The 50th year of the Toronto International Film Festival seemed to be a good time for TIFF To pull out all the stops and throw a grand party day party with world premieres of the films that will define the 2025-2026 season. But four days into the festival it has not worked that way.
Instead, most of the year’s hottest titles chose to premiere at other festivals, leaving TIFF to fall back on something that has always done exceptionally well: showing audience-levy films that will entertain the audience even if they do not affect the culture or shape the face in the coming season.
In a way, you can call it a disappointing event for TIFF50, as this year’s signage calls it. One by one, many of what was expected to be the largest of this year’s award films went to various autumn festivals for their world premieres: Venice got Guillermo del Toros “Frankenstein,” Yorgos Lanthimo’s “Bugonia”, Noah Baumbach’s “Jay Kelly,” Kathryn Bigelow’s ” Whil, whil, whil, whi, whous, whous, whous, whi, whous, whous, whous, whous, whous, whous, whous, whous, whous, whous, whous, whous: delta, whil “, oaths” the ballad of a ballad of a ballad of a ballad of a ballad of a ballad of a ballad of a ballad Me from Nowhere. ”
“Frankenstein”, “The Harbor” and “Ballad of a Little Player” also play in Toronto, but they do not premiere here, which meant that TIFF lost these boastful for a year where it would have been nice to land some big fish. But something else arose during the first days of the festival, and in a way it speaks to what has always been a strength of a party whose highest award is determined by the audience’s votes rather than a jury.
Rian Johnson’s “Wake up dead man: A Knives out mystery, “which premiered on Saturday, is emblematic for this strength-Johnson’s first” knives out “blew off the roof from TIFF 2019, and” Glass Onion “did the same when it premiered here in 2022. With the very enthusiastic crowds.
It is also a richly satisfying audience that fits perfectly in TIFF Sweet Spot. And on Saturday, that court held the Princess of the Wales Theater while the nearby Roy Thomson Hall showed Derek Cianfrance’s “Takman”, where it often drew the director transformed a story about a serial robber into A real rom-com of sorting. Between these two arenas, the Royal Alexandra Theater hosted the world premiere of the actress-friendly director Maude Apatow’s college comedy “Poetic License.” And later in the evening Aziz Ansari premiered for its “Happiness,” Which turned out to be much milder and smarter than you can expect in view of its potential for wide stoner comedy. (Think of it as “It’s a Wonderful Life” with Ansari and Seth Rogen as Dueling George Baileys and Keanu Reeves as a deadpan but very fun angel Clarence.)
You can Throw in Jonathan Etzler’s “Bad Apples” (Saoirse Ronan as a Teacher Who Snaps), “Charlie Harper” (A Touching Post-Rom-Com) and Even Baz Luhrmann’s “Epic: Elvis Presley in Concert, and Paul Grene Em Dancing In The Aism in Dancing In The Aisles. Harrowing Action Film About Devastating California Wildfires, Which Seem’s Designed More to Capture viewers (who burst into a hearty Applaus round at a particularly intense moment) than impressing voters.
And as usual, Toronto is much more than what plays in his best theaters on the opening weekend. There have been many documentaries, from hard strokes to entertaining, and lots of more important films that have come here after premiere in Cannes, Venice and Telluride. “The port” arrived in Toronto on Sunday afternoon and “Frankenstein” will be here on Monday, so two of the real faces of the awards ceremony are reported. And when the People’s Choice Award is announced at the end of the 11-day festival, the latest story says it will continue to get an Oscar nomination for best image; Each winner between 2012 and 2023 did just that, but last year’s winner, “Chuck’s life,” seems likely to break the streak.
Meanwhile, we have another week to go to this year’s party. A slate of audience films may not be what the TIFF team imagined for their 50th edition, but it is really a suitable way to admit that popcorn movies are at least as important as prestige films at this festival.
