(Toronto) American director Alexander Payne entered the Oscar race with the screening of his new film Monday at the Toronto Film Festival Winter Breaka poignant comedy-drama that depicts a grumpy professor and his tormented student in the 1970s.
After Sideways in 2004, the film marked the reunion of Alexander Payne with actor Paul Giamatti, who here plays the role of Paul Hunham. A grumpy teacher at a school in the northeastern United States, he has no problem defeating his students by imagining that their parents’ money should buy them good grades.
During winter vacation, he is forced to stay in the school’s boarding house to supervise the few students who cannot return for Christmas. In the end, only one remains: Angus, played by neophyte Dominic Sessa, whose family life is tumultuous.
Over the course of the film, the two build their own improbable family.
Paul Giamatti, Dominic Sessa, as well as screenwriter David Hemingson were not present Monday for the screening at the Toronto film festival, TIFF, due to the ongoing double strike of actors and screenwriters in Hollywood.
The director, with Oscar-winning screenplays for Sideways And The Descendantspraised young Dominic Sessa, recruited from one of the Massachusetts boarding schools where the film was shot.
“To be on par with Paul Giamatti for his very first film is truly remarkable,” Alexander Payne said during a post-screening Q&A.
TIFF, which ends on September 17, is seen as a springboard for many films, notably with its Audience Award which has established itself as a barometer in the race for the Oscars. In recent years, two of its winners, Nomadland And Green Bookwon the Oscar for best film after being noticed in Toronto.
The Gold Derby Place awards screening site Winter Breakscheduled for theatrical release in December, among its main contenders for several prestigious Oscars, including best picture and best director.