February 21, 2025

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

Stay tuned! On Monday, Feb. 24, we announce the winners of the Rogers Best Canadian Documentary and Best Canadian Film at our TFCA Awards gala hosted by Tamara Podemski. The nominees for Rogers Best Canadian Documentary are Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story, Yintah, and Your Tomorrow. The nominees for Rogers Best Canadian Film are Rumours, Shepherds, and Universal Language.

In release this week

Eat the Night (dir. Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel)

“Eat the Night, which debuted at Cannes in the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar last year, has a ragged experimental edge. It’s jittery in its pacing, the characters thinly drawn, and the youth crime drama elements formulaic. (That gang of black-jacketed toughs perpetually milling around in front of the 24-hour variety store look like they might jump into a West Side Story finger-snapping dance.)” says Liam Lacey at Original Cin. “At the same time, the film feels emotionally original in its discordantly tender moments, whether it’s the scene with Pablo, lovingly instructing Night on how to mix and press Ecstasy pills, or the psychopathic dealer, Louis, soft-eyed and gentle he sits by his ailing dad’s bedside. The need to connect isn’t just for the morally scrupulous.”

Grand Theft Hamlet (dir. Pinny Grylls, Sam Crane)

“Grand Theft Hamlet isn’t just a silly look back on the ways people tried to keep their skills sharp during a dull and dark time in human history, but a film made for an era where many creative types are being forced into learning tech skills because of a rapidly shrinking arts landscape,” says Anrew Parker at The Gate.

“Films like The Remarkable Life of Ibelin, We Met in Virtual Reality, and even this year’s truly extraordinary Sundance short The Reality of Hope illustrate how the virtual world offers a chance for connection for people experiencing isolation,” writes Pat Mullen at POV Magazine. “These relationships are real even if they’re enacted through headsets and consoles. Moreover, while those films may lack Grand Theft Hamlet’s novel hook, they expertly straddle both worlds: the virtual and the real. Grand Theft Hamlet essentially offers a longitudinal screen capture. Parsed from 300 hours of material, it boasts a contemporary twist on backstage documentary, albeit as a one-note joke.”

The Monkey (dir. Osgoode Perkins)

“The Monkey is nothing much more than a slew of very, very violent killings similar to the Saw horror franchise with the difference of the monkey doing the killing,” writes Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto. “The killings are all at random so director Perkins has more liberty for various ways to dispose of the victims.  There is no subtlety here.”

“People who like reading reviews of movies often like to hear comparisons of what a certain film is like before determining if they’re going to see it/like it or not. That’s kind of a death sentence for something like The Monkey (and film criticism in general), but I can kind of muster something up,” admits Andrew Parker at The Gate. “Perkins’ latest is like a mash-up of a typical small town Stephen King story crossed with the Final Destination franchise and delivered like it’s a gloomy, gritty remake of the bonkers 80s comedy Better Off Dead directed by Aki Kaurismäki from a script that got a dialogue punch-up from David Lynch.”

“If you’d like more story with your slaughter, well, tough bananas,” advises Peter Howell at the Toronto Star. “Perkins plays a bit with the source material, shifting its start a decade later to the mid-1990s. Finding dark comedy within King’s unabashed horror — Shirley and Lee’s 1956 classic ‘Let the Good Times Roll’ kicks off the sarcastic soundtrack — the director zeroes in on a harsh truth: life inevitably leads to death, no matter what kind of person you are.”

“If The Monkey feels like a departure for King, that sentiment is even stronger for director Perkins who is still basking in the warm reception of his police procedural horror, Longlegs. Here, he takes a significant leap into the realm of dark comedy,” notes Thom Ernst at Original Cin. “It’s hard to recognize The Monkey as a Perkins film. The pacing is quick, the comedy is sharp and inventive, and the violence is graphic to the point of comic-book extremes. It defies expectations, providing a perfect mix of horror, humour, and heart…The Monkey is an absolute blast and Perkins’ most commercially viable film yet.”

“The Monkey is an annoying, snarky and slight endeavour that just about kills itself in its bid to satisfy all the many cinema-starved sickos out there. Like the film’s central supernatural plaything – a wind-up toy simian that brings about death and destruction – there isn’t much to The Monkey other than a rictus smile,” writes Barry Hertz at The Globe and Mail. “As Perkins stages scene after scene of gruesome death – heads are blown off, legs and arms are tossed around like pool toys – the film slips into a desperate state of shock-for-shock’s sake. Wow, all this intricately staged carnage, isn’t it such a blast? But even the most dedicated gore-hound will find themselves simply grinning and bearing through it all, desperately searching for a vision within all the viscera – or, more likely, a ticket for the next Final Destination movie, whose Rube Goldberg-esque killings The Monkey so obviously apes.”

“The Monkey is peppered with original moments: Adam Scott as the panicked father trying to offload, then off the monkey with a flamethrower; a seemingly weed-hazed priest stumbling through a ‘that sucks, man’ eulogy; and a bizarre vape-inspired kill are all chuckle-worthy, if completely superfluous,” says Jackson Weaver at CBC. “But as we wade through the hokey bullied-boyhood-nostalgia omnipresent in King works, the conceit starts to wear thin. Especially so as the 1999 awe-shucks, Maine-hell we inhabit here is even more obviously shallow when it’s dressed up in JNCOs. Modernizing the plot by having the mopey-eyed kid bullied by a lisping preteen girl instead of a muscle-head jock doesn’t do much to improve anything.”

Okiku and the World (dir. Junji Sakamoto)

“The film looks simple and plain, but there is more emotion and drama than meets the eye,” notes Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto. “For one, it studies prejudice while showing a part of the period Japan Westerners are totally unfamiliar with. This is where the film succeeds in fascinating the audience with a story as strange as its setting.”

Parthenope (dir. Paolo Sorrentino)

“Marred by an insipid script and lead, Parthenope, a new twist on the mythical Greek figure, falls flat,” admits Anne Brodie at What She Said. “Meant to be an erotic tale of irresistible woman (Celeste Dalla Porta) whose vacant eyes, and easy sexuality are straight from the pre feminist past; she is certainly a beauty and also a secret predator, roaming Naples knowing that she will be propositioned. She always consents, and public sex is part of her routine. A man fetishises her bikini top left hanging on a chair, and a bishop has her inside his cathedral. Gary Oldman’s drunken John Cheever asks ‘Are you aware of the disruption your beauty causes?’ She knowingly creates it, of course she is. But we’re meant to wonder, if she’s real and just how manipulative is she? There’s not much dramatic thrust.”

“Now, I’ve got nothing against lovely women — heck, I married one — but that does seem a rather thin rack on which to hang a plot. And two-plus hours spent wafting through Parthenope’s breezy life only confirmed these suspicions,” says Chris Knight at Original Cin. “As played by Celeste Dalla Porta, she is indeed breathtaking, beauteous and beguiling. But as written by Italy’s Paolo Sorrentino (who also directs), there is precious little going on beneath that alabaster exterior. One can only have characters ask each other ‘What are you thinking?’ so many times before it feels as though the question is being begged…The filmmaker tries to head off any argument that Parthenope is nothing more than a pretty face and a sexy body, by having her excel at her anthropology degree. Her crotchety professor ultimately awards her a grade of 110 out of 110, plus an ‘academic kiss,’ which Google tells me is an Italian educational tradition and not a come-on.”

“There’s much to like about Parthenope. The film is a treat for the eyes,” notes Peter Howell at the Toronto Star. “Yet Parthenope could have been so much deeper. Sorrentino struts like he’s the first director to make a film about zealous male attraction to a mysterious female, but the topic is hardly new. Hitchcock’s Vertigo and Buñuel’s That Obscure Object of Desire are but two superior studies of ardour over intellect. Sorrentino thinks he’s crafted a meditation on the burden of beauty. What he’s really made is a film of sumptuous emptiness, a beautiful jewel shop selling fool’s gold.”

“Parthenope is gorgeous, irrelevant and entertaining, there are adjectives that can be used to describe director Sorrentino’s film as well as his other films,” writes Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto. “Despite the weak narrative, there is a story but it is the visuals and excesses that make the film. Be prepared to be astonished by the film that premiered at Cannes last year winning a reported 9-and-a-half-minute standing ovation.”

“Paolo Sorrentino loves boobs. Ample, voluptuous, and statuesque bosoms pepper many a Sorrentino film. The man knows how to frame breasts, either in pairs or hanging solo. His costume designers augment them perfectly. Beautiful gowns offer the right support with plunging necklines at the front and scintillating drapery on the sides. And his cinematographers and gaffers know how to make soft lighting accentuate curves from all angles: you’ve never seen sideboob like you have in a Sorrentino movie,” says Pat Mullen at That Shelf. “For all the appreciation of women’s upper assets, though, Sorrentino looks to be the biggest boob of all…The boobs are great, yes—they’re real and they’re spectacular—but Sorrentino shows little interest in the souls beneath them.”

The Quiet Ones (dir. Frederik Louis Hviid)

“Director Frederik Louis Hviid’s heist thriller is typical of the crime capers made in the ’60s and ’70s,” observes Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto. “It highlights the steely professionalism of men operating outside the law. The exciting and suspenseful film centres on a group of men from Denmark in 2008, when across Europe pulled off the biggest heist of all time on Danish soil.”

Sweet Summer Pow Wow (dir. Darrell Dennis)

“[A] pleasant enough boy meets girl story set on a reserve, where Graeme Green is the Greek Chorus remarking on the community and gossiping over the loudspeaker,” writes Anne Brodie at What She Said. “The pair enjoy sweet moments – he gently fixes her headdress before a show and they are respectful of one another – but must overcome a number of issues if they want to be together. It’s aimed squarely at teens and young adults who may identify with the leads’ dilemmas and blossoming relationship as they make life-altering decisions.”

Las Tres Sisters (dir. Mar Novo)

“Though the film lists 4 writers in the credits, the story of three sisters and their journey that involves sorting out what might be considered incorrigible differences is hardly original,” admits Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto. “The humour is slight and the drama appears forced at times.”

File Under Miscellaneous

At Classical FM, Marc Glassman has another look at Oscar predictions, including who will and should win Best Director: “Mangold is being taken to task for not showing the real Dylan in A Complete Unknown. Fargeat’s body horror film The Substance is overly reliant on special effects, leaving the Oscar statue to either Sean Baker or Brady Corbet. While Baker’s tough comedy Anora works because of Mikey Madison’s performance and not much else, Corbet has recreated an entire world—America in the Fifties—for The Brutalist. And the acting is extraordinary.”

TV Talk/Series Stuff

At The Gate, Andrew Parker reports on whether Zero Day is the series for this political moment: “A bleating plea for a kind of wishy-washy viewpoint that I can best describe as ’empowered apathy,’ Zero Day wants so desperately to be relevant to the modern era, but ends up being one of the most out of touch projects I have ever seen,” he says. “Also, it’s never engaging enough to make up for the fact that it’s terminally stupid. Maybe if Zero Day was actually exciting or somewhat crazy, that could make up for it being an irrelevant slog.” On the other hand, Win or Lose may offer an escape: “Pixar hits a home run with their first original series Win or Lose, an ambitious, emotionally rich, and playfully executed project that will effortlessly appeal to kids and adults alike.”

At What She Said, Anne Brodie finds Zero Days “terrifyingly timely”: “Just as the President is about to announce sanctions on Russia, he must announce that the attack was domestic terrorism.  And then things go from bad to worse, conspiracies within conspiracies, questions of trust, identity and politics, a complex, seriously intense tale. If you’re intrigued have a look at E.M. Forster’s short story The Machine Stops written in 1909.  I guess we’ve always been fascinated by apocryphal cultural and political upheaval.” She also checks out the new series A Thousand Blows: “Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight offers a raw, downmarket portrait of the real-life Queen of Forty Elephants, Mary Carr (Erin Doherty), a notorious gang leader and her law busting minions and we meet crooks, scoundrels and murderers who toss bodies in the Thames.” Ditto No Offense: “A fascinating whirlwind of activity in which we see cops for what they are, just folks like us, flawed, sassy, human and caring” and Undercover “starring Sophie Okonedo in a stellar dramatic performance.” Finally, Elspeth stars Carrie Preston as “a slightly irritating but also charmingly eccentric acting as a police consultant in New York.”

At That Shelf, Pat Mullen gets some words with the guests checking into The White Lotus for its third and most chaotic season—also the best one.  “I’m maintaining in a chaotic world,” says star Parker Posey, while creator Mike White looks at the season’s monkey business: “In this one, it definitely is made more explicit: people wanting to be their ideal self and the base animal creatures that they can be. There’s this antic force that keeps pulling them back into monkey land.”