Bad Education is based on an actual school embezzlement scandal that broke in the mid 2000s. For years, School Superintendent Frank Tassone and his assistant Pam Gluckin had been defrauding the Roslyn High School in Long Island New York. By over-billing for school expenses and pocketing the difference, billing large personal expenses under ambiguous categories, and billing to fake companies (one owned by Tassone’s romantic partner), the pair bilked the school system for over $10 million dollars. As their scam starts to unravel, after throwing Gluckin under the bus to save himself, Tassone tries to deflect from his own culpability using charm, self-righteous justifications and finally intimidation. Tassone’s personal life also comes to light as it is revealed that as opposed to being the long-grieving widow with a (fake) photo of his young bride sitting on his desk, he is a closeted gay man with a long-term partner in New York and a younger exotic dancer lover on the side. The movie also questions the accountability of the school board trustees, who was more interested in protecting their soaring property values associated with being near a prestigious school, and that of the parents who are solely concerned with getting their kids into desired colleges.
It was interesting watching an aging Hugh Jackman start to take anti-hero or villainous roles, after a long career of mostly playing the good guy. I felt the same way about romantic comedy staple Hugh Grant who recently played the lead in A Very English Scandal. While they both flash their trademark charismatic smiles in these roles, there is a hardness in their eyes that belies the outward persona each tries to portray.
The Perfect Candidate is a movie from Saudi Arabia that deals with Maryam, a female doctor at a local clinic accessed by a mud path, who advocates for a paved road instead. After inadvertently signing up to run for election on a local council, she realizes that winning the position might give her the power to implement changes to help her community including the construction of the road for the clinic. Fully committing to the campaign, Maryam faces opposition from both men and women in her village, who don’t approve of women taking leadership roles. It was disturbing to see the limitations faced by women in this part of the world, including the need to cover their heads or faces in public, and the requirement for a male guardian to give permission for them to travel abroad. But Maryam's spunk and determination in pushing forward her campaign, and the minor victories that she wins in changing a few minds about her candidacy, give a glimmer of hope for the future.
Using a style similar to the movie “The Big Short”, Laundromat attempts to explain the financial shenanigans exposed in 2016 by the Panama Papers, a massive anonymous leak of financial documents that revealed the widespread use of tax havens and off-shore shell companies as means for tax avoidance, as well as illegal activities such as money laundering, bribery, insurance fraud and more. Antonio Banderas and Gary Oldman play the duo roles of the narrators of the film, as well as Mossack and Fonseco, the head lawyers of the firm whose documents were leaked. Breaking the fourth wall as narrators, they speak directly to the camera (and the audience) explaining the concepts of money, credit, taxes and the difference between tax evasion versus tax avoidance. They also introduce a series of fictional examples of what the Panama papers unveiled, including a framing story involving Meryl Streep playing a grieving widow who tries to get a just settlement for a boating accident that killed her husband, only to find out that the insurers for this did not actually exist. For me the movie did not do a good job of explaining the complex situations disclosed by the Panama papers and the use of Streep’s story felt gimmicky. I would have been more interested in a depiction of how 350 reporters from 80 countries secretly spent over a year to investigate the validity of the leak.
How to Build a Girl is a British coming-of-age story with a twist about Johanna, an awkward, imaginative 16-year-old aspiring writer from a blue-collared working class family who carries on conversations with the images pinned to her bedroom wall, including Karl Marx, the Bronte sisters, Sylvia Platt, Cleopatra and Maria from the Sound of Music. After landing a writing gig as a rock music critic, Johanna develops a funky new look and adopts the persona of “Dolly Wilde” as her pen-name. Realizing that she would be more successful in her reviews if they were viciously snarky as opposed to gushingly fan-girly, Johanna morphs from a shy, good-natured teetotaling virgin into a hedonistic sexualized party girl who skewers musical acts with her scathing write-ups.
Beanie Feldstein (who also stars in Booksmart) is great in this role, with an infectious smile that beams ear to ear and some great repartee that she delivers with sass and attitude. Even when she is acting bitchy and alienates her friends and family, she still exudes a vulnerability that makes you continue to pull for her character in her journey of self-discovery.
The Personal History of David Copperfield tells the story of Charles Dickens’ 1850 masterpiece novel, using framing scenes at the beginning and end of the film which depict the grown-up Copperfield reading from his successfully published memoirs. With a few minor changes to the novel’s plot, the luxuriously shot movie depicts most of the quirky characters while capturing the time period, costumes and setting as described in the book. The one major exception is the prevalence of colour-blind casting. The titular character is played by Dev Patel of Hindu descent while David’s mother is white. Similarly, the lawyer Mr Wickfield is played by Chinese actor Benedict Wong while his daughter Agnes is played by black actress Rosalind Eleazar. The most interesting example casts the black actress Nikki Amuka-Bird as the wealthy and extremely snobbish aristocratic mother of David’s classmate James Steerforth, who is played by a white actor. At least there was continuity within a character, as a small Indian boy was cast as the feisty younger version of Patel's Copperfield.
Clifton Hill is a Canadian modern-day gothic thriller about a troubled young woman named Abby who is a pathological liar, possibly triggered by a traumatic event from her childhood growing up in Clifton Hill, Niagara Falls. While out with her family as a little girl, she spotted an injured boy with a bandage over his eye and watched in the shadows as he was captured and thrown into the trunk of his assailants’ car. Unable to get anyone to believe her about the incident when it happened, old memories are dredged up when she returns to her hometown to handle the sale of the family motel after the death of her mother. Abby becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to the “one-eyed boy”, to the chagrin of her younger sister Laura, their family lawyer, and the police who believe she is lying for attention. Set in the quiet off-season for the area and filmed mostly at night, Clifton Hill comes across as gloomy, seedy and a bit sinister. Director David Cronenberg has a small role as a conspiracy theorist in this moody mystery that concludes with a surprise ending that will spur a lengthy discussion as to its meaning.
Abominable is an adorable animated co-production between Dreamworks (who created the Shrek and How to Train a Dragon series) and China’s Pearl Studio that is set in Shanghai and features a trio of Chinese youths as the main protagonists. We are introduced to teenager Yi who is mourning the death of her father and seeks solitude in a rooftop refuge, where she discovers that a baby Yeti (abominable snowman) is also hiding. With the help of her cousins Peng and Jin, Yi attempts to return the Yeti, who she names “Everest” back to his home in the Himalayas, while evading the ruthless group that is trying to recapture him. The long trek from Shanghai to Mount Everest is aided by the magical powers of the Yeti and along the way, Yi learns to come to terms with the loss of her father. The animation is beautifully drawn, depicting remote parts of China including lush countryside and mystical mountaintops while the haunting music that Yi plays on her father’s violin is distinctly Chinese. It was interesting to compare the look, feel and sound of this American-Chinese co-production which differed from the Japanese animated movies that have their own separate style.
Burnt Orange Heresy is a dark suspense thriller about secrets, lies and fraud in the art world, exploring what determines or drives the value of art. We are first introduced to the morally questionable art critic James Figueras, as he gives a lecture on the importance of a good backstory to the deemed value of a piece. Figueras meets the beautiful but mysterious Bernice and brings her along when he is invited to the Italian villa of an unscrupulous art collector/dealer Joseph Cassidy, played with a flair and a touch of menace by Mick Jagger. Cassidy blackmails Figueras into obtaining a painting from the acclaimed but reclusive painter Jerome Debney, at any cost and by any means. Despite the gorgeous setting in Lake Como, Italy, there is a sense of foreboding that lingers through much of the movie, as it courses towards its unsettling conclusion.
On our last day at the festival, we unexpectedly were offered free tickets to the Gala public screening of The Sky is Pink at Roy Thompson Hall. Based on a true story, the movie follows the 25-year marriage of an Indian couple who give birth to a baby girl with a severe immune disorder and their struggles to keep her alive and living life to the fullest, up until her eventual death at age 18. I was intrigued that despite the seemingly somber premise, the movie was described as uplifting and even funny at times. This was accomplished by having the tale be narrated in flashback scenes by the cheerful, irreverent voice of the deceased daughter Aisha, who nicknames her mother “Moose”, her father “Panda” and her big brother “Giraffe”. The movie shows that despite the hardships faced by the family, they persevered with love, understanding and even humour. Once it became clear that Aisha was terminal, Moose (played with fierce but loving determination by actress Priyanka Chopra) made it her mission to ensure Aisha experienced all that life could offer, including owning a dog, going snorkeling, and having a boyfriend. A central theme of the movie is to “live life on your own terms”, which was emphasized in an early scene when young Giraffe cried to his mother that his teacher chastised him for painting the sky pink instead of blue. Moose firmly replied “You must never let anyone else tell you how you should see the colour of the sky”. This turned out to be a very touching movie that celebrated life as opposed to dwelling on death. It was nice to see the director and stars of the movie, but I still don’t understand why there is rarely a post movie Q&A at Roy Thompson Hall. Just like the last time we watched a Gala presentation there, all we got was a wave from the balcony as we filed out of the theatre.
I thought the quality of movies was especially good this year and we saw many stellar films made by countries from around the world. Many of them shared the common theme of class distinction or class wars between the wealthy and the poor. These included Parasite, Three Summers, Lina from Lima, Heroic Losers, Greed, David Copperfield, and Laundromat. A common motif was the use of rain to set the mood in a film. For the first few days of movie-watching, it seemed like every movie included a heavy rainstorm.
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