Sentimental Value

Stellan Skarsgård and Renate Reinsve lead an incomparable cast in Joachim Trier’s moving drama about a director’s bid to revive his career and repair his family’s broken bonds.

With its extraordinary performances and wealth of insight as the story of a family struggling to face its rocky history and confronting the price of living for one’s art, Joachim Trier’s new feature represents another high watermark for the Norwegian director.

The winner of the Grand Prix at this year’s Cannes festival, Sentimental Value portrays the myriad repercussions of a once-great filmmaker’s effort to recapture his past glory. A man who’s always prioritized his work, Gustav Borg (Stellan Skarsgård) is long estranged from his daughters Nora (Renate Reinsve), a gifted stage actress, and the more grounded Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), now immersed in family life years after performing in one of her father’s most revered movies. He finds a surprising source of support after a Hollywood star, Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning), discovers his films at a festival retrospective. As preparation for Gustav’s new movie begins with Rachel in the role that Nora had rejected, the uniquely personal nature of his script — based on a tragedy that took place in the house that remains central to the Borgs’ lives — draws the family members together again in ways they could not predict.

As nuanced as it is empathetic, Trier’s screenplay with long-time collaborator Eskil Vogt brings the best out of the formidable duo of Skarsgård and Reinsve. It also elicits comparably exquisite turns by Fanning and from Lilleaas, who deserves the same kind of attention that Reinsve earned for Trier’s 2021 hit The Worst Person In The World.

Jason Anderson, TIFF

Eleanor The Great

Oscar nominee June Squibb stars in Scarlett Johansson’s thoughtful, provocative, and very funny feature directorial debut, about a nonagenarian who passes herself off as a Holocaust survivor.

Thoughtful, provocative, and funny, Scarlett Johansson’s feature directorial debut is an affecting character study about storytelling as a means of understanding who we are and the perils of appropriation. Showcasing the singular charisma of 95-year-old Oscar nominee June Squibb, Eleanor the Great reminds us that it’s never too late to get yourself into a whole lot of trouble.

After the death of her best friend and long-time roommate Bessie (Rita Zohar), Eleanor (Squibb) leaves her Florida home for New York City, where she moves in with her daughter Lisa (Jessica Hecht) and grandson Max (Will Price). During a visit to the Manhattan Jewish Community Center, Eleanor stumbles her way into a support group for Holocaust survivors and, joining their circle, begins to tell her own story. Except, unbeknownst to everyone listening, it isn’t Eleanor’s story — it’s Bessie’s.

The story snares the attention of journalism student Nina (Erin Kellyman), who wants to feature Eleanor in an article. Never one to turn away attention, Eleanor begins to forge a close bond with Nina. But how long will it take before that bond is shattered by the truth?

Written by Tory Kamen, Eleanor the Great takes on the weightiest of subjects with the lightest of touches. Compulsively chatty, ultra-opinionated, and lacking in boundaries, Eleanor is a fascinating heroine and an absolute hoot. Drawing upon her wide-ranging experience as an actor, Johansson focuses her gaze on the intricacies of Squibb’s performance, which exudes a complexity rarely afforded to elderly characters, and keeps us laughing, even through the most uncomfortable of confrontations.

The Life of Chuck

Mike Flanagan takes a detour from the macabre with this adaptation of a uniquely structured Stephen King novella that unravels a seemingly ordinary accountant’s world.

With The Life of Chuck, Mike Flanagan takes a detour from the macabre to explore one of Stephen King’s alternate sensibilities in an adaptation that carries the spirit of his most optimistic work. The world feels like it’s ending and everybody’s saying goodbye to Chuck. Wherever Marty (Chiwetel Ejiofor) goes, he can’t get away from Charles Krantz (Tom Hiddleston). His face is showing up on billboards, window signs — even TV commercials. What’s so special about this seemingly ordinary accountant and why does he warrant such a sendoff?

Their connection includes Marty’s ex-wife (Karen Gillan), her co-worker, his neighbour, and just about everyone else they know. Chuck’s life story soon begins to unravel in front of us, going back to a childhood with grandfather Albie (Mark Hamill), who teaches him about accounting and passes on a love for dancing, all the while keeping him from a prophetic secret in the attic.

The Life of Chuck starts grand and ends intimate, like a setting sun. It’s a Stand By Me for the multiple lives within each of us, pulled between our dreams and down-to-earth pragmatism. Fans of Flanagan’s skillful storytelling in The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass, and Doctor Sleep will easily see why he gravitated towards the unorthodox structure of this King novella. Coupled with his impressive knack for elevating simple conversations and interactions into memorable set pieces, Flanagan manages a rare feat: finding warmth in melancholy.

It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley

Jeff Buckley, a rising star with an otherworldly voice, left the 90s music world reeling when he died suddenly after the release of his debut album. In a tragic accident, Buckley drowned in the Wolf River in Memphis in 1997, leaving behind an unfinished second album and a legion of devastated family, friends and fans. Told through never-before-seen footage from Buckley’s archives and intimate accounts from his mother Mary Guibert, former partners Rebecca Moore and Joan Wasser, Jeff’s former bandmates, including Michael Tighe and Parker Kindred, and luminaries like Ben Harper and Aimee Mann, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Amy Berg crafts an illuminating portrait of one of modern music’s most influential and enigmatic figures.

Blue Moon

Ethan Hawke delivers a charming, lived-in performance as lyricist Lorenz Hart, holding court at Sardi’s on the historic night of his former collaborator Richard Rodgers’ (Andrew Scott) greatest triumph: the premiere of Oklahoma!

In Blue Moon, director Richard Linklater crafts a riveting chamber piece set in real time at Sardi’s on the historic night in 1943 of Richard Rodgers’ (Andrew Scott) greatest triumph: the premiere of Oklahoma! Ethan Hawke delivers a charming, lived-in performance as Rodgers’ former collaborator, lyricist Lorenz Hart, an alcoholic and marginally closeted raconteur grappling with the fact that Rodgers’ biggest success now belongs to a new partnership with Oscar Hammerstein.

As flowers and accolades pour into the restaurant, heralding a new era of American musicals, Hart holds court at the bar, regaling a plainspoken bartender (Bobby Cannavale) and a young, aspiring composer and military officer with stories. His current fixation is a 20-year-old Yale student, Elizabeth Weiland (Margaret Qualley), whom he reveres with a fervour that drifts between romantic longing and aesthetic worship.

Among the guests is essayist E. B. White (Patrick Kennedy), perched in a corner, making his presence known to offer le mot juste — “ineffable” — during one of Hart’s rhapsodic monologues about Elizabeth. The film imagines White, the author of Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little, drawing creative inspiration from Hart as he contemplates a shift into children’s literature.

Hart and Rodgers affectionately spar throughout the night, working through the regrets in their partnership and promising to start anew. Ultimately, through Hart’s reflections on love, art, and legacy, the film becomes a bittersweet elegy for his overshadowed place in musical history — a graceful tribute to the man behind Pal Joey, A Connecticut Yankee, “My Funny Valentine,” and the titular “Blue Moon.”

Conclave

When the Pope unexpectedly dies, Cardinals from all over the world rush to the Vatican, where they immediately sequester themselves. Digital devices are stashed, doors are locked, and windows are shuttered as they prepare for the election of a new leader — one who will not only provide spiritual guidance for the world’s Catholics, but set the tone for the future.

Director Edward Berger returns to the Festival, after his TIFF ’22 selection, the Oscar-winning All Quiet on the Western Front, with this high-stakes drama set within the stunning walls of the Vatican. Featuring scintillating performances from Oscar nominees Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, and John Lithgow, Conclave imagines a secret process that affects millions but is witnessed by few.

Cardinal Lawrence (Fiennes) oversees the proceedings, assuming that the contest will come down to a battle between the reactionary, openly racist Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto) and the liberal progressive Cardinal Bellini (Tucci). And matters soon turn complicated as rumours circulate, secrets emerge, and acts of sabotage are undertaken. Adapted by Peter Straughan (The Goldfinch, TIFF ’19) from the Robert Harris novel, and lensed by cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine (Revoir Paris, TIFF ’23), the film captures the potent gravity of this whole competition with one arresting composition after another.

Conclave unfolds over a tension-riddled 72 hours, depicting a gripping confrontation between tradition, politics, and faith. Featuring brilliant supporting performances — most notably from Isabella Rossellini as the silent yet formidable Sister Agnes — it focuses on the all-too-human aspects of a hallowed procedure, one that speculates on the role of religion in a rapidly changing world.

Tickets are available at the door.
General Admission: $12
North Bay Film Members: $10
Students: $5

The Room Next Door

The Room Next Door might be renowned Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar’s first English-language feature, but he has left none of his signature hallmarks behind. The complex narratives filled with heartbreaking choices, visuals saturated with colour, and the precise rendering of women’s inner lives are very much intact.

Ingrid (Oscar winner Julianne Moore) is a bestselling author so famously afraid of death she has written a book about it. When she learns that Martha (Oscar winner Tilda Swinton, also at this year’s Festival in The End) — a former war correspondent — is ill, she visits her, reigniting a friendship from years past, when both were journalists.

Martha is fighting another war now, and the rekindled closeness between the women means Ingrid is drawn into her treatments as stories are told, secrets are revealed, and regret, redemption, and mortality are discussed over tea. One day, Martha asks Ingrid for the one thing she is most hesitant to give. The way they negotiate life’s deepest choices is what makes the film so memorable.

Almodóvar’s latest is a feast for the eyes, thanks to Eduard Grau’s exquisite cinematography, but all our senses are beautifully captured. We can almost taste the crisp white wine that Ingrid sips and hear nuances in the birdsong Martha adores. Superb performances by Swinton and Moore — who inhabit these complex, flawed, and fascinating women — give the film its pounding heart, making it less about death than about the magic of life while we live it.

Tickets are available at the door.
General Admission: $12
North Bay Film Members: $10
Students: $5

Universal Language

Winter. Somewhere between Tehran and Winnipeg. Negin and Nazgol find a large sum of money frozen deep within the sidewalk ice and try to find a way to get it out. Massoud leads a group of befuddled tourists upon an increasingly-absurd walking tour of Winnipeg monuments and historic sites. Matthew leaves his job at the Quebec government and embarks upon a mysterious journey to visit his estranged mother. Time, geography and identities crossfade, interweave and collide into a surreal comedy of misdirection.

Structured like a Venn diagram — at the point of confluence between Jacques Tati and Abbas Kiarostami’s The Koker Trilogy — Universal Language is at once a diary film, an absurdist city symphony and a welling-up of confinement-era emotion exploring the mysterious interzone where one person ends and the rest of the world begins. An elusive, half-remembered dream of home, solitude, our responsibilities to others and the wild turkeys that haunt us. 

Tickets are available at the door.
General Admission: $12
North Bay Film Members: $10
Students: $5