March 7, 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

Delicious (dir. Nele Mueller-Stöfen)

“The German Netflix film plays like a mystery banking on the uneasiness of the audience,” says Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto. “The tactic works in which audience anticipation (like a Hitchcock movie) is always at its height.”

The Last Republican (dir. Steve Pink)

“Where the film truly serves as a provocative and refreshing analysis of this polarised age is in Kinzinger’s reflections about his own views. He’s adamant in his conversations with Pink that he hasn’t shifted leftward. The Republicans, he suggests, swung away from him and other conservatives, ultimately forgetting the ideals that are the party’s base,” says Pat Mullen at POV Magazine. “And he’s a witty, funny, and self-deprecating personality with a politician’s true gift for gab. Whenever Pink lobs him a zinger, he fires one back. But these aren’t mean exchanges, nasty words, or toxic attacks. They’re jokes—funny ones, too—and observations about competing viewpoints. This film is a portrait of what democracy is all about: bringing together opposing perspectives in the service of a common goal.”

Mickey 17 (dir. Bong Joon-ho)

“Mickey 17 is a good fit for South Korean auteur Bong, a gleeful provocateur who knows no boundaries. The anti-capitalism critiques of Parasite and earlier films Snowpiercer and Okja were set on Earth, but their sentiments apply to the outer-space realm of Mickey 17,” writes Peter Howell at the Toronto Star. “Bong’s films are less a gentle nudge to our social conscience and more a cannonball into the murky waters of class warfare, but this time he may have taken a leap too far. Mickey 17 leaves us feeling like we’ve been cloned ourselves, split between admiration for Bong’s audacious vision and frustration at its muddled execution.”

“Mickey 17 is a long ride with a running time of about two hours and twenty minutes, with unexpected twists and turns,” notes Karen Gordon at Original Cin. “The character Mickey 17 might not be a deep thinker, yet he represents deeper thoughts. The nature of existence as a man-made disposable, remade at someone’s whim, experiencing the moment of death over and over, gives us lots to contemplate.”

“Bong’s film is a poorly written narrative mess with humans, creepies and megalomaniacs interacting on Earth and another planet,” sighs Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto. “Given a huge over $100 million budget, Bong goes as crazy as his character Mickey Barnes in the adventure of one or several lifetimes. Despite the film’s flaws and running time of over two hours, the first two thirds are an incurable compelling watch, flaws aside.”

“The rage Joon-Ho shows towards the current state of the world is passionate and thoughtful, even when Mickey 17 appears to be spiralling out of control. There are a few too many ingredients in this sauce, but they all play well together, and the results are satisfying,” says Andrew Parker at The Gate. “Mickey 17 puts in a ton of dramatic and comedic effort, and while Joon-Ho’s latest feels like it’s trying too hard at some points, the overkill being employed still works in the film’s favour.”

Calling the film “delightfully chaotic” and “wildly expensive,” Barry Hertz speaks with Bong Joon-ho (via Sharon Choi) at The Globe and Mail. “With Okja, we still had all the creature effects to handle, but the budget ended up being only $53-million. With Mickey, it was $118-million – when you look at the credits, you just see so many names!” Bong said. “But what matters is creating the atmosphere of having fun and being comfortable. With Mickey, all the actors, all the crew, they were so kind with each other. That’s what’s important to me…Okja was the first film that I finished without memorizing the crew’s names – there were so many people that I felt anxious about that. Someone is working on my film and I don’t know their name! It made me feel bad as a director.”

Night of the Zoopocalypse (dir. Rodrigo Perez-Castro, Ricardo Curtis 🇨🇦)

“The film doesn’t nearly reach the heights of, say, Henry Selick’s similarly pitched The Nightmare Before Christmas – which had the added benefits of catchy songs and beautiful/painstaking stop-motion animation – but Zoopocalypse’s bid to revel in the kiddie-macabre space is admirable,” admits Barry Hertz at The Globe and Mail. “It’s just a shame that for every moment of inventiveness – including a vibrant colour scheme and a kaiju-sized finale that might genuinely frighten children under the age of eight – the script falls prey to barely-there banter between Gracie and Dan and some creaky plot mechanics that needlessly pad the running time.”

“I’ll just say it….this shouldn’t have worked as well as it does because even though it’s from the mind of the legendary Clive Barker, it’s sweet and goofy as all hell too,” admits Dave Voigt on In the Seats with… as he speaks with Ricardo Curtis and Rodrigo Perez-Castro about “how they got involved with the project, the pressures of adapting something from Clive Barker while still maintaining a family friendly sheen to it all.”

“Night of the Zoopocalypse is an engaging blend of silly and spooky that should delight and amuse the post-toddler/pre-teen crowd nicely,” notes Andrew Parker at The Gate. “Based on a concept from revered horror writer Clive Barker (yes, the guy behind Hellraiser and Candyman), Night of the Zoopocalypse is a colourful, snappy, and creative animated adventure that delivers a good time that even adults will find most agreeable.”

“Though it can be argued that this feature is aimed at kids, many animated features have included (is it that difficult?) to include adults to be entertained. Night of the Zoopocalypse is definitely a bore for the adults,” admits Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto. “Myself I did not utter a laugh-out-loud even once.  The antics of the characters are infantile, silly and pointless and the inter-communication lacks any imagination either. The entire hour and a half already feels too long.  Apart from the satisfactory animation, there is nothing much this film has to offer.”

The Rule of Jenny Pen (dir. James Ashcroft)

“Ashcroft’s direction exhibits a notable resemblance to the style of Peter Strickland, whose horror films often present an unsettling depiction of the mundane. This should not be mistaken for dullness,” observes Thom Ernst at Original Cin. “Instead, the mundane is an aesthetic that conceals secrecy, fear, and denial, even when characters —mostly Cleary — breach the limits of normalcy. The mundane also serves as a response to the initial —and indeed justified — reactions regarding how Crealy’s abuse can remain unchecked and unaddressed. The Rule of Jenny Pen is a dark and deeply unsettling film. Lithgow is unhinged and Rush is the perfect foil to attempt to bring him down. “

“John Lithgow absolutely kills it here, with Dave Crealy joining the ranks of some of the actor’s most memorable villainous turns in the likes of Cliffhanger, Raising Cain, Ricochet, and Blow Out,” writes Andrew Parker at The Gate. “With dead-eyed pinpoint pupils, a raggedy grin, and an ear-splitting, hyena pitched laugh, Lithgow exudes menace and ill will at every turn.”

“[A] surprisingly must-see horror shocker from way down under New Zealand that could be destined to be a cult classic,” declares Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto. “Two ageing stars Oscar Winner Geoffrey Rush from Shine and John Lithgow (last seen in  Conclave) play two ageing males in nursery home at loggerheads (to put it mildly, since there is a fight to the death at the end).”

Seven Veils (dir. Atom Egoyan 🇨🇦)

At Zoomer, Brian D. Johnson calls the film “a hall-of-mirrors psychodrama” and speaks with director Atom Egoyan about confronting the extremes of opera in his new film and 2023 remounting of Salome: “It’s what we did with Salome’s Dance of the Seven Veils.  I just went with this full-throttle sense of how horrifying it could be. There was a staged gang rape, which was upsetting for a lot of people,” Egoyan tells Johnson. “There were walkouts. I felt that putting that back onto the stage in 2023 raised a lot of issues. I thought, why are we putting on this old production? Why isn’t the COC getting a woman to direct another production? But that’s very expensive. So you’re stuck with this legacy. I wanted to infuse it with a new set of questions through this script where I created a female character, Jeanine, who’s brought in to remount the show. Charles, its original director, was inspired by her, and now that he’s deceased, he’s giving it back to her in his will. Is that a gift or a curse?”

“Jeanine is passionate about the opera and honouring her mentor, but plans changes to bring her vision to life. The company and her mentor’s widow demand she desist and return to his script and directions,” notes Anne Brodie at What She Said. “Disturbing scenes of sexual violence onstage and off, past and present hang over us, as dread. Egoyan’s complex piece is worthy if upsetting in certain scenes and offers us his love of the one-act opera which he has staged twice prior to making the film.”

“Seyfried really stood out to me,” Peter Howell says in conversation with Joshua Chong at the Toronto Star. “It’s a tough role. You’re playing both backwards and forwards, and they’ve added the dimension of Jeanine leaving her husband (Mark O’Brien), so she’s got a lot on her mind. Seyfried’s face is so expressive and her reactions are always so true. You can’t help but be sympathetic to her, although she becomes so aggressive foisting her trauma on the cast.” Howell also speaks with Egoyan about setting the stage at the Canadian Opera Company: “It was incredibly stressful, because we had no movement within that. And the singers were in town for that period of time … they’re flying out of Toronto to go on to their next gigs. We had like 90 musicians, we had very specific times we could use them and how we could use them,” says Egoyan. “So we had to shoot it in this very specific window. I was actually mounting the opera while I was prepping the film. I’ve never been through an experience like that.”

“Director Egoyan fumbles through all the events with mass editing, flashbacks and messy storytelling,” says Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto. “With too many stakes at hand, not every one of the issues is solved satisfactorily.  One should give Egoyan credit for doing opera, tying in problems with staging it and tying in current problems with the Salome story.”

At The Globe and Mail, Barry Hertz calls it “an intense drama” and speaks with Atom Egoyan and Amanda Seyfriend about snow plows and Salome: “‘I hadn’t shot a film this fast since my first feature,” says Egoyan. “‘I don’t know, the first day was the craziest I’ve ever had…We had a live orchestra, four cameras.’ ‘But there was still space for us to explore,’ Seyfried adds. ‘I felt like a princess just being plopped down into a throne on the director’s chair, watching these unbelievably skilled opera performers. I was sitting in their world, but they were also coming into our world. I’ll never get that experience again. I know that for a fact.’”

At That Shelf, Pat Mullen says, “This audacious adaptation combines both poles of Egoyan’s oeuvre” and speaks with the director about movies and musicals: “I got as excited about that as I remember as a kid because I loved Jesus Christ Superstar. When I saw Norman Jewison’s film, it was so thrilling to me that, a camera can enhance this musical experience that was in my head,” says Egoyan. ““I did have this project that I was kicking around for a while many years ago. It was a remake of Carousel with Hugh Jackman and I actually got into a conversation with him…I had this crazy idea of setting it around the projection of Carousel, the movie, in a cinema in the Deep South where it was segregated between the Black audience on top in the balcony and the whites downstairs, which is how it was back then. The whole story of Billy and Julie was kind of happening in the theater itself. You’d be able to have the film projection happening while the story was being retold.”

Shepherds (dir. Sophie Deraspe)

***TFCA Awards Nominee: Rogers Best Canadian Film***

***TFCA Awards Winner: Best Performance in a Canadian Film – Félix-Antoine Duval***

“A scene of the flock walking through the streets of the village is startling and gorgeous. His pastoral, physical new life teaches him every moment,” writes Anne Brodie at What She Said. “As a former ad writer, he realises ‘Words aren’t happiness. Being is.’ But tragedy strikes when thirty of his flock go missing and he must rethink and reconnect and be a better shepherd.  Overall, an inspiring story of change, the promise of nature, connection and love. The upsetting scenes? They too are life.”

“Deraspe finds poetry in the realities and hardships of rural life. Shepherds harnesses tropes of the pastoral—the genre that fuels Mathyas’s romantic urges—while firmly rejecting his idealisation of the trade. The film benefits from the retrospective voice of its author, as Lefebure imbues the films with the philosophical inklings that drive his memoir, but the awakening that happens is not one of a romantic poet, but one of the down-to-earth pragmatist,” says Pat Mullen at That Shelf. “Mathyas learns that shepherds know not any division between work and play. They eat only the scraps and earn their laurels by familiarising themselves with every inch of the bucolic landscape to ensure their herd’s survival. The poetry here is the authentic and respectful portrait of rural labour.”

The Silent Planet (dir. Jeffrey St. Jules 🇨🇦)

“The Silent Planet is, at first glance, an ungainly pile of science-fiction tropes and platitudes that has no right to gel into anything cohesive or interesting. But do give it a second glance, because it does just that,” says Chris Knight at Original Cin. “It’s basically a two-hander, but St. Jules doesn’t skimp on the tertiary background details. This includes the alien race that is now living on Earth alongside humans, and some future tech that clearly involved more planning than: ‘How do we transmit this piece of information?’ My favourite in the latter category is Janie (Alex Paxton-Beesley), an Alexa-type voice assistant that seems like it might provide a degree of company for Niyya, until it informs her that she’s used up all her personal dialogue prompts and can now only ask questions of an official nature. Oh well.”

“For a small-budget film, director St. Jules covers the issues admirably,” notes Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto. “The film is also simple in delivery, thus making it difficult to find fault with.  The film also possesses a sci-fi look, one reminiscent of the ’70s sci-fi films. The lodging where the two are put up is minimal which allows a quaint and futuristic design (great production design by Andrew Berry).”

This Time Next Year (dir. Nick Moore)

“To its credit, the film has heart and committed performances, among them from Scotsman John Hannah of Four Weddings and a Funeral fame, who knows his way around a classic rom-com, and Charlie Oscar as Minnie’s droll, perennially snazzily outfitted sidekick, a twist on the standard gay male pal who gets all the best lines. So, there’s that,” admits Kim Hughes at Original Cin. “But you won’t find much in This Time Next Year or many other deviations from the standard, unironic rom-com playbook. This is as close to a grilled cheese on white made with Kraft Singles as a movie can get. Comforting in its way but so blandly familiar.”

Who in the Hell Is Regina Jones? (dir. Billy Miossi, Soraya Sélène)

“It’s fitting that Jones’ story filters this personal and collective experience through a magazine that articulated news and views from the music scene,” says Pat Mullen at POV Magazine. “As many music docs note, songs on the airwaves were key to change and bridging diverse American experiences through music. Soul and Jones were key to ensuring that Black voices had their share of the conversation. This film warmly gives credit where it’s clearly due and brings Jones back into the conversation.”

File Under Miscellaneous

At The Globe and Mail, Barry Hertz recaps some of the highlights from the Oscar broadcast, including the friendly rivalry between nominee Jeremy Strong and winner Kiera Culkin: “Well, to extinguish any whispers of Waystar Royco-like tension, Culkin opened his acceptance speech by gratefully thanking Strong,” writes Hertz. “And then Culkin pivoted to something even more personal, cheekily reminding his wife, Jazz Charton, that she once promised him they could add two more kids to their family if he ever won an Oscar. ‘I have not brought it up once till just now!’ he said. ‘I just have one thing to say to you, love of my life, ye of little faith: Let’s get cracking on those kids.’”

TV Talk / Series Stuff – Markle Doesn’t Sparkle

At The Gate, Andrew Parker breaks bread with Deli Boys: “Deli Boys is a work of maximalist bliss, in terms of its elevated approach to comedy and organized crime tropes. But Saeed has also crafted a fascinating character study amid all the theatrics.”

At What She Said, Anne Brodie checks out Meghan Markle’s latest self-portrait, With Love, Meghan: “recipes, ideas, BUT twee and slow.” There’s a bit more substance to be found in the six-parter Boat Story: “As wicked as all this sounds and it certainly is, the series is also extremely funny. The wit and wordplay deliver its dark charms irresistibly.  No one is going to judge you if you enjoy it.” Meanwhile, Tree on the Hill is “Fascinating, horrific, crammed with irony and endlessly hilarious.”

At The Globe and Mail, Johanna Schneller agrees that With Love, Meghan isn’t the best binge: “Markle doesn’t usefully teach viewers how to do anything – she merely shows us how beautifully she/her food stylist does everything,” writes Schneller. “She arranges several splendid crudités platters – repeatedly, she tells us that she does this every day for the Duke and the heirs, and as a result they positively crave vegetables! – but does she slow down and demonstrate, step-by-step, how to do it? No. Does she acknowledge that the heirloom lettuces and fresh herbs she uses as a base layer cost more than the average person spends on dinner for four? Again, no. Yet does she ‘cry’ when a guest says, ‘Perfect isn’t beautiful – things that have lived and been dropped and put together again are more beautiful?’ You betcha.”