Toronto Film Festival Sept. 5- Sept 15, 2019

[Chris Knipp]

D'Angelo Last Day
(Written back at home, he explains, hence the delay. Summarized with quotes here.)

"Slightly delayed because I spent most of yesterday taking planes, trains and automobiles home, with spotty wi-fi on every leg of the trip."

A Girl Missing (Kôji Fukada, France/Japan): 47. Admits he mistook the main character disguised as two different characters because he has "an embarrassing faceblindness problem with certain ASian actors." But the "protagonist's radically conflicting personae don't make emotional sense even in retrospect, plus the tentative treatment of a "key relationship, involving the sister of an abducted girl" becomes borderline offensive," and D'Angelo is "still not sold on this guy."

Sorry We Missed You (Ken Loach, Belgium/France/UK): 54. D'Angelo found Loach's much admired Daniel Blake excessive, this less so, but says it goes into the "pitfalls of the gig economy" so extensively, he wondered if "an advocacy doc might not have been more appropriate." "The souring father-son dynamic pays dividends, though...even if the shift in emphasis means that treating one's employees as contract laborers, subject to endless penalties and fines, winds up seeming less incendiary than does a teen's anger at being deprived of his smartphone for even two minutes."

Clemency (Chinonye Chukwu, USA): W/O [I reviewed this as part of ND/NF in March. I spoke admiringly of the serious theme and the acting, but noted that it was unenjoyable and heavyhanded. D'Angelo just walked out,and though he said "Woodard looks solid" (the star) the film he found "never not clunky."

Deerskin (Quentin Dupieux, France): 49 He notes this oddball director is "sporadically funny" but this one of his films "really beats its single absurdist idea into the ground." This film, with Jean Dujardin, was summarized earlier on Filmleaf and I noted seeng Dupieux's previous film at ND/NF in March. This one also stars Adèle Haemel, who D'Angelo says "plays her role perhaps a bit too straight," which makes the ending "shrugworthy." but at least Dupieux keeps his films "painlessly short."

First Love (Takashi Miike, Japan/UK): 72 His second viewing, confirming his rating; he promises a formal review coming next week on AV Club. So no need to say much or quote much here.

This comprises 48 films seen by D'Angelo at TFF this year including six walkouts. He thinks that out of these, A White, White Day, Uncut Gems, First Love, and It Must Be Heaven "likely" to be on his top ten list "at year's end." "Plus Knives Out of course, which I feel like I saw there in spirit." He promises coming Patreon rveiews outside the Toronto list of Shadow, The Souvenir Booksmart, The Last Black Man in San Francisco,T he nightingale, The Farewell, and more.