics, her already near-impossible task only grew more difficult — and, therefore, more impressive — this time around.”

“The emotional centre of this film is Grande’s Glinda, who’s granted a poignant flashback (involving a rainbow!), and is faced with the biggest moral dilemma of the two-part film. Her new number references life in a bubble — an apt metaphor for white privilege and entitlement — and she exudes genuine depth and compassion. Although we have to wait nearly two hours to hear the title number between her and Elphaba, when it comes it’s beautifully sung and suitably moving. Thank Goodness,” says Glenn Sumi at Go Ahead Sumi. “But then Chu spends the rest of the picture trying to resolve the convoluted plot, going beyond the stage show to add a bit of wish fulfillment optimism.”

“I daresay this one was worth the wait. Though darker, visually and emotionally, than part one, and shorter — two hours and 18 minutes, down from two-forty — Wicked: For Good is still a rollicking good time, as shown by the multiple rounds of applause a recent preview audience showered on some of the showier numbers, including ‘For Good,’ which I guess counts at the title track,” says Chris Knight at Original Cin. “But for all the live-theatre vibes, director John Chu gets things going with a dramatic-cinematic whiz-bang. In the opening scene, Elphaba Thropp (a.k.a. the Wicked Witch of the West) swoops out of the sky to attack the human overseers of an animal work gang that is being forced by the Wizard to build the yellow brick road. With nothing but her wits and a magic broom, she makes a clean sweep of things before tearing off into the sky like a Blackbird (the spy plane, not the animal).”

“For musical lovers, Wicked: For Good, just as Wicked will not disappoint,” notes Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto. “The film has no shortage of lavish sets, lively songs and choreographed numbers.  From the colours of the yellow brick road to the rows of coloured fields of flowers, the sets and art-direction are very impressive – yes, one might describe it as the stuff dreams are made of. But Wicked 2, as the film is also called, has its dark moments.”

“Chu’s direction brims with energy and intention. Returning from the first Wicked, he continues to graft Broadway’s grandeur onto cinematic scale, this time with more grit and less glitter. Alice Brooks’s cinematography, though occasionally overlit and drained of colour, grants Oz an eerie, silvery pallor. A deliberate distancing from the Technicolor dream of 1939, it’s not to my taste. Production and costume design outshine all else; the fabrics shimmer like the Ozian duds of old,” says Peter Howell at the Toronto Star. “Chu continues his energetic adaptation of the Broadway stage musical derived from Gregory Maguire’s Wicked novel, which takes prequel liberties with L. Frank Baum’s original tome, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” and Victor Fleming’s 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz.”

“If the first Wicked offered an exercise in holding space, then Wicked: For Good serves a lesson in claiming space,” writes Pat Mullen at Xtra. He also speaks with director John M. Chu about Wicked, queerness, and allyship: “These are the best [performers] in these roles,” says Chu. “They understand these roles, they understand the wounds of these characters, and they’re going to be able to communicate this in the most beautiful way. I love that we don’t have to debate it. It just is a fact. Now you can have Johnny Bailey as the [first openly gay] Sexiest Man Alive [in People magazine]. You can have Cynthia Erivo as Man of the Year [as GQ recently named her], and it just is. Why debate it any longer?”

Zodiac Killer Project (dir. Charlie Shackleton; Two Nights Only!)

“Director Charlie Shackleton makes lemonade out of lemons after losing the rights to adapt Lyndon Lafferty’s 2012 true crime novel The Zodiac Killer Cover-up AKA The Silenced Badge,” says Joe Lipsett at Murder Made Fiction. “From the ashes of his abandoned documentary rises a fascinating exploration of the genre itself. Against the backdrop of gorgeous cinematography from Xenia Patricia, Shackleton talks us through his original plans, revealing deft commentary on true crime storytelling.”

“The one positive fact about Shackleton is that he, at least, is very familiar with the true crime drama genre, which makes this weird doc all the more compelling,” writes Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto. “Zodiac Killer Project is an interesting novelty piece, and the magic question is whether Shackleton can keep his audience attentive throughout the film’s 92-minute length.”

File Under Miscellaneous

At The Globe and Mail, Barry Hertz speaks with critic A.S. Hamrah about his new book, Last Week in End Times Cinema: “So many people who write about films have turned to writing about older films now, classic Hollywood, avant-garde films,” Hamrah tells Hertz. “But I think it’s the obligation of the critic to write about the films of their time, and I’m very dedicated to doing that. And it doesn’t bother me at all that that’s the subject matter presented to me. There are very good films made all over the world. And any kind of films made independently will move the cinema forward going into the future. But the health of the film industry in America? It’s not an important component of the cinema in general. I feel it’s important to document that as a critic.”

At The Globe and Mail, Barry Hertz reports on the legal battle over the posthumous publication of Donald Sutherland’s memoir between the actor’s Miami-based production company McNichol Pictures and publisher Penguin Random House: “In the lawsuit, Crown says that about a month after Mr. Sutherland’s death, McNichol informed the publisher that the ‘draft was not approved by Mr. Sutherland’s estate,’” writes Hertz. “In August, 2024, the publisher says that it provided a revised draft to “facilitate completion,” but that after several months’ worth of attempts to engage with McNichol, the publisher set a final delivery deadline of Dec. 10, 2024. That date came and went, with Crown saying that it has yet to receive a complete, acceptable manuscript.”

A Festival of Festival Coverage

At Screen Anarchy, Barbara Goslawski speaks with director Peter Mettler as his opus While the Green Grass Grows screens at RIDM: “You realize how different individuals in the same culture or different cultures have totally different ideas of what’s worth pursuing and what paradise might be,” Mettler tells Goslawski. “Hence the expression, the grass is always greener on the other side. But I also liked what it insinuates in terms of evolution. It comes up in the film a little bit that we need change. We need to have the feeling that we’re changing and evolving to keep us going. It’s part of human nature.”

At Afro Toronto, Gilbert Seah looks at some offerings at Blood in the Snow, including Violence: “The narrative is somewhat of a mess, and the acting is satisfactory at best, with hardly a star or character anyone would care for.  The only good thing about the film is the visuals of the alternative 80s setting in an unnamed country.”

TV Talk/Series Stuff

At Original Cin, Alice Shih looks at Wong Kar-wai’s long-awaited series Blossoms Shanghai: “Wong’s fans will continue to enjoy stunning visual composition; each frame impeccably lit in saturated colour with the most alluring angles on his actors as they deliver performances from the subtle to the grandiose. They are dressed time-appropriately in the most fashionable costumes and hairstyles,” writes Shih. “Blossoms Shanghai is a labour of love, as it took Wong close to a decade of planning and four years to produce. Wong continues to romantically intoxicate his audience, through this exuberant love letter to his birthplace.”

At What She Said, Anne Brodie finds “a disturbing look at stranger danger” in Malice with David Duchovny: “A whole lot of malice going on and the series drives it home hard. I didn’t have the stomach for it.” For a laugh, there’s Gerry Dee’s new standup special: “The former teacher rats out his students, admits he knows all the serial killers because his father, apparently a hardened policeman, regaled him with stories of the worst of the worst, Dahmer, Bundy, Gacy in vivid detail.”