Clear Eyes, Full House: Toronto Takeaways

Kirsten Dunst, Sydney Sweeney, Midnight Madness and how TIFF restored my faith in the industry (for now)

SELFIE BY SWEENEY Christy star Sydney Sweeney is on the left in this photo, if you didn’t know. (Sydney Sweeney)

With film in the state that it is — teetering on the brink of oblivion, addicted to self-harm, unable or unwilling to even address the problems, let alone take steps to solve them — why do I keep traveling the world to return to these festivals?

Well, despite the hassles and permanent damage that a week without sleep does to me every time, festivals are where I come to restore my soul and my belief in why I cover this industry.

I arrive in Toronto like Ishmael goes to sea in Moby Dick:

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off — then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball.

If you read my recent columns, the spectre of coffin warehouses is never far away in Hollywood.

And so I arrived in Toronto to find my faith again, less beaten-down and bleary-eyed than my fellow festival-goers just arriving from Venice or Telluride, ready to take it all in with clear eyes and a full heart. For those on the prestige circuit, the six-month death march to the Dolby kicks off with a cagematch in the first round: Who can survive, or even keep track of, this trifecta of festivalia?

In this three-way cagematch, there is something oddly lovable about Toronto. There was a time when it positioned itself as the haughty locus of A-list grandeur. That hauteur is largely gone, although given the number of premieres and stars coming through, some of it exists.

But essentially it feels sort of like the tweener of the opening troika: neither Telluride’s hard-core cinephiles nor Venice’s international elites. Which isn’t a bad place to be! Not as fancy or highbrow but a touch more populist.

Little by little, Toronto, now in its 50th year, seems to be returning — or retreating — to its original premise: bringing films of the world to a Canadian audience.

As for the financial state of the fest, this is not the best of times for any, and TIFF has gone through its share of turmoil lately, including a staff shake-up and losing its major sponsor last year. This article about the festival’s huge investment in building its own marquee theater is pretty alarming.

There is also a persistent rumor in Toronto that the Cineplex Odeon chain (which controls something like 75 percent of the Canadian box office) is in the process of trying to sell itself and, to that end, in the name of getting its balance sheet in order, is hoping to shut down the massive Scotiabank megaplex where a considerable percent of the festival screenings — including nearly all the of the 10 zillion Press & Industry screenings — are held. Given that there’s no other multiplex in the immediate neighborhood, that would spark a real crisis here.

Add to that, the sight of these volunteers outside every screening…

…selling tickets for the TIFF raffle. It doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in the state of things.

But the show goes on, and here’s what I saw during my whirlwind weekend in Toronto…