THE SUBSTANCE
(UK, USA, France | 2024 | 140m | Coralie Fargeat)
North American Premiere
At long last, someone is brave enough to answer the question of whether there is anything grosser than watching Dennis Quaid eat shrimp.

[FULL REVIEW]

EDEN
(USA | 2024 | 129m | Ron Howard)
World Premiere

Ron Howard dives into the dark scheming heart of humanity in recounting a true story of self-promotional Galapagos settlers in the 1930s. [FULL REVIEW]

THE WILD ROBOT
(USA | 2024 | 101m | Chris Sanders)
World Premiere

A movie about a lost robot and a cynical loner fox raising an orphan goose, plus the power of unlikely animal friendships? As if this gorgeously animated marvel was built in a lab specifically to make me weep. Task accomplished, satisfaction rating 10/10. [FULL REVIEW]

THE LIFE OF CHUCK
(USA | 2024 | 110m | Mike Flanagan)
World Premiere

Told in three acts in reverse, Mike Flanagan has made a lovely little Stephen King adaptation about how Tom Hiddleston came to be an exceptional dancer who contains multitudes. [FULL REVIEW]

ON SWIFT HORSES
(USA | 2024 | 117m | Daniel Minahan)
World Premiere

I suppose it’s kinda cool that the hottest young stars in Hollywood now establish their cred by the rite of passage of playing gay. In Daniel Minahan’s adaptation of Shannon Pufahl’s 2019 novel, at least Jacob Elordi and Daisy Edgar Jones avoid tragic weepy stereotypes in this handsome literary take on queer identities in the 1950s American West. [FULL REVIEW]

NIGHTBITCH
(USA | 2024 | 98m | Marielle Heller)
World Premiere

Amy Adams is phenomenal as an artist who set her career aside to raise an adorable child; she sells the madness of isolation as her identity attempts to reclaim itself with hallucinations (maybe) that she’s turning into a dog. [FULL REVIEW]

EMILIA PÉREZ
(France | 2024 | 132m | Jacques Audiard)
Canadian Premiere

To its enormous credit and occasional detriment, Jacques Audiard’s improbable musical is as mercurial as its title drug kingpin to society queen heroine. Karla Sofía Gascón gives a groundbreaking turn in the title role, Selena Gomez acquits herself well as a horny widow, and Adriana Paz makes a powerful impression with limited screen time. The movie’s all over the place, but it is at its best when Zoe Saldaña and her ferocious intelligence is onscreen. [FULL REVIEW]

QUEER
(Italy, USA | 2024 | 135m | Luca Guadagnino)
North American Premiere

Thought if anyone could make the smack-addled writings of William S Burroughs romantic it would have to be Luca Guadagnino, but alas. [FULL REVIEW]

THE ROOM NEXT DOOR
(Spain | 2024 | 107m | Pedro Almodóvar)
North American Premiere

The new Almodóvar — about a war correspondent facing her own mortality with the help of an old friend — is not good (bafflingly bad, even!), but we do get to hear Tilda Swinton say “the dark web” not once but twice.

The entire film is conducted amid stilted conversations in luxurious settings. The production design is fantastic, the clothes are phenomenal, but the dialogue is painfully flat. So much so that it feels like a real unforced error to have Tilda and the usually emotive Julianne Moore both attempting to perform in English.

THE LAST SHOWGIRL
(USA | 2024 | 85m | Gia Coppola)
World Premiere

Gia Coppola dreamily regards the fading twilight of what happens when a legend is finally forced to become a relic. As she hangs up the feathers and rhinestones of the longest running act on the Las Vegas Strip, a vulnerable and unvarnished Pamela Anderson makes it impossible to look away.

Strong supporting performances by Jamie Lee Curtis as a showgirl-turned-cocktailer, Kieran Shipka as an up-and-coming dancer, and Dave Bautista as the father-figure stage manager round out the menagerie of characters who inhabit a shrinking corner of history.

APRIL
(Italy, France, Georgia | 2024 | 134m | Dea Kulumbegashvili)
North American Premiere

In shatteringly uncomfortable and precisely composed long takes, Dea Kulumbegashvili challenges us to experience the heavy personal and professional tolls taken on by an OB-GYN following her conscience over the laws and customs in eastern Georgia. The consequences of her willingness to provide abortions in the remote villages comes into focus after a birth (filmed from above in more actual detail than most health classes ever provide) results in unanticipated complications. Devastating and unflinching.

WE LIVE IN TIME
(UK, France | 2024 | 107m | John Crowley)
World Premiere

Well this sure is a perfectly-calibrated, very British, tragi-romance of the highest order. In a series of precision strikes directly at the ol heartstrings, the story proceeds simultaneously through meet-cute, tragic diagnosis, budding relationship, pregnancy, and a battle with cancer during a cooking Olympics. Florence Pugh has the biggest moments, but Andrew Garfield as emotional superconductor is the not-so-secret weapon.

ROAD DIARY: BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND THE E STREET BAND
(USA | 2024 | 99m | Thom Zimny)
World Premiere

Are New Jersey’s finest rock and rollers still dynamic and vital after more than a half century of rocking? Yes, but you’ll have to take their word for it or see one of their arenas shows for yourself as proof. Although it follows the band’s reunion, rehearsals, and international arena tours Thom Zimny’s lugubriously paced and inertly filmed Hulu-bound concert doc won’t convince you. It barely even plays the hits.

RUMOURS
(Canada, Germany | 2024 | 103m | Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson)
North American Premiere

Cate Blanchett must’ve owed Guy Maddin one hell of a favor. She stars as a German Chancellor in his latest (co-directed by Evan and Galen Johnson). It earns more than a few laughs as it skewers the modern political scene. But much like its broadly-drawn stereotypes of G7 leaders in an unspecified crisis, this satire quickly finds itself lost in the thick fog of mucky woods and never really finds its way toward making a profound statement, provisional or otherwise.

THE BRUTALIST
(UK | 2024 | 215m | Brady Corbet)
North American Premiere

Immigration as flight from extinction, genius supplicant to fickle self-gratifying capitalism, a soaring American story told in concrete and steel. With Adrien Brody’s singular performance as a Hungarian Jew who immigrates to Pennsylvania after World War II, Brady Corbet finally delivers one the year’s greatest films (in Vistavision, no less!).

BABYGIRL
(USA | 2024 | 114m | Halina Reijn)
North American Premiere

A quarter century after Eyes Wide Shut, Halina Reijn puts Nicole Kidman again in a position to serve up a prickly and fun exploration of the dynamics of control, desire, and submission (also at Christmastime). Harris Dickinson is the instantly alluring boss whisperer. In Nicole Kidman, his intern’s intuition finds a CEO who matches his freak. Quickly, and with the assistance of a George Michael needle drop that will make audiences levitate, he makes her … his nightbitch.

A sneakily fun, surprisingly smart, sexy and suspenseful finale to my festival. Glad I booked a late flight!