By Dave McCoy
MSN Movies

Sept. 6, 2007

Officially, the 2007 Toronto Film Festival runs Sept. 6-15. So why, you ask, are you reading a dispatch on the first day that reviews films that haven't premiered yet?

Well, I have a dirty little secret to tell you -- something I've wanted to admit since I started covering film festivals back in 1991. All these journalists (only a handful actually deserve the title of "film critic") that you read during film festivals, the ones who say they're seeing 30-40 films in 10 days? Well, they're lying. Think of a bunch of jocks in the weight room, trying to out-lift the other jocks -- "How much can you bench, dude?" Well, the film festival equivalent of that posturing is this: "How many films have you seen this year, dude?"

The truth is that many of these reviewers don't actually see the film AT the festival. This is because studios want to get their movies seen without any competition -- such as, in 2007 TIFF's case, the other 348 films showcased here. Or they want to generate word of mouth. So, about three weeks before a festival, you start getting screening notices for films in your hometown (in my case, Seattle) that are supposed to make their premieres in, say, Toronto. Or, in some cases, a journalist may have seen something at another film festival, didn't choose to write about it, and then holds it over for another festival, so it looks like he or she is running ragged in a marathon of film-going. This year, I'm not playing the game.

Over the past few weeks, I saw a handful of titles that'll be "premiering" this weekend. So, instead of waiting, I say let's get started now, and have us a little pre-festival festival coverage.

"The Brave One"
People always seem surprised when I say that TIFF is my favorite film festival in the world. I tell them it's the timing. TIFF is one of the last festivals of each year. So, it has the luxury of hand-picking the best from Sundance, Berlin, Cannes and more, and because it's fall, Hollywood uses TIFF as a launching pad for all Oscar hopefuls. It's the cream-of-the-crop film festival. Think of any Oscar-winning actor or best film over the past decade, and chances are it debuted here.

And with that, I'm officially tossing Jodie Foster's name into the 2008 Oscar race pool. Her poignant, terrifying and world-weary turn in Neil Jordan's "The Brave One" is her finest, most compelling work since her Oscar-winning performance in "Silence of the Lambs" and the type of stuff the Academy eats up. Sadly, if Foster doesn't get nominated, the reason will be the film she so passionately tries to hold up all by herself. It's rare when Jordan ("The End of the Affair," "The Crying Game") makes a misstep, and for quite awhile he seems to be on target with "The Brave One." Like "Ms. 45" or an artier "Death Wish," "The Brave One" is a meditation on American vigilantism. Foster plays a talk-show host who wanders New York and collects the sights and sounds for her audience. She is happy, successful and deeply in love with her fiancé (Naveen Andrews from "Lost") ... until one night, the city she loves turns on her. Following this tragedy, Foster becomes someone else. At first, she can't leave her house, and when she does, the first thing she does is buy a gun. When she kills a scumbag in self-defense at a convenience store, she realizes she has a power to right the wrongs that normal cops can't. One of these cops is played by Terrence Howard, who takes a special interest in Foster, until he starts figuring out the talk-show host may have a darker side.

And this is when "The Brave One" begins to fall apart. When it delves into Foster's pain, and investigates how a onetime home can become a menacing beast overnight (for a while, this is one of the best New York films you're likely to see), the film is thoughtful and deeply moving. However, when it finally becomes yet another revenge genre film (think of Joel Schumacher's dumbed-down "Falling Down"), it unravels. And then there is the ending, which is so jaw-droppingly lame, you wonder why Jordan didn't force the three screenwriters who created this drivel back to their computers. To call it a cop-out is both literally and figuratively spot on. Such a shame ...

"Margot at the Wedding" and "When Did You Last See Your Father?"
Two films, two families, a whole lotta dysfunction, and two painful movie-going experiences ... and I mean that with the utmost respect and appreciation.

As demonstrated with "The Squid and the Whale," few seem more comfortable with messy, brutal family relationships and their effects on children than writer/director Noah Baumbach. And if that dark comedy made you squirm (and it should have), that's nothing compared with his even-nastier follow-up, "Margot at the Wedding." Toward the middle of this brilliant character study, the selfish, loathsome, neurotic title character (played by Nicole Kidman ... oh, hell, toss her name in the Oscar race, too) is playing croquet with her family: suffocated teenage son/mama's boy Claude (Zane Pais); equally insane sister Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh); and Pauline's fiancé, the struggling musician/"unemployed letter-writer" Malcolm (Jack Black in his best role since "High Fidelity"). After muffing a shot and then watching a frustrated Malcolm hurl his mallet, Margot walks away, and says, "I hate what games do to me." "Margot" essentially revolves around this line, for in Baumbach's world, family is a game, one long, wicked, nasty, cutthroat game from which you can't escape and one that you play even when you're unaware you're playing. Margot gave up playing briefly. Her sister stopped talking to her several years ago ("No, I stopped talking to her," she says, correcting her son ... again) and yet when Pauline decides to marry Malcolm, Margot agrees to put her own struggling marriage on hold in New York and attend the wedding with Claude. And there, in the countryside, in her parents' old house, the games begin. Again.

As with "Squid," each adult here is more childish than the kids they are raising. Pauline and Margot smile falsely at one another ("shine your teeth to meaningless" as Wilco once sang), and lob digs at each other like hand grenades. Malcolm hangs around drawing porn and saying things like, "I'm waiting for that feeling, that I'm not the most important person in the world, to pass." But any of these characters could say that. If it sounds grueling, it is. You'll wring your hands, groan a lot, watch some scenes through your fingers as if watching a horror film, and finally want to reach into the screen and strangle every miserable adult character. It's neurosis as high art. But you'll also laugh ... a lot. Baumbach's ear for quirky, honest dialogue (too honest at times) is so fine-tuned and clever that the jokes often don't hit you until after the film has ended. And trust me, you'll be grateful to remember them because let's face it, laughing is often better than crying.

Unless you're, well, dead, you'll do a ton of crying in "'When Did You Last See Your Father?" It's an unabashedly sentimental look at a man (a moving Colin Firth) having to go back home when his father (Jim Broadbent) is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Good times indeed ... especially if you've gone home to watch your father die of terminal cancer, but that's a story for another time and since I like you, I'll keep it to myself. The film, as directed by Anand Tucker, is more about memory than it is the present and dying. Tucker plays with time, so that when Firth's memory is jogged, we too travel back. In an odd way, it's a coming-of-age story told in reverse. It's about fathers trying to regain youth through their sons, it's about sons trying to establish identity outside of their fathers, and it's mostly about how you can love and hate someone simultaneously and still remain somewhat sane. I had little expectation going into Tucker's film based on his past work -- the mediocre "Hilary and Jackie," the woefully empty "Shopgirl." I'm glad I gave him another try. Cathartic doesn't begin to describe the experience.

"The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"
Andrew Dominik's long-awaited follow-up to "Chopper" has been a troubled production. Rumors say that star and producer Brad Pitt has been tinkering with Dominik's original cut, which is why it's been sitting around for a few years. It was supposed to be Pitt's Oscar showcase last year. And the results have already been met with mixed reviews. Variety gave it a rave, calling it one of the great Westerns of the 1970s (high praise indeed), while a colleague told me he thinks it is the best film of this year. I, on the other hand, found it gorgeous (Roger Deakins shot it, and it's breathtaking), often quietly poetic, and blessed with a haunting score thanks to Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. At 2 hours, 40 minutes, it's longer than its silly title, and still it's also a mess, and gives off the feeling of way too many cooks in the kitchen. (One example: Why does Zooey Deschanel show up for the last 15 minutes? Did they forget to introduce her?) I'm not sure if Pitt gave a great performance in an earlier cut, but perhaps thanks to his own tinkering, what's now on-screen doesn't work. His Jesse James feels forced, kooky instead of creepy, and honestly, slightly out of Pitt's age range. Better is Casey Affleck's impotent take on Robert Ford. Where Pitt is over-the-top even when staring quietly, Affleck disappears into the pathetic role. It's a breakout that excites me for his star turn in the upcoming "Gone Baby Gone." As for Pitt, I advise him to listen to his directors and just act. It's worked well until now.

No Reviews to See Here
Finally, there are a bunch of titles that made their debut at Cannes that are also showing here. I won't be writing about those here. If you want to read my thoughts on the following films, head over to our 2007 Cannes coverage: "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days," "The Banishment," "The Man From London," "Mister Lonely," "The Mourning Forest," "Water Lilies," "Paranoid Park," "Secret Sunshine," "Une Vieille Maîtresse" and "No Country for Old Men." That said, I will be seeing "No Country" again. In May, I called it the best film of the year. It's five months later, and it's still the case. I doubt I'll see anything better in the next 10 days, but you never know. It's why I'm here.

Next: George Clooney in "Michael Clayton," and more

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Will you see any of the films reviewed above? What should Dave see at TIFF? Write us at heymsn@microsoft.com

Dave McCoy is lead editor for MSN Movies.