The films follow one another and are not alike at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), although unifying themes sometimes emerge here and there. Among the anticipated world premieres was the satirical-fantasy comedy Nightbitchwith Amy Adams, animation The Wild Robotand the horror drama Hereticwith a terrifying Hugh Grant. Not forgetting, in an international premiere, The Piano Lessonthe adaptation of August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, produced by Denzel Washington and his daughter Katia Washington, co-written and directed by his son Malcolm Washington, and starring his other son, John David Washington.
Written and directed by Marielle Heller from a novel by Rachel Yoder, Nightbitch tells the story of the, let’s say, animalistic awakening of an artist who has put her career on hold in order to take care of her child full-time. Disenchanted and lacking fulfillment, the protagonist one day notices that her incisors are sharper, her skin is hairier, and that she wants to oppose her partner’s whining with growls.
By turns hilarious and poignant, Nightbitch bites into the taboos surrounding motherhood. In this respect, Marielle Heller’s film shows a real kinship with The Substanceby Coralie Fargeat, which caused a sensation at TIFF after doing the same at Cannes. In fact, both films mix genres brilliantly, are carried by a heroine in mutation — literally —, and offer an uncompromising satirical critique of the roles in which patriarchal society tends to confine women.
Chris Sanders’ animated feature explores a whole different kind of motherhood. The Wild Robot (voiced by Lupita Nyong’o), based on the book by Peter Brown. It follows Roz, a robot stranded on an island uninhabited except for a large animal population.
Programmed to perform tasks, any task, Roz finds herself having to watch over an orphaned duckling. And it turns out she only has six months to teach him to fly so he can migrate before the harsh winter. But then, deep inside her guts made of metal and circuits, something like an emotion, a pulse, begins to well up in Roz…
The pace is uneven, and the inevitable eleventh-hour events are more or less well integrated, but the fact remains that, once again, the director How to Train Your Dragon (Dragons) And Lilo and Stitch (Lilo and Stitch) has the ability to dazzle… and move to tears.
The Piano of Discord
In The Piano Lessonwe move from motherhood to the extended family, while the instrument of the title becomes a source of discord. Note that after Fences And Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (My Rainey’s Blues), The Piano Lesson is the third play by August Wilson that Denzel Washington has adapted to film as producer (and director in the case of Fences).
The dramatic material is powerful, the acting too, but the whole is a little more uneven than in previous adaptations. The Piano Lesson is this being ingeniously staged. Indeed, there are evocative images galore, which are imprinted on the memory, as well as powerful passages, which do the same, as when the men assembled in the kitchen spontaneously start singing while clapping their hands and feet. Shivers.
We first meet Willie, on his way to visit his sister Berniece in Pittsburgh, in 1936. Willie plans to convince her to sell the family piano left to them by their father, so that he can buy land once he returns to Mississippi.
Full of history, the instrument displays in bas-reliefs the portraits of their parents and ancestors, all sculpted by their father. Their father who, long ago, stole the said piano from the slave owner who had held them under his cruel thumb.
As Willie and Berniece clash over the piano’s meaning and value—he wants the sale to help them build a better future, she argues that their blood is mixed with the instrument’s varnish—uncles are present and reminiscing (Samuel L. Jackson and Michael Potts); a friend (Ray Fisher) and a pastor (Corey Hawkins) weigh in…
And the more the tension rises, the more, in the house, a malevolent presence, arising from the past, seems ready to manifest itself… In the end, brother and sister will have to transcend, each in their own way, the generational pain transmitted. To do this, they will have to call upon the spirit of the ancestors and God.
Chilling Hugh Grant
Yet the very existence of God, of any deity for that matter, is at the heart of the film. Heretic. This is also the initial topic of conversation between a charming gentleman (Hugh Grant) at whose door two young Mormon missionaries (Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East) knock. It’s a bad move for them.
Long associated with romantic comedy where he was often formidable (Four Weddings and a Funeral / Four Weddings and a Funeral ; Notting Hill ; Music and Lyrics / Couple and verses), Hugh Grant has, in fact, demonstrated the infinite breadth of his range from the very beginning of his career, with films like Mauritius Or Impromptu. In recent years, we have seen him having fun as a “bad guy”, with contagious pleasure, in Paddington 2, The Gentlemen And Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (Dungeons and Dragons: Thieves’ Honor).
However, nothing prepared us for the brilliantly sinister performance he delivers in Heretic. Between verbal jousts and frightening revelations, the writing and directing duo Scott Beck and Bryan Woods offer slow-burning horror that looks like a deadly chess game. The last act is less convincing, but here again, there is Hugh Grant, who freezes the blood. And that too, is a first.
The movie Nightbitch will be released in December, The Wild Robot September 27, The Piano Lesson November 8, and Heretic November 15. François Lévesque is in Toronto thanks in part to the support of Telefilm Canada.