Barfi!: Film Review

Chances are, someones already told you to run out and see Barfi!, Anurag Basus tender romantic comedy starring Ranbir Kapoor as a deaf man. The film has opened strong in India, and word of mouth among Indian and diaspora audiences is bound to elevate Barfi!s fortunes still more with repeat viewings. Auds new to Hindi films may find much to like here, as well.

The film -- told mostly without dialogue -- is a refreshingly non-commercial exercise, with Kapoor in a Chaplin-inspired performance; Telugu actress Ileana DCruz adding elegant solemnity as an upper-class woman who falls for the spontaneous Barfi against her parents wishes; and most spectacularly former Miss World Priyanka Chopra, sans makeup, as an autistic girl.

Actors playing differently-abled characters often walk a fine line (cue Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder), and Hindi films are not known for their subtlety as a rule, but here Basu has guided Kapoor and especially Chopra to turn in exceptionally restrained, organic performances.

Barfi was named Murphy by his parents, who spotted the name on an old British radio. Unable to pronounce his own name, he says barfi (ice cream), and the nickname sticks. Barfi and his parents are poor but happy, living in a ramshackle cottage on a hillside in remote Darjeeling, when he meets Shruti (DCruz), who is visiting family there. Immediately smitten by her beauty, Barfi attempts to woo Shruti, and although she is already engaged to a successful businessman, slowly her defenses come down.

At the same time, Barfi befriends Jhilmil (Chopra), the autistic daughter of a wealthy Darjeeling family.

When the helpless Jhilmil disappears, her family turns to the local police inspector (Saurabh Shukla, stellar as a hilariously put-upon small town cop), who pronounces her dead and is tempted to pin the crime on Barfi to placate the family and ensure his own job security. A caper ensues, finding Jhilmil and Barfi on the run to Kolkata, where their shared experiences draw them inexorably closer.

Basu handles the growing attraction between Jhilmil and Barfi with a deceptively light touch, letting it draw viewers in as their relationship gets more serious; and beautifully depicts Shrutis ambivalence about whether to fight for Barfi or watch as he and Jhilmil live out their own story -- as unusual as it may seem on the surface.

In a way, Basus approach to presenting Barfi is not unlike the way the character himself gets by in the world, with a mix of mischief, cleverness and sweetness (Basu even throws in a dash of the bittersweet whimsy of French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Jeunet).

The dreamy landscapes around Darjeeling, a city in eastern India, deserve a special mention. Production designer Rajat Poddar evokes the 1970s with myriad simple details, and the gorgeousness of Darjeelings tea plantations, quaint narrow-gauge trains and mist-shrouded hills is captured in some lavish visuals by cinematographer Ravi Varman (who no doubt has been inspired by Santosh Sivan). The films soundtrack (Pritam), enriched by accordion and strings, adds depth as well. Indian VFX house Pixion does seamless work, while costume designers Aki Narula and Shefalina capture the colors of Bengali tradition in Shrutis silk saris and Barfis homespun sweaters and suits.

Anurag Basu, in a welcome change from the typical Bollywood saga, has given us a singular love story and an unforgettable character in Barfi.

Opened: Sept. 14, 2012

Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Ileana DCruz, Priyanka Chopra, Saurabh Shukla

Director: Anuraj Basu

Screenwriters: Anurag Basu, Sanjeev Datta

Producers: Ronnie Screwvala, Siddharth Roy Kapur

Director of photography: Ravi Varman

Costume designers: Aki Narula and Shefalina

VFX: Pixion

Sound designer: Shajith Koyeri

Editor: Akiv Ali

Music: Pritam Chakraborty

Not rated, 120 minutes

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Resident Evil Retribution: Film Review

Its easy by now for film critics to identify with Alice (Milla Jovovich), the badass heroine of the extremely lucrative Resident Evil film franchise. Shes constantly being besieged by a seemingly never-ending series of monsters, and we -- at least every couple of years or so -- are forced to sit through yet another installment of the mind-numbing series.

The film opened without press screenings, which seems an entirely reasonable tactic since only the most video-game obsessed viewers will appreciate the endless battle sequences that do an admittedly terrific job of replicating the games' artificial visuals with live humans and a prodigious amount of CGI effects.

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For those keeping track, this installment ends precisely where the previous one ended, with a titanic battle sequence aboard a ship where Alice is fighting the multitudinous forces of the evil Umbrella Corporation which is intent on transforming the earths population into flesh-eating zombies.

The action then inexplicably shifts to a placid suburban neighborhood, where Alice is now a blonde housewife who wakes up to a loving husband (Oded Fehr) and an adorable hearing-impaired young daughter (Aryana Engineer). But it isnt long before reality rushes back, in the form of legions of undead who swarm their home.

It all naturally turns out to be a dream sequence, with Alice then reawakening in the corporations confines clad in -- much to the delight of the teenage boy fan base -- some barely concealing towels. But it doesnt take long for her to don her trademark skintight black latex suit and automatic weaponry to once again take battle against a variety of monsters. These include a pair of menacing giants waving what look like meat tenderizers and numerous creatures with enough tentacles bursting out of their mouths to spur hungry theatergoers into craving fried calamari.

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Thats pretty much it for the plot in this particularly action-heavy fifth edition that helpfully includes an introductory narration by Jovovich to bring viewers up to speed. Other story elements are provided by explanatory computer graphics that help clue us in to who exactly is fighting who.

Featuring brief appearances by enough veterans of previous installments to please rabid fans if confuse the uninitiated, the film features man sequences in simulated versions of such cities as Moscow, Tokyo and New York, all of which, not surprisingly, emerge the worse for wear.

Its all pretty much an excuse for the lithe Jovovich to engage in a constant series of gravity-defying fight scenes in a futuristic universe apparently devoid of carbohydrates and most laws of physics. Shes accompanied for much of these violent exercises by a new sidekick, Ada Wong (Li Bingbing), whose dress cut up to the waist makes it convenient for her to access the firepower strapped to her upper thigh.

Director Paul W.S. Anderson stages these sequences with his usual flair, using a variety of elaborate effects that include x-ray visuals in which we get to see the bloody effects of the carnage on bones and organs from an inner as well as outer perspective.

The blas reactions to the violent mayhem from an opening day crowd demonstrated that even the series longtime fans may be reaching their saturation point, although a climactic scene in which one of the characters declares that this is the beginning of the end indicates that at least one more apocalyptic installment will be hitting multiplexes before too long.

Opened Sept. 14 (Screen Gems).

Production: Constantin Films, Davis Films/Impact Pictures.

CAST: Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Kevin Durand, Sienna Guillory, Shwan Roberts, Aryana Engineer, Colin Salmon, Johann Urb, Boris Kodjoe, Li Bingbing.

Director/screenwriter: Paul W.S. Anderson.

Producers: Jeremy Bolt, Paul W.S. Anderson, Samuel Hadida, Don Carmody, Robert Kulzer.

Executive producer: Martin Moszkowicz.

Director of photography: Glen MacPherson.

Editor: Niven Howie.

Production designer: Kevin Phipps.

Costume designer: Wendy Partidge.

Music: Tomandandy.

Rated R, 95 min.

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In the House: Toronto Review

TORONTO In Francois Ozon's Swimming Pool, a parched crime writers creativity is reinvigorated by her proximity to a sexually uninhibited younger woman. A less carnal male twist on that dynamic sparks the director's seductive new film, In the House (Dans la maison), which is perhaps his strongest work since the 2003 drama. This time the older figure is a joyless schoolteacher and failed novelist whose vicarious involvement in a gifted students reality-based fiction reawakens his senses until the scenario gets out of hand.

Freely adapted by Ozon from Spanish playwright Juan Mayorgas The Boy in the Last Row, this is a delicious, teasing reflection on mentoring, the creative process and the very nature of fiction, with its ability to conjure alternate lives and more fulfilling identities for both author and reader. It may be a touch too muted and ambiguous in its payoff for some audiences, but its charged with the same flavorful air of dangerous sensuality and subversive humor that first put its French writer-director on the map.

A literature teacher at the pointedly named Gustave Flaubert Lyceum, Germain (Fabrice Luchini) is beyond despair over his grammatically impeded students refusal to engage. So when, as a written assignment, Claude (Ernst Umhauer) turns in a meticulously detailed account of his weekend thats as psychologically intriguing as it is ethically troubling, Germain is hooked.

It's the first of many such essays, and each of Claudes installments ends with the phrase to be continued. Initially reserved in his encouragement, Germain begins prodding the student in more daring directions, urging the youth to love his characters.

Claudes serialized soap opera actually revolves around the normal middle-class family of his fellow student Rapha (Bastien Ughetto), a source of envy and desire. With the symbolic weight of their home underlined in the films title, production designer Arnaud de Moleron has given the family a tidy two-story cottage fit for a suburban fairy tale. Nestled on a patch of perfect green lawn, its shot by Jerome Almeras with caressing elegance. This imagery becomes even more significant when, late in the film, a glimpse of Claudes contrasting domestic situation is finally revealed.

As is often the case with Ozon, hints of homoeroticism ripple through the scenes between the young writer and both Germain and Rapha, a dim bulb being tutored in math by Claude. When Rapha reads an essay in class ruminating on whether Claude has overtaken his jolly father, Rapha Sr. (Denis Menochet), as his best friend, the kids self-exposure is agonizing.

Claude played by Umhauer with an ingratiating openness that could be calculated or innocent works his charms on everyone as he infiltrates the family. But the real object he covets is Raphas exquisitely bored mother Esther (Emmanuelle Seigner, gorgeous), who floats through the house wearing pretty floral-print dresses, the quintessential Euro-MILF. When the story acquires darker, more sexual overtones, Germain raises his eyebrows and asks, What is this, Pasolini? Even without the question, however, the echoes of Teorema are clear.

As we watch each new episode unfold, Germain shares the chapters with his frustrated wife Jeanne (Kristin Scott Thomas, in fine acerbic form). The manager-curator of an art gallery whose job is in jeopardy, she becomes an equally avid reader. Some of the visual jokes concerning Jeannes questionable taste in contemporary art are heavy-handed, but they serve to underline the gulf dividing her from classicist Germain, which Claude also picks up on and exploits.

A puzzle-like element infuses the film as both teacher and student exert their influence on the narrative taking shape, with Germain physically intruding on the fiction to comment at key points. While the line between imagination and reality is continually blurred, its clear in the cruel final developments that ultimate control always rests with the writer. But Ozon refuses to make Claude irredeemable or to negate the mutual rewards of their exchange.

Philippe Rombis lush orchestral score sometimes indicates otherwise, but relatively little of any great dramatic substance happens at least not in the definitively real version of the story. The pleasure of the film is the ways in which Ozon finds tension in Claudes interaction with the family and with Germain, who makes some reckless choices. The very ordinariness of the familys existence is rendered exotic through Claudes eyes, fueling a sustained sense of mystery as to where things are headed.

Doing a complete switch from his more comic roles and his obnoxious character in Ozons Potiche, Luchini plays a richly contradictory figure here. Part poignant sad sack, part uptight prig and part exploitative predator, his participation in Claudes story becoming almost maniacally voyeuristic. Under the directors firm hand, the entire cast does incisive work.

Venue: Toronto Film Festival (Special Presentation; Cohen Media Group)

Production companies: Mandarin Cinema, FOZ, France 2 Cinema, Mars Films

Cast: Fabrice Luchini, Kristin Scott Thomas, Emmanuelle Seigner, Denis Menochet, Ernst Umhauer, Bastien Ughetto, Jean-Francois Balmer, Yolande Moreau, Catherine Davenier

Director-screenwriter: Francois Ozon, freely adapted from the play The Boy in the Last Row, by Juan Mayorga

Producers: Eric Altmayer, Nicolas Altmayer

Director of photography: Jerome Almeras

Production designer: Arnaud de Moleron

Music: Philippe Rombi

Costume designer: Pascaline Chavanne

Editor: Laure Gardette

Sales: Wild Bunch

No rating, 105 minutes

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Inch'Allah: Toronto Review

Among the growing number of films coming out of Palestine, one can see the divide opening up between locally made, no-budget documentaries like Emad Burnat and Guy Davidis stirring 5 Broken Cameras and well-financed Western coprods like Denis Villeneuves Oscar nominee Incendies. Squarely in the latter category, the Canadian-French InchAllah has all the right credentials, including writer-director Anais Barbeau-Lavalettes (If I Had a Hat, The Fight) passionate feeling for the region, but lacks the originality to catch fire, or to go beyond an outsiders p.o.v. In the end, it illuminates Western preconceptions more than the motivation behind terrorism. Tackling such a sensitive and controversial topic in a highly obvious way, the drama will have some trouble slipping past the festival wall into commercial arenas, though following its Toronto bow, it will be released in Quebec by Les Films Christal at the end of the month.

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The action opens with a powerful explosion in an Israeli outdoor caf, which will be explained at the end of the film. The whole story unfolds through the unblinking, doe-like eyes of Chloe (Evelyne Brochu), a young Canadian obstetrician who is working in a clinic for pregnant women in a refugee camp in Ramallah, Palestine. Every night she passes through border control on her way back to her Jerusalem apartment. She spends evenings on the town with her drinking buddy Ava (Sivan Levy), an Israeli conscript her own age whose much more expressive eyes convey the horror and despair she feels over her work as an armed border guard.

In the clinic, Chloe becomes close to the pregnant Rand (Sabrina Ouazani) and her militant big brother Faysal (Yousef Sweid.) The poorest of the poor, Rand and her little brother, the autistic Safi, scavenge in a garbage dump along the wall separating the camp from a settlement of Israeli colonists. There are skirmishes. When one character is deliberately crushed under an Israeli army tank, and another is sentenced to 25 years in prison, and another is cruelly denied access to the hospital that would save her baby, the stage is set and the fuse is lit.

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Barbeau-Lavalettes screenplay is too by-the-numbers to convince an audience that reality is this simple. Its portrait of endless misery is unleavened by the joking camaraderie and family warmth that local filmmakers normally inject to lighten the load (Elia Suleiman springs readily to mind.) More importantly, her Canadian protag seems too inert to have ever landed up where she did, making her an untrustworthy witness to all these tragedies.

If Brochu seems permanently depressed and distanced in the lead role, the lively, outspoken Ouazani makes Rand intense and appealing, if unpredictable. Sivan Levy (Polytechnique, Caf de Flore) brings a pleasing psychological complexity to the Israeli character Ava that helps balance the story a little bit.

Tech work is good throughout, while Levon Minassians somber, dirge-like music track underlines the tragedy of the war.

Venue: Toronto Film Festival, Sept. 12, 2012.

Production companies: micro-scope (Canada), ID Unlimited (France) in association with July August Productions (Israel)

Cast: Evelyne Brochu, Sabrina Ouazani, Sivan Levy, Yousef Sweid, Carlo Brandt, Marie-Therese Fortin
Director: Anais Barbeau-Lavalette

Screenwriter: Anais Barbeau-Lavalette
Producer: Luc Dery, Kim McCraw

Coproducer: Isabelle Dubar

Associate producers: Eilon Ratzovsky, Yochanan Kredo
Director of photography: Philippe Lavalette

Production designer: Andre-Line Beauparlant

Costumes: Sophie Lefebvre

Editor: Sophie Leblond

Music: Levon Minassian

Sales Agent: eOne Entertainment

No rating, 101 minutes.

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Arthur Newman: Toronto Review

TORONTO A man living in quiet desperation and a woman whose suffering is a good deal less inconspicuous try to jettison unwanted identities in Arthur Newman, a road film that (thankfully) has less to do with golf than its synopsis might suggest. Landing leads Colin Firth and Emily Blunt helps the commercial prospects of director Dante Ariola's feature debut, and Firth makes a convincing dive into the title character's psyche; some plot elements may give critics pause, but for a not-quite romance its commercial prospects are solid.

Firth's title character is created before our eyes: Fuddy-duddy Fed Ex employee Wallace Avery, judging his life a failure, stages his death and drives off in a just-bought convertible practicing convincing ways of saying "Hey. I'm Arthur Newman." Having been a promising golfer before choking on his first PGA tour, he intends to start a new life as a golf pro in Terre Haute. Not as romantic as a new identity on a Caribbean beach, perhaps, but it's probably as appealing a fantasy as a Wallace Avery can project.

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At the first motel on his route north, Arthur rescues a woman (Blunt) who has OD'ed on cough syrup after a botched attempt to steal somebody's car. Charlotte Fitzgerald is a mess, and is using her twin Michaela's ID for reasons less concrete than Arthur's: Living her own life simply seems too fraught for her. Needing someone capable of handling daily life, Charlotte decides to accompany Arthur.

Teasingly, Charlotte introduces Arthur to a new game: As they travel, they target happy couples and break into their homes when nobody's around. They play dress up, adopt the residents' identities, and make out. The conceit is an ingenious way around the difference in the characters' ages and backgrounds: Instead of trying to convince us this beautiful young woman would be attracted to a deeply square older man, screenwriter Becky Johnston invents a scenario in which sleeping with him is a kind of rejection of both their unwanted identities.

Ariola brings out the sweetness of the game, though, especially in the first outing: having targeted two senior citizens who have just gotten married, Charlotte affects gently formal Southernisms while asking her imaginary, elderly groom to lie down beside her. Blunt plays the scene beautifully, leaving ample room for ambiguity; at the same time, it's clear that Arthur will be playing this game for real, no matter whose wardrobe he's raiding.

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In addition to the growing possibility that Arthur will get his heart broken, there's the issue of the cash -- the bag full of money he's funding this self-reinvention with, and which Charlotte spots early on in their time together. Having introduced her as a thief, the film isn't too heavy-handed with hints that she might run off with the bag, though the danger never fades.

The movie doesn't even care where all that dough came from, and is better off that way. If Arthur had stolen it from work, say, we'd have to deal with police on the couple's trail and the constant worry that getting caught having sex in a stranger's bed might lead to more than a red face and a trespassing charge. For the hero of Arthur Newman, who's already carrying the weight of a failed career, marriage, and fatherhood, the stakes are high enough already.

Production Company: Cross Creek Pictures
Cast: Colin Firth, Emily Blunt, Anne Heche, M. Emmet Walsh, David Andrews, Kristin Lehman
Director: Dante Ariola
Screenwriter: Becky Johnston
Producers: Alisa Tager, Becky Johnston, Mac Cappuccino, Brian Oliver
Executive producers: Helen Cappuccino, Andrew Cappuccino, Lisa Bruce, Natalie G. Hill, James Holt, Eric Greenfeld
Director of photography: Eduard Grau
Production designer: Christopher Glass
Music: Nick Urata
Costume designer: Nancy Steiner
Editor: Olivier Bugge Coutte
Sales: UTA, CAA
No rating, 100 minutes

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Painless (Insensibles): Toronto Review

TORONTO -- The wounds inflicted by Spains long and violent history of Fascism are given a powerful allegorical remedy in Painless (Insensibles), an impressive and absorbing debut feature from writer-director Juan Carlos Medina.

Taking cues from Guillermo Del Toros The Devils Backbone and Pans Labyrinth, the film convincingly lifts elements from the dark decades of Francisco Francos extensive reign, blending them into a phantasmagorical suspense story involving children who are mysteriously resistant to physical pain, even if they remain all too human. Cleverly constructed in a series of successive flashbacks and guided by a steady directorial hand, this Toronto Vanguard premiere should see mucho fest and arthouse play, sealing Medinas reputation as a talent to watch.

A haunting opening scene set in 1931 shows a little girl, Ines (Liah OPrey), setting herself on fire and hardly batting an eyelash. Cut to the present day, where hard-working neurosurgeon, David (Alex Brendemuhl), gets in a terrible car accident, his wife instantly killed but his 6-month-old unborn child miraculously surviving.

The script (co-written with Luiso Berdejo, [Rec]) maintains this crosscutting structure up to the very last sequence, oscillating between scenes set before, during and after the Second World War, and ones of David digging into his familys shady backstoryan act prompted by the revelation that he has a fatal form of Lymphoma requiring an immediate bone marrow transplant. While the back and forth initially feels systematic, the dueling plots are elaborately enough intertwined to keep things compelling, with the past and present eventually melding together as David uncovers the truth about his origins.

If the contemporary sequences move along in the swift manner of an icy Euro thriller, the flashbacks have the creepy, unsettling spirit of a gothic fable: Along with several other children from her Catalonian village, Ines is rounded up and sent to a secluded hilltop asylum, where a doctor (Roman Fontsere) keeps each child isolated in a separate cell. There Ines meets the troubled introvert, Benigno (Ilias Stothart), whos first seen casually chewing on his own flesh, but eventually transforms into a skilled and thoughtful student under the guise of Professor Holzman (Derek de Lint), a German-Jewish scientist seeking refuge from the Nazi regime.

Its during these asylum scenes that Painless truly comes into its own, drawing numerous parallels between the self-anesthetising capabilities of the children and the domination of the Fascists over a period that stretched from the Spanish Civil War to the 1960s, when Francos dictatorship was comfortably installed in power. While certain gorier momentsincluding a childs worst nightmare: the dissection of a puppyhave a stomach-turning quality to them, whats much more disturbing is the idea that insensitive kids like Ines or Benigno could become the ideal puppets for a regime that was hell-bent on staying in power.

Cinematographer Alejando Martinez (Blackout) captures such scenes in eerie, sepia-toned compositions, while the modern-day parts are filled with cold colors and minimalist interiors that reflect Davids own inscrutable persona. Indeed, while its often hard to read what the man is feeling (which is no fault of the well-cast Brendemuhl), its only when the walls (literally) come down during the films emotionally-charged finale that what at first seemed to be a story of cold-blooded survival delivers another message entirely: Even the painless are not immune from suffering.

Production companies: Les Films dAntoine, Tobina Film, Roxbury Pictures, Fado Filmes, A Contracorriente Films, in association with Backup Films
Cast: Alex Brendemuhl, Tomas Lemarquis, Ilias Stothart, Mot Stothart, Derek de Lint, Ramon Fonstere, Silvia Bel, Bea Segura, Lia OPrey
Director: Juan Carlos Medina
Screenwriters: Juan Carlos Medina, Luiso Berdejo, based on an original idea by Juan Carlos Medina
Producers: Antoine Simkine, Francois Cognard, Miguel A. Faura
Executive producers: Manuel Monzon, Isaac Torras, Goncalo Galvao Teles
Director of photography: Alejando Martinez
Production designer: Inigo Navarro
Costume designer: Ariadna Papio
Music: Johan Soderqvist
Editor: Pedro Reibeiro
Visual effects: Luis Tinoco
Sales: Elle Driver
No rating, 101 minutes.

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A Special Day (Un Giorno speciale): Venice Review

Roman Holiday meets Before Sunrise in Francesca Comencinis slight but charming A Special Day (Un Giorno speciale), at heart a brisk two-hander for youthful, likeable leads Giulia Valentini and Filippo Schiccitano. Debuting quietly in Venices Competition three years after Comencinis older-skewing The White Space scooped five unofficial awards on the Lido, it should recoup what must have been a pretty modest budget when released in Italy on Oct. 4. Festivals and small-screen buyers seeking accessible romantic fare should give it a look, as Comencinis eye for social detail gives her fluffy story an unexpected and welcome gritty edge.

A resident in a scruffy Roman suburb, 19-year-old TV addict Gina (Valentini) aspires to a showbiz career and is willing to scale the ladder by means of "porn films, naked photos" and "escort" work if necessary. Shes granted an audience with a high-ranking politician in his city-center office and is picked up by an official limo driven by twentyish Marco (Schiccitano) on what turns out to be the lads first day at work. When Ginas appointment is delayed, Gina and Marco have to kill time together and initial frictions give way to more intimate and tender exchanges.

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Working from 2010 novella The Sky with a Finger by actor/writer Claudio Bigagli -- a star of 1992's Foreign Language Oscar-winner Mediterraneo -- Comencini and her co-scripwriters arent exactly reinventing the wheel here with their dialogue-heavy exploration of how passion buds over a limited time-frame.

But newcomer Valentini and Schiccitano, building on his debut in Francesco Brunis well-received Easy! (Scialla!) from last year, are easy on the eye and the ear, and manage to find that crucial element of chemistry to ensure audiences root for them both individually and as a potential couple.

With his Tom Cruise-ish looks -- black hair, dark eyes, and an easy, toothy grin -- Schiccitano displays a genial charisma that bodes very well for his future prospects. The screenplay places a rather greater burden on his co-star, especially in the latter stages as the brassy but vulnerable Gina finally gets to meet the sleazy, string-pulling Congressman (Antonio Zavatteri) and Valentini capably belies her inexperience.

Essentially a showcase for the two leads, A Special Day certainly displays the duo to best advantage thanks to cinematography by Paolo Sorrentinos usual DP, Luca Bignazzi. Eschewing the eyepopping operatics associated with Sorrentinos flashy enterprises, Bignazzi gets up close and personal here with lightweight digital cameras that yield slick widescreen images. In a project where few supporting players get much of a look-in, well-chosen Roman locations ranging from run-down peripheral projects to the magnificent ruins of the Forum do more than their share of silent scene-stealing.

Venue: Venice Film Festival (Competition), September 8, 2012.

Production company: Palomar
Cast: Filippo Schiccitano, Giulia Valentini, Antonio Zavatteri, Roberto Infascelli, Danielle Del Priore, Rocco Miglionico
Director: Francesca Comencini
Screenwriters: Francesca Comencini, Giulia Calenda, Davide Lantieri, based on the novel The Sky with a Finger by Claudio Bigagli
Producer: Carlo Degli Espositi
Director of photography: Luca Bigazzi
Production designer: Paola Comencini
Costume designer: Ursula Patzak
Music: Ratchev & Carratello
Editors: Massimo Fiocchi, Chiara Vullo

Sales agent: Rai Trade, Rome
No MPAA rating, 83 minutes

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Satellite Boy: Toronto Review

TORONTO Setting a modestly scaled but archetypal quest story against the vast terrain of Western Australia, Catriona McKenzie's Satellite Boy radiates respect for traditional folkways and the Aborigines who manage to maintain them despite the encroachment of modern life. Combining the credibility factor of veteran Aboriginal actor David Gulpilil with a cute-kid story and some stunning vistas, the picture has solid potential at arthouses.

First-time actor Cameron Wallaby plays Pete, who is seen early on proclaiming his boredom with the lessons his grandfather Jagamarra (Gulpilil) tries to teach him. Wandering the bushland hunting small game with a spear, Jagamarra insists that this hard country has powers and will help those who learn to listen to it.

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The two live at an abandoned drive-in cinema, Pete's mother having fled to seek work in the city. When a mining company announces they're going to bulldoze the dwelling in a few days, Pete steals off with young buddy Kalmain (Joseph Pedley) to find the company's headquarters and change planners' minds. The boys quickly find themselves far from their route, needing sustenance and shelter; without initially realizing what he's doing, Pete keeps them alive by thinking as his grandfather does.

McKenzie's script follows a template found in some other kid-centered imports. Viewers won't often catch Wallaby trying to be cute, though, and the closest the film comes to feel-good convention is in David Bridie's score, whose occasional bursts of optimistic verve are slightly out of sync with the stark, challenging landscapes DP Geoffrey Simpson has to offer. Over the course of their journey, the boys see the striated mountains of the Bungle Bungles, stagger barefoot over flat, cracked plains, and sleep beneath a sky with more stars in it than our own.

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Jagamarra calls to those same stars to return the child to him, and to the earth beneath his campfire; the old man's communion with the natural world is depicted with a respect that stops short of condescending enlightened-primitive clichs. McKenzie's vision isn't as otherworldly as some that have taken wide-eyed moviegoers to the outback, but it suggests that, more than four decades since we encountered Gulpilil in Walkabout, Australia is still big enough to keep secrets from Europeans bent on taming it.

Production Company: Satellite Films

Cast: David Gulpilil, Cameron Wallaby, Joseph Pedley, Rohanna Angus, Dean Daley-Jones

Director-Screenwriter: Catriona McKenzie

Producers: David Jowsey, Julie Ryan, Catriona McKenzie

Executive producers: Colin McCumstie, Troy Lum

Director of photography: Geoffrey Simpson

Production designer: Sam Hobbs

Music: David Bridie

Costume designer: Maria Pattison

Editor: Henry Dangar

Sales: Celluloid Dreams

No rating, 89 minutes

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The Bay: Toronto Review

TORONTO An unexpected detour for director Barry Levinson into mock-doc horror, The Bay is an unnerving eco-disaster thriller that refreshes the found-footage trend with surprising effectiveness. Playing by classic B-Movie genre rules but with a mostly convincing veneer of reportorial realism, this lean, micro-budget entry sustains tension while delivering squirms, even if it drops the ball in the wrap-up.

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At this point in the game, the bastard children of The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield and Paranormal Activity have sorely tested the limits of films in which a single camera is somehow never switched off or put down for long. Such lapses in credibility are not totally absent here.

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But Levinson and screenwriter Michael Wallach mostly manage to circumvent the problem by gathering multiple media sources. These include news cameras, police vehicle cams, surveillance video, smart phones, Androids, Skype and underwater goggle cameras. On top of that are sound sources such as recorded phone conversations, 911 calls, scientific and medical logs and Coast Guard transmissions.

Editor Aaron Yanes makes nimble use of the disparate visual and audio textures to thread together an urgently paced recap of Independence Day 2009 in the seaside town of Claridge, Maryland, on Chesapeake Bay. (The actual shooting location was Georgetown, South Carolina.) Over the course of 24 hours, events spiral into a full-blown catastrophe that claims hundreds of lives.

The extent of the calamity is conveyed up-front, as Donna Thompson (Kether Donohue) addresses the camera with grave seriousness to blow the lid off secrets carefully concealed from the media. The conceit is that a wealth of digital evidence was confiscated in the wake of the mass tragedy and has been accessed three years later via a Govleaks website.

An inexperienced student reporter interning at the time for a local news channel, Donna was assigned to do fluff coverage of the Fourth of July festivities. Levinson and Wallach nod wryly to every watery terror movie since Jaws and the original Piranha in this setup, as Donna takes in the crab-eating contest and interviews the beauty queen, who gushes, I think its every girls dream to be Miss Crustacean!

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Cutting back and forth between her awkward TV coverage and shaken present-day interview, Donna chats on-camera with the Mayor (Frank Deal), oblivious to his culpability in ignoring danger signs and to the fact that he would be dead several hours later.

We quickly learn that the bodies of two divers were fished out of the bay and while their deaths were blamed on rogue bull sharks, the bites didnt fit that profile. Theres also the matter of 45 million pounds of chicken excrement being dumped in the water each year from the massive local poultry industry, all of it loaded with chemical steroids. Then there was that nuclear reactor leak in 2002 that caused gradual ground seepage.

When people start turning up with bleeding rashes, boils, bubbling lesions and parts of their tongues missing, The Bay takes shape like a viral epidemic thriller in the vein of Contagion. Working ER at the hospital, Dr. Abrams (Stephen Kunken) is mobbed by patients presenting bizarre symptoms resistant to treatment. His examinations point to twin parasites eating their bodies externally and internally. (Watch the trailer below.)

Basing their story on the toxic pollutants and flesh-eating bacteria increasingly prevalent in the Chesapeake Bay, Levinson and Wallach cook up a mutant breed of the isopod that enters a fish through its gills and devours its tongue, replacing that organ with its own body. Of course its not long before humans are playing host.

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There are holes, such as failing to provide an adequate explanation as to why the parasites all get crazy hungry on the same day. But thats also part of the fun of a movie that mixes an earnest faux-documentary cautionary tale with horror and gore conventions.

Character development is less a priority than the escalating sense of alarm, and the sinister evidence that authorities outside Claridge are working on containment, not solution.

In addition to Donna, who continues documenting events with her cameraman even after the station shuts down her broadcasts on FBI orders, there are a handful of key conduits to the story. Dr. Abrams conducts a long Skype exchange with the Center for Disease Control, refusing to abandon the hospital even after his staff has fled. Prior to the July 4 events, oceanographers Sam (Christopher Denham) and Jaqueline (Nansi Aluka) record their studies of infected fish, discovering that much of the bay is a marine dead zone. And a young married couple, Alex (Will Rogers) and Stephanie (Kristen Connolly), shoot vacation video as they sail in from another town, bringing their baby to visit his grandparents.

While Connolly was one of the leads in The Cabin in the Woods, the actors mainly hail from the supporting-player end of the film spectrum, or from the New York stage. Using unfamiliar faces here was a good choice in upping the sense of ordinary people in an it-could-happen predicament, though Donohue is a little flat as the central witness. Denham (a lead in the indie drama Sound of My Voice, also seen at the Toronto festival in Ben Afflecks Argo) is an appealing, wiry presence; he has a nice running joke in Sams difficulty understanding his colleagues French accent.

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Once they have laid waste to the entire town, littering Main Street with half-chewed corpses, the filmmakers are less resourceful in finding a way to wrap things up. Sticklers for rulebook horror plotting might gripe that we dont get to see someone save the day and the ending is rather abrupt. But the evidence of a government cover-up to avoid widespread disruption of tourism and trade along the Eastern seaboard gives a chilling note to the conclusion. While the visceral scares are a distant second to the tense atmosphere, Levinson maintains suspense, aided by Marcelo Zarvos ominous score.

Stepping outside his standard range and angling for a different demographic, the director has found a novel way to expand his collection of Baltimore movies.

Venue: Toronto Film Festival (Midnight Madness; Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions; opens Nov. 2)
Production companies: Baltimore Pictures, Haunted Movie
Cast: Will Rogers, Kristen Connolly, Kether Donohue, Frank Deal, Stephen Kunken, Christopher Denham, Nansi Aluka
Director: Barry Levinson
Screenwriter: Michael Wallach; story: Levinson, Wallach
Producers: Barry Levinson, Jason Blum, Steven Schneider, Oren Peli
Executive producers: Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, Jason Sosnoff, Colin Strause Greg Strause
Director of photography: Josh Nussbaum
Production designer: Lee Bonner
Music: Marcelo Zarvos
Costume designer: Emmie Holmes
Editor: Aaron Yanes
Visual effects: Hydraulx
Sales: IM Global
R rating, 84 minutes

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Liverpool: Toronto Review

TORONTO A lightweight mystery-romance set not in the Beatles' hometown but around a Montral nightclub of the same name, Manon Briand's Liverpool follows a coatcheck girl whose misguided attempt at a good deed turns up a massive e-waste conspiracy operating out of the city's port. Its sweetly shy heroes are difficult to dislike, but their fumbling adventure is best suited to the small screen.

Stphanie Lapointe plays milie, a girlie-voiced wallflower who watches nightly as innocent-looking Tom (Charles-Alexandre Dub) visits the club and goes home alone. Tom pines for her as well, but they don't meet until milie gets embroiled in a strange mess involving a dying rich man, his greedy son, and Clara, the man's long-lost daughter. Packing up his chubby vintage Fiat with every gizmo Apple currently has on its product-placement list, Tom sets out to help milie find Clara.

Clara's been kidnapped, lest she show up to claim her half of the old man's estate. As they hunt for her at her college campus, the young sleuths engage in a flurry of social-media connection-seeking that makes Briand look pretty proud of herself: I know all about this texting stuff, the scene seems to say.

But Briand knows the downside of tech as well, and works a real-world ecological concern -- the illegal export of dead electronics, whose toxic components turn Third World villages into cancer hotspots -- into the plot as the roundabout cause of Clara's kidnapping.

Briand and her cast don't take any of this too seriously, as all the gumshoe work is just an excuse for Tom and milie to bond. But nobody told composer Ramachandra Borcar, whose Bernard Herrmann-like score places a blanket of seriousness atop the perky action. A different approach here would've had quite an impact, as is witnessed by scenes in which likeably kitschy '60s pop accompanies the action.

Production Company: Max Films
Cast: Stphanie Lapointe, Charles-Alexandre Dub, Louis Morissette
Director-Screenwriter: Manon Briand
Producers:Roger Frappier, Luc Vandal, Felize Frappier
Director of photography: Claudine Sauv
Production designer: David Pelletier
Music: Ramachandra Borcar
Editor: Richard Comeau
No rating, 112 minutes

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The Man Who Laughs (L'Homme Qui Rit): Venice Review

A powerhouse end justifies some clunky means in The Man Who Laughs (L'Homme qui rit), Jean-Pierre Amris' functional, liberal adaptation of Victor Hugo's 1869 novel that builds stealthily to a surprisingly moving finale. Very much designed for audiences rather than critics, this opulent period fantasy/tragedy received predictably harsh press when world-premiering as Venices closing film. But the French/Czech co-production, co-funded by Luc Besson's savvy EuropaCorp and shot entirely on Prague sound-stages with some stiffly artificial results, may yet enjoy the last "laugh" after its Dec. 26 release in France.

Two years ago Amris' comedy Romantics Anonymous exceeded expectations when bowing in the same holiday frame. And the fact that The Man Who Laughed arrives in Gallic cinemas only two months before Tom Hooper's heavily hyped English-language Hugo adaptation Les Misrables certainly won't do this homegrown rival any commercial harm. Ironically enough, it was Les Mis' distributor Universal who enjoyed a worldwide smash in 1928 with the best-known of the five previous adaptations of Hugo's book: Paul Lenis semi-silent with Conrad Veidt unforgettable as the disfigured hero Gwynplaine.

While unsuitable for younger children with its dark themes, sexual suggestiveness and scary visuals, Amris' version appeals as a long-term moneymaker on TV and DVD where its Gothic-romance elements might even click with the lucrative Twilight crowd. International prospects in non-French-speaking countries will however be hampered by the fact that journeyman Amris lacks the visionary lan that a Burton, Gilliam or Jeunet might have brought to this creaky old table of a property.

A wandering orphan cruelly deformed at the hands of villains whose identities and motives remain unsatisfactorily murky throughout, Amris' Gwynplaine finds his freakish looks make him a valuable showbusiness attraction thanks to the promotional skills of kindly, larger-than-life mountebank Ursus (Grard Depardieu). After years of enjoyable traveling-show toil - The Elephant Man this certainly ain't - Gwynplaine learns that he's actually a wealthy aristocrat and is catapulted to a life of castle-dwelling luxury.

Set in an unspecified epoch sometime just before the French Revolution,Guillaume Laurant's screenplay departs from Hugo's text by having Gwynplaine (Marc-Andr Grondin) use his new status to bewail the lot of the poor and downtrodden: "Je suis un misrable!" he yells in Parliament. But this proto-one-percenter realizes that he's much better off back with Ursus and company, having fallen in love with his lifelong friend and co-performer, the blind, blonde and beautiful Da (Christa Thret).

Whereas Veidt's Gwynplaine sported such a nightmarish permanent grin that Leni's picture is often classified as a horror movie, Canadian pinup Grondins scarring is more subtle, and doesn't detract from his dashing appeal - with his mane of black hair and delicately pale features, he resembles a junior version of Alan Rickman's Severus Snape from certain angles. This Gwynplaine's makeup effects are much closer to the carved rictus of Heath Ledger's Joker from The Dark Knight, thus completing a neat circle of literary and cinematic references as the face of Bob Kane's original comic-book character was modeled on Veidt's Gwynplaine.

Grondin, meanwhile, is known to Francophone audiences on both sides of the Atlantic: he broke through in Jean-Marc Valle's smash C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005) then took the Most Promising Male Actor award at the Csars three years later for The First Day of the Rest of Your Life. Having popped up as hedonistic hockey prodigy Xavier LaFlamme in Canadian comedy Goon last year, he forms half of a highly photogenic couple here with the evanescent Thret, a relative newcomer who shows distinct promise in a potentially sappy role.

Both are often overshadowed, however, by older hands including Serge Merlin as scheming footman Barkilphedro and Emmanuelle Seigner as a glamorously decadent Duchess. Best of all is a generously top-billed Dpardieu, who imparts the well-named Ursus with bearish physical presence, considerable humor and no small measure of pathos. Despite his legendarily Stakhanovite workrate, Dpardieu has notched only three Csar nominations in the last two decades and, if campaigned in the Supporting Actor category, could well nab further recognition from the France's academy.

It certainly helps that he's so prominent in the tragic finale which deploys Arvo Prt's 'Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten' to devastating effect, the Estonian composer's haunting elegy a refreshing change after Stphane Moucha's hyperactive, derivative score. The Prt track, long a favorite of filmmakers worldwide, somehow retains its power despite overexposure - it's been used in the climax of one French production this year already, Alice Winocour's Augustine - and here rounds off proceedings in grandly tear-jerking style.

Venue: Venice Film Festival (Closing Film - Out of Competition)
Production companies: EuropaCorp, Incognita Films
Cast: Marc-Andr Grondin, Grard Depardieu, Christa Thret, Emmanuelle Seigner, Serge Merlin
Director: Jean-Pierre Amris
Screenwriter: Guillaume Laurant, based on the novel by Victor Hugo
Producers: Edouard de Vsinne, Thomas Anargyros
Director of photography: Grard Simon
Production designer: Franck Schwarz
Costume designer: Olivier Briot
Music: Stphane Moucha
Editor: Philippe Bourgeuil
Sales agent: EuropaCorp, Paris
No MPAA rating, 93 minutes

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Show Stopper: The Theatrical Life of Garth Drabinsky: Toronto Review

TORONTO Turning the plot of The Producers on its head, the real-life felonies in Barry Avrich's Show Stopper: The Theatrical Life of Garth Drabinsky, though involving millions of dollars in accounting fraud, appear to have been motivated not by greed but artistic ambition: Drabinsky, who built two game-changing show-business empires in his day, was only trying to put on the best damned stage productions in the world. His story, tailored here for the small screen, will be relished by scandal-lovers from Broadway to Hollywood; felonies aside, it offers insight into some of the biggest changes the entertainment world has seen in recent decades.

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Ambitious from the start, Toronto kid Drabinsky studied law but wanted to be a movie mogul. After getting a taste of the business publishing local movie magazines, he produced well received, locally-shot films including The Silent Partner and The Changeling.

Drabinsky credits himself with discovering Tom Cruise during this period, but his bigger legacy was not in the movies themselves but how they are shown: Starting with an 18-screen Toronto theater specializing in second-runs and arthouse fare, he built the mighty Cineplex chain, which later became Cineplex Odeon. Avrich paints a lively picture of the chain's evolution, marveling at the sums Drabinsky spent on marble floors and art-bedecked walls. But taking on powerful, savvy partners including the Bronfman family and Lew Wasserman meant a shrinking ownership stake for Drabinsky, whose brashness wound up getting him pushed out of the company. (Avrich offers a little more corporate detail here than most viewers will require.)

Wounded by the movies, he turned to the theater. With his production company Livent, Drabinsky spent remarkable sums on production and marketing, first helping make Toronto the third-largest English-language theater market, then tackling Broadway with Tony-winning shows including Kiss of the Spider Woman. He was mean to employees, we're told, and in Manhattan was the kind of boor who would actually ask a matre d' "do you know who I am?" But he believed in talented people and gave them room to create, and the stars of his shows appear onscreen here to give him due praise. (And to do some wry tut-tutting: Elaine Stritch, whose colorful presence makes you want to listen to her talk for hours, says his self-inflicted disgrace "breaks my heart.")

That disgrace makes for the doc's least compelling section. Though the suspicions that led investigators to Drabinsky are juicy -- veteran Broadway reporters crunch some ticket numbers and realize Livent's shows can't possibly be making enough to support themselves -- the details of his trial grow tedious, particularly since they're largely conveyed through close-ups of courtroom transcripts. Couldn't Stritch and former Cineplex partner Sid Sheinberg (the doc's other most enjoyable interviewee) have staged a dramatic reading of these transcripts?

Production Company: Melbar Entertainment Group
Director-screenwriter: Barry Avrich
Executive producers: Barry Avrich, Alex Olegnowicz
Director of photography: Ken Ng
Editor: George Raulston
No rating, 96 minutes

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Mr. Pip: Toronto Review

TORONTO -- First class literature butts heads with a Third World massacre in Mr. Pip, an earnest but occasionally cringe-inducing story about one young womans Great Expectations obsession, and how it helps her to cope with the bloody civil war that racked parts of Papua New Guinea in the early 1990s.

Adapted from a 2006 novel by Lloyd Jones, this highly personal effort from Shrek director Andrew Adamson mixes magical realism with hard-hitting historical drama in a way that feels both contrived and questionable, even if the filmmakers clearly have their hearts in the right place. A lead role from House M.D.s Hugh Laurie will help the polished Kiwi co-production find a reasonable following, especially in Pacific territories.

The factual record behind the narrative is engaging enough to merit its own movie: On the eastern Papuan province of Bougainville Island, local rebels launched a separatist movement in the late 80s, claiming control of the isles prosperous copper mines. In retaliation, the central government imposed a blockade that began in May 1990, leaving the indigenous population prey to warring tribal factions and raids by national troops eager to flush out the rebel movement.

Such is the situation in which endearing Bougainville teenager, Matilda (Xzannjah), finds herself at the start of the story, although solace soon arrives in the form of an eccentric English teacher, Mr. Watts (Laurie), who begins to read the Dickens classic aloud to his students in the coastal villages one-room schoolhouse. While many of the townswomenthe men are mostly absent, either working abroad or hiding in the bushinitially object to Watts non-religious instruction, he eventually wins them over through his humble manners and warm sense of humor.

But just as the professors affable nature hides a darker backstory, the pleasure Matilda procures from daydreaming Dickens sprawling coming-of-age novelwhose more infamous scenes are reenacted by a Papuan cast decked out in Victorian garbfinds itself confronted with the brutal realities of the conflict.

The interplay between real and imaginary reaches its apotheosis midway through the movie, as government soldiers descend upon the village to wreak havoc in a lengthy sequence thats at once stomach-churning and eye-rolling. The scenes of violent cruelty are truly painful to sit through, but their impact is completely upended by Adamsons decision to cut in yet more Dickens references, which are backed by a preachy and unrelenting score from Harry Gregson-Williams (Total Recall, The Chronicles of Narnia).

Granted, the idea that classic literature helps Matilda make her way through the madness is an admirable one, but inserting feel-good Western fantasy into some otherwise horrific local events feels awfully dubious (and mildly colonialist), and ultimately the two parts of the narrative wind up cancelling one another out.

An extended epilogue that follows Matilda once she leaves the island seems more like an afterthought, even if first-time actress Xzannjah makes her character someone you want to root for. Laurie is likeable enough as the touching sad-sack Mr. Watts, but the way he suddenly decides to take a stand never quite seems plausible.

Warm widescreen cinematography from John Toon (Sunshine Cleaning) rounds out a pro tech package, while the gorgeous Bougainville Island locations are pure eye-candy.

Production companies: Strange Weather, Olympus Pictures, New Zealand Film Commission, NZ On Air, Daydream Productions, in association with Eyeworks Film

Cast: Hugh Laurie, Xzannjah, Healesville Joel, Eka Darville, Kerry Fox

Director: Andrew Adamson

Screenwriter: Andrew Adamson, based on the novel by Lloyd Jones

Producers: Andrew Adamson, Robin Scholes, Leslie Urdang, Dean Vanech

Executive producers: Tim Coddington, Timothy White

Director of photography: John Toon

Production designer: Grant Major

Costume designer: Ngila Dickson

Music: Harry Gregson-Williams

Editor: Sim Evan-Jones

Sales: UTA (in U.S.), Focus Features International (outside U.S.)

No rating, 132 minutes

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Song for Marion: Toronto Review

TORONTO Less sentimental than it sounds but not by much, Paul Andrew Williams's Song for Marion presents Terence Stamp as a senior citizen convinced to sing with a choir in tribute to his dearly-departed wife. Some very fine actors manage to keep their dignity here, in a film whose conceit and execution will appeal to a large percentage of the older moviegoing public.

Stamp's Arthur is a husband whose gruffness, though a challenge for others, has never kept wife Marion (Vanessa Redgrave) from understanding his love for her. If he grumbles about her participation in a choir for the elderly it's largely because it taxes her stamina, and only secondarily because having retirees sing harmony on Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" or do ersatz rap on "Let's Talk About Sex" seems to invite public mockery.

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But the group, led by volunteer conductor Elizabeth (Gemma Arterton), is clearly a source of camaraderie and joy for Marion, and when she is diagnosed with terminal cancer, he grudgingly helps her spend her final months helping the choir qualify for the finals of a nearby competition. He also attempts to make peace with his son (Christopher Eccleston, eloquently showing the emotional toll lifelong paternal disdain has taken), though this is a more complicated job than simply taking Marion to rehearsals and apologizing when he snaps at her friends.

Redgrave and Stamp have a touching, mismatched chemistry, and in their hands the marriage described in Williams's script feels lived-in and real. When she dies, Arthur's impulse to become a recluse is overcome by the idea of finishing what she started: Opening up emotionally to the choral cheerleader he's been so skeptical of, he agrees to sing a solo at Elizabeth's group's competition.

The musical repertoire seems chosen solely so trailers can offer a quirky Full Monty-style gimmick, as opposed to being something this group of English oldsters might actually choose. (Why aren't they singing one of the soulful '60s tunes on the film's soundtrack, which might actually mean something to them?) But Song for Marion doesn't abuse these characters too much: Sure, one octogenarian winds up in an ambulance after trying to dance The Robot, but all of them are in on the joke, and some viewers will find it absolutely hilarious to see them in heavy-metal mode for "Ace of Spades."

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Williams's only grievous misstep is in the film's climax, where he introduces an unforgivably contrived obstacle to the choir's final concert. Stamp saves the day to an extent, but what might have been a truly moving performance is thoroughly contaminated by a script that doesn't trust its lead character to bring us to tears on his own.

Production Company: Steel Mill Pictures

Cast: Terence Stamp, Vanessa Redgrave, Gemma Arterton, Christopher Eccleston

Director-Screenwriter: Paul Andrew Williams

Producers: Ken Marshall, Philip Moross

Executive producers: Christian Angermayer, Tara Moross, Achim Pfeffer, Alistair Ross, Ricky Sans

Director of photography: Carlos Cataln

Production designer: Sophie Becher

Music: Laura Rossi

Costume designer: Jo Thompson

Editor: Daniel Farrell

No rating, 93 minutes

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Inventing David Geffen: Toronto Review

TORONTO A lively account of one of the most influential careers in modern showbiz, Susan Lacy's Inventing David Geffen works within a familiar format to sing the praises of a man who never did. An upcoming airing on PBS's American Masters series (Nov. 20) will please home auds; on home vid, the story should inspire would-be moguls for years.

"I'm completely without gift," David Geffen recalls telling a casting agent who asked, decades ago, about the nature of his gifts. "You should become an agent," she replied.

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Instead of waiting around for the rim-shot punctuating that zinger, Geffen not only lied his way into a William Morris Agency gig but spent months sorting mail to intercept the proof he was lying: One quick alteration to the damning letter from UCLA, and his career was on track.

Lacy draws an easy-to-follow line whose twisting trajectory looked crazy at the time: how being awestruck by songwriter Laura Nyro's talent led the up-and-coming agent to quit WMA and become her manager; how that led quickly to a partnership (with Elliot Roberts) handling acts including Crosby, Stills and Nash; how his failed attempt to get Jackson Browne a record deal led him to co-found the legendary Asylum label.

We get glimpses of the famously aggressive, and inspired, dealmaking that enabled Geffen's quick rise. Audiotape of a call with Columbia Records head Clive Davis (accompanied by appealing animation) catches him getting the best of a music industry giant while proposing a Byrds reunion; stories about how his entrepreneurial mother used to haggle with Bloomingdale's clerks suggest this chutzpah was in his blood.

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After a run in which his relationship to talent was that of a parent going to bat for his pampered kid's every whim (he arranged for the lyrics sleeve on a Nyro LP to be printed in lilac-scented ink), Geffen thought of himself in arranging the suprise sale of Asylum to Warner. A few years later, a false diagnosis of bladder cancer forced him to rethink his priorities further. Looking back on these turning points in contemporary interview footage, Geffen is candid and self-analytical, showing no evidence of the prickliness that reportedly helped him win every argument that mattered.

In fact, although many interviewees here (from Neil Young and Joni Mitchell to Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg and Davis) make note of Geffen's temper -- "Does he sometimes go too far? Yeah, he does," one says -- we never hear examples. Surely, the cutting-room floor is piled high with colorful anecdotes of bad behavior serving a good idea, and the doc would be richer for them. But Lacy has too many more achievements to explore -- little milestones like Geffen Records, Risky Business, Cats, and a remarkable philanthropic legacy -- to get hung up on talking to anyone who harbors hurt feelings, or witnessed a David Geffen project that didn't somehow, in the end, turn to gold.

Production Company: WNET, THIRTEEN

Director-Screenwriter: Susan Lacy

Producers: Susan Lacy, Jessica Levin

Directors of photography: Joan Churchill, Edward Marrtiz

Music: Alan Barker, Roger Phenix

Editor: Deborah Peretz, Benjamin Gray

No rating, 114 min

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Aftershock: Toronto Review

TORONTO -- Splat pack ringleader Eli Roth takes his gory roadshow south in Aftershock, a lively but formulaic Chile-set chiller where a group of tourists find themselves bloodied, bludgeoned and buried beneath a horrific earthquake. With Roth playing one of the leads and handing off directorial duties to Nicolas Lopez (Santos), the film tends to feel shoddier than the first two Hostel movies, even if the team draws laughs from the sight of spoiled hipsters getting their comeuppance in the Third World.

Given how the torture-porn genre has been waning compared to its heyday in the middle of the last decade, credited writers Roth, Lopez and Guillermo Amodeo bring down the ketchup-count considerably here, and Aftershock is less of an all-out bloodbath than it is a throwback to hokey horror and disaster flicks from the 70s and 80s. As such, it should play best as an ancillary item, with theatrical stints in markets where Roth still has some street cred.

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Taking many of its ingredients from the Hostel recipe, the film kicks off with a goofy American tourist, known simply as Gringo (Roth), trying to enjoy the last days of his Chilean vacation with acquaintances-cum-tour guides Pollo (Nicolas Martinez) and Ariel (Ariel Levy). As expected, the trio are much less interested in local history than in bagging Latinas, and they hop from bar to bar as Gringo who we learn is a recently separated dad strikes out with one chick after another (including Selena Gomez in a brief cameo).

Eventually the gang bumps shoulders with American stepsisters Monica (Andrea Osvart) and Kylie (Lorenza Izzo), along with their Russian galfriend Irina (Natasha Yarovenko), and they all head to the seaside town of Valpraiso for some more binge drinking. But just when Aftershock is starting to feel like one long Spanish-language spring break video, disaster strikes in a crowded nightclub, leaving the group stuck between collapsing ceilings, severed limbs and all-out urban anarchy.

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Strictly abiding by horror film scripture, the characters get knocked off more or less in the order of transgressions committed, beginning with Ariel, who spent the first act annoyingly texting his ex and justifiably gets his hand chopped off, becoming the premier victim. The rest of the bunch seeks salvation in the chaotic city, but their obnoxious attitudes (Those are really cool favelas! I want one for my backyard, Kylie says earlier on) no longer hold sway in a place where its every hombre for himself.

As the center of attention for much of the time, Roth has a rather awkward screen presence, but its at least partially justified by his character, whos just a nice guy looking for some local kicks. The fate the filmmakers reserve for him is one of the few genuine surprises in a movie that tends to stick to formula, offering up minimal scares amid scattered moments of gross-out bliss.

Made for a purported budget of $10 million, the production has more of a schlocky, Corman-esque quality to it, although DP Antonio Quercia does make decent use of the multiple Chilean locations. The omnipresent score by Manuel Riveiro is standard B-movie chow.

Production companies: Vertebra Films, Sobras

Cast: Eli Roth, Andrea Osvart, Ariel Levy

Director: Nicolas Lopez

Screenwriters: Nicolas Lopez, Guillermo Amodeo, Eli Roth

Producer: Eli Roth

Directors of photography: Antonio Quercia

Production designers: Nelson Daniel

Costume designer: Eliza Hormazabal

Music: Manuel Riveiro

Editor: Diego Macho Gomez

Sales: CAA (U.S.), FilmNation Entertainment (Outside U.S.)

No rating, 89 minutes

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Byzantium: Toronto Review

TORONTO -- I am Eleanor Webb. I throw my story to the wind. So says the ancient child-woman played by Saoirse Ronan in Byzantium. In a sense thats what director Neil Jordan and screenwriter Moira Buffini do too, allowing this moody but convoluted century-hopping reinvention of the vampire myth to drift in too many meandering directions before it finally comes together with a semblance of focus in the concluding stretch.

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The film is handsomely made, shot by Sean Bobbitt with a blend of gritty naturalism and shadowy storybook fantasy, and a widescreen frame often painted with striking images. It also benefits from Javier Navarettes lush score. But Jordans return to territory he traveled in Interview with the Vampire and to a lesser extent The Company of Wolves is sluggish and lacking in bite. It has neither thrills nor suspense.

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Buffini makes a promising choice by taking a route closer to that of Anne Rice than of Stephenie Meyer or Charlaine Harris, respectively authors of the Twilight and True Blood series. But her screenplay for Byzantium lacks the clarity, depth of character and robust story sense the writer brought to Tamara Drewe and Jane Eyre. While Buffini adapted the new film from her 2008 young adult play A Vampire Story, the script has more of a novelistic sweep, attempting to cover too many plot strands across two time periods and struggling to find a consistent tone. Troweling on voiceover at every turn doesnt help.

Born in 1804 yet forever 16, Eleanor is first seen living on a drab council estate where she endures the pain of her haunted past by writing the story of her life that can never be told, disposing of it page by page. The melancholy teen kills only those who seek the release of death. She displays no visible fangs, just a retractable pointed thumbnail to make the first incision.

First described by Eleanor as her muse, Clara (Gemma Arterton), is the polar opposite of the younger girl. While Eleanor is intensely still, introspective and burdened by secrets, Clara is volatile and trashy. A lap-dancer with a temper, Clara is chased down by a mysterious agent (Thure Lindhardt), who she promptly beheads with a garrote. Obviously not for the first time, she tells Eleanor to pack for a hasty move.

They land in a sleepy coastal town where Eleanor insists theyve been before, seeing visions of herself on the beach among a gaggle of Georgian-era schoolgirls. Clara picks up morose Noel (Daniel Mays), who has inherited a boarding house called Byzantium and run it into the ground. Passing Eleanor off as her sister, Clara moves them in, then dispatches a local pimp and recruits his girls, repurposing the old hotel as a brothel.

STORY: Toronto 2012: Inside THR's Video Diary Featuring the Festival's Leading Talent

Eleanor, meanwhile, has formed a cautious attachment with Frank (Caleb Landry Jones), a sickly youth with stringy hair whose leukemia medication causes him to bleed profusely when injured. His fragility and proximity to death make him a perfect match for Eleanor, who shares her story for the first time, ostensibly as an exercise for writing class. (An unbilled Tom Hollander plays the teacher who gets unwisely intrigued.)

Where the film gets seriously bogged down is in the muddy flashbacks to the same location two centuries earlier. Clara is transformed from poor waif to harlot by sinister Navy captain Ruthven (Jonny Lee Miller), despite the efforts to intervene of his kinder, gentler lieutenant, Darvell (Sam Riley). Theres much back and forth as we learn that Clara gave birth to a daughter (guess who?), placed in an orphanage while her consumptive mother kept whoring to pay for her upkeep.

Clara and Eleanors transformation into vampires could have been dispensed with in a quick flash or two. Instead Jordan and Buffini slow the momentum by wading through developments with Ruthven and Darvell. Mostly, the director seems bewitched by the imagery of a cave on a rocky island, from which flocks of blackbirds spew forth and the surrounding waterfalls gush with blood every time a new sucreant is born. These scenes are moderately cool but dont justify being seen in repeat mode.

We learn that Clara violated the rules of the exclusively male, class-conscious vampire order archly named The Pointed Nails of Justice whose goons have been pursuing the female outlaws ever since. But the backstory generally is far less involving than the present.

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The bigger disappointment is the scripts failure to exploit the emotional potential of mother-daughter vampires struggling to make a living, stay off-radar and survive. This is also due to a failure to forge a deep connection between the two characters or the actresses playing them.

Ronan has shown before that she can be compelling even in a mishandled movie (The Lovely Bones) or one drowning in self-conscious style (Hanna). Shes always an interesting presence, and her scenes with Jones pale, otherworldly Frank have a nice sorrowful texture. But theres too little heat of either the loving or conflicted kind between Eleanor and Clara, who is played by Arterton as a dangerous tart in killer outfits, but not much more.

Venue: Toronto Film Festival (Special Presentation)
Production companies: Number 9 Films, Parallel Films, Demarest Films
Cast: Gemma Arterton, Saoirse Ronan, Sam Riley, Jonny Lee Miller, Daniel Mays, Caleb Landry Jones, Thure Lindhardt, Uri Gavriel, Maria Doyle Kennedy, Tom Hollander
Director: Neil Jordan
Screenwriter: Moira Buffini, based on her play A Vampires Story
Producers: Stephen Woolley, Alan Moloney, Elizabeth Karlsen, William D. Johnson, Samuel Englebardt
Executive producers: Mark C. Manuel, Ted ONeal, Sharon Harel-Cohen, Danny Perkins, Norman Merry
Director of photography: Sean Bobbitt
Production designer: Simon Elliott
Music: Javier Navarette
Costume designer: Consolata Boyle
Editor: Tony Lawson
Sales: WestEnd Films/CAA/WME
No rating, 118 minutes

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Everyday: Toronto Review

An admirable idea in theory proves to be a real slog to sit through in Everyday, Michael Winterbottom's attempt to incorporate the real passage of time, including the aging of the cast, into a dramatic feature film. As does her character, a working class mother of four, Shirley Henderson does her best to hold everything together here, but the director has chosen to emphasize the observational over the dramatic in this thinly developed story of a family waiting for the husband/father to be released from prison. Television rather than feature slots are the best bets for this patience-testing effort.

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With the announced aim of documenting the duration of things, Winterbottom, over the course of five years and in between other projects, periodically called together his small cast to gather in Norwich for a few days to shoot a bit more of the daily grind faced by Karen (Henderson) and her kids while Ian (John Simm) stews in the stir.

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During this period, the director was typically busy, having shot and completed A Summer in Genoa, the documentary The Shock Doctrine, The Killer Inside Me, The Trip, Trishna and, for good measure, the short 60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero.

Whatever else can be said for those films, they are loaded with incident and drama compared to Everyday, which captures the quotidian in a way not far removed from the style of reality shows except for the fact that the dull and routine are here favored over the lively and confrontational.

In addition to his two professional leads, Winterbottom had a bright idea of casting four siblings -- Shaun, Robert, Katrina and Stephanie Kirk -- as the kids, and there is certainly continuing interest in witnessing them actually grow up onscreen over the course of 97 minutes. But Winterbottom and co-screenwriter Laurence Coriat seem to have felt that just watching them evolve physically would be sufficient, as they've been given no characters to play or scenes to act in the normal sense; they've merely been plopped in front of the camera and seem have been asked to do nothing further than be themselves.

The result of this approach is, in a word, uninteresting; for all their screen time, the kids have been given nothing of value to say and register as relative blanks, leaving all the heavy lifting to the teeny Henderson. Professional kid actors and a bit of dialogue written for them would have gone at least some way towards enlivening the many uneventful scenes set around the house, in the kitchen and at school, and getting around via diverse means of transportation.

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Of the tedium and repetitiveness of life as experienced by all here there can be no doubt, the only highlights being the periodic visits (a long haul away) to prison to visit Ian. There's no visible shame on the parts of the kids for their father's drug-related criminal status, just happiness to see him and the desire for him to be released. As that date approaches, he's allowed out with the family for a few hours, permitting a quickie in a hotel room between Ian and Karen. In the end, there's only one mild surprise in the entire film but that, too, seems to wash out into the general run of ordinary events that ultimately prove to be just that -- ordinary.

The one dynamic element is the typically bold, invigorating score by Michael Nyman, which seems to exist in an entirely different realm from the drudgery onscreen.

Production: Film Four, Revolution Films
Venue: Telluride Film Festival
Cast: Shirley Henderson, John Simm, Shaun Kirk, Robert Kirk, Katrina Kirk, Stephanie Kirk
Director: Michael Winterbottom
Screenwriters: Laurence Coriat, Michael Winterbottom
Producer: Melissa Parmenter
Executive producer: Andrew Eaton
Directors of photography: Sean Bobbit, James Clarke, Annemarie Lean-Vercoe, Simon Tindall, Marcel Zyskind
Editors: Mags Arnold, Paul Monaghan
Music: Michael Nyman
97 minutes

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Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang: Toronto Review

TORONTO -- French auteur and Palme dOr laureate Laurent Cantet (The Class, Human Resources) takes his second stab at English-language filmmaking with Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang, adapted from Joyce Carol Oates bestselling, 1950s-set novel about a band of proto-feminist teens whose rebellious exploits yield disastrous consequences.

Not unlike his 2005 drama, Heading South, the directors soft-touch realism and sharp eye for detail are both on display in this handsomely mounted and occasionally moving period piece, but the film is likewise mired by inconsistent anglais performances from a cast of newcomers, not to mention a two-hour-plus running time that ultimately overstays its welcome. Following its Toronto premiere, Confessions will find most of its listeners in Euro territories where the Americana ambiance and retro chitchat plays better with subtitles.

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Sticking closely to Oates original story (first published in 1993) and inserting some of the authors Faulkner-esque prose in voiceovers scattered throughout the narrative, the film centers around a cadre of close-knit high school students living in a deadbeat upstate New York town, their insurgent exploits documented by the shy and unassuming narrator, Maddy (Katie Coseni).

When we first meet her, Maddys just another local gal suffering the insults and intimidations of a place where teenage boys rule the roost and young women have few prospects beyond marriage or secretarial school. But all that changes when Maddy crosses paths with Legs (Raven Adamson), a wiry, army jacket-wearing anarchist who urges her fellow females to stick it to the man and take back their dignity. Along with the beefy Goldie (Claire Mazerolle) and the coquettish Rita (Madeleine Bisson), they team up to form an insolent girlpower gang called Foxfire, sealing their membership with homemade tattoos and wreaking havoc on any guy who stands in their way.

Cantet and regular co-writer Robin Campillo fashion a convincing empowerment scenario early on, taking pains to depict a cruel, patriarchal society where rape and abuse are common practice, while poverty, alcoholism and broken homes offer little in terms of protection. The stark and gritty production design by Franckie Diago (City Island) provides a solid base for such circumstances, and regular cinematographer Pierre Milon captures the small-town settings with a naturalistic handheld flair, as if the crew were sent back in time to document the proceedings as they happen.

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But the film runs into some snags when it comes to its cast of relative amateurs, who certainly look the part but sometimes appear awkward or skittish in front of the camera, especially when theyre engaging in the scripts heavier dialogue scenes. Some of the strongest moments are precisely those where theres no drama at all and Cantet casually lets the girls hang out and be themselves, backing their mischief to buried '50s treasures like Chuck Wileys I Wanna Dance All Night and Steve Wrights Wild Wild Woman songs that invoke the bygone thrills of an adolescence forever on the brink of extinction.

As the band literally paints their town red and brushes up against the law, the story starts to flail a bit, until its stretched out through a lengthy third act that could easily loose a reel or two. Despite four credited editors, the denouement feels especially loose-hinged when it transforms into a somewhat familiar kidnapping drama one whose victim, a right-wing banker, bears a scary resemblance to Mitt Romney in which Cantet forgoes his movies realistic grounding for a more dramatic and politically-charged finale.

Despite such drawbacks, Foxfire remains a potent and occasionally touching depiction of feminism avant la lettre, and even if this gang is not always credible, there is at least one standout performance from Admanson as the uncompromising and crafty Legs (a part originally played by Angelina Jolie in a little-known 1996 adaptation). The actresss scraggly frame, large eyes and Joan of Arc haircut are in sharp contrast to her characters commanding persona, but she remains someone you'd gladly follow.

Production companies: Haut et Court, The Film Farm, in association with Memento Films International, in co-production with France 2 Cinema and Lorette Distribution

Cast: Raven Adamson, Katie Coseni, Madeleine Bisson, Claire Mazerolle, Paige Moyles

Director: Laurent Cantet

Screenwriters: Robin Campillo, Laurent Cantet, based on the novel by Joyce Carol Oates

Producers: Carole Scotta, Caroline Benjo, Simon Arnal, Barbara Letellier, Simone Urdl, Jennifer Weiss

Director of photography: Pierre Milon

Production designer: Franckie Diago

Costume designer: Gersha Phillips

Music: Timbre Timbre

Editors: Robin Campillo, Sophie Reine, Stephanie Leger, Clemence Samson

Sales: Memento Films International

No rating, 143 minutes

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A Late Quartet: Toronto Review

TORONTO -- A terrific cast helps boost an otherwise conventional chamber piece in A Late Quartet, writer-director Yaron Zilbermans debut feature about a New York string ensemble trying to stay in tune amid a wealth of personal disasters.

Featuring endearing performances from Christopher Walken, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Catherine Keener, the film mines both the relationship issues and the Upper East Side neighborhoods of Woody Allens best work, but could use an added dose of the Woodsters jokes to spruce up a self-serious scenario that hits the right notes about half the time. Toronto premiere will be followed by a moderate arthouse following, especially among classical music aficionados.

Indeed, the working musician angle of the screenplay (co-written with Seth Grossman, The Elephant King) remains the most intriguing part of a rather familiar story where mid and late-life crises come to a head for the members of the world renowned, Manhattan-based Fugue String Quartet.

On the brink of celebrating the ensembles 25th anniversary, their seasoned cellist, Peter (Walken), learns he has Parkinsons disease and breaks the bad news, causing a fracture among his fellow musicians: Robert (Hoffman), who can no longer stomach playing second fiddle to violinist David (Mark Ivanir), and Roberts wife Juliette (Keener), who is having major doubts about their marriage.

An opening sequence, where the four musicians are seen in successive shot/reverse-shots, does a good job revealing the strange camaraderie of a group that spends most of the year rehearsing, touring and performing together, creating an intimacy that goes beyond the workplace towards something significantly more personal.

But outside that scene and a few others where we see the foursome preparing for a recital of Beethovens Opus 131 String Quartet in C-Sharp minora work the high-sounding David believes is the pinnacle of all concert piecesthe various subplots involving bedroom squabbles, professional jealousies and extramarital affairs feel rather contrived, as if they were filched from a middle-of-the-road dramedy and grafted onto this sophisticated bunch.

Nonetheless, the actorsincluding Imogen Poots (Greetings from Tim Buckley), who plays Robert and Juliettes testy daughteracquit themselves nobly, and are altogether believable as seasoned musicians (at least a half-dozen musical trainers are listed in the end credits, and they serve the film well). Walken is particularly moving as the quartets stoical godfather, and it may come as a surprise to some to see how convincingly the King of New York can wax poetically about a T.S. Eliot poem or a Rembrandt painting as his character comes to terms with his grim future.

Set in and around various uptown apartments, with plenty of requisite Central Park rendezvous scenes, A Late Quartet cant help but evoke the narrow demographics of Allens oeuvre, with a cameo by Manhattans Wallace Shawn only enforcing the point. But Zilbermans self-important characters are incapable of taking things lightly, save for one welcome tongue-in-cheek scene where a rehearsal quickly turns sour.

A mellow score by Angelo Badalamenti and low-key Alexa camerawork by Frederick Elmesboth of them veterans of David Lynchround out an adequate tech package, although the 35mm print screened at Toronto occasionally popped out of focus.

Production companies: Opening Night Productions, Spring Pictures, Concept Entertainment, Unison Films

Cast: Christopher Walken, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Mark Ivanir, Imogen Poots

Director: Yaron Zilberman

Screenwriters: Yaron Zilberman, Seth Grossman

Producers: Tamar Sela, Mandy Tagger Brockey, Emanuel Michael, Vanessa Coifman, David Faigenblum, Yaron Zilberman

Executive producers: Adi Ezroni, Ted Hartley, Cassandra Kulukundis, Peter Pastorelli

Director of photography: Frederick Elmes

Production designer: John Kasarda

Costume designer: John G. Aulisi

Music: Angelo Badalamenti

Editor: Yual Shar

Sales: WestEnd Films

No rating, 105 minutes

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Thanks for Sharing: Toronto Review

TORONTO With a subject as specific as sex addiction, comparisons to last years Shame are inevitable. That dark drama was a deep-probe character study, intensely focused on a man consumed by his cravings. By contrast, Thanks for Sharing is an ensemble piece juggling humor with sober observation of three men intent on overcoming their dependence on the pleasures of the flesh. Making a technically polished directing debut, screenwriter Stuart Blumberg (The Kids are All Right) has in essence crafted the date-night version of the sexaholics confessional.

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While it doesnt crawl under the skin the way the Steve McQueen film did, this seriocomedy will probably prove more widely accessible, with a marketable name cast and a glossy portrait of New York as a playground of visual stimuli. Captured in crisp advertising imagery and singing colors by cinematographer Yaron Orbach, its a metropolitan catwalk, a promo-reel for romance and desire. Gorgeous women glide along the streets, pretty young couples make out on the High Line, and every billboard, bus hoarding and taxi TV explodes with sensuality.

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All of that keeps Thanks for Sharing watchable and mildly entertaining, even if its 15-20 minutes too long. What stops the film from being more satisfying, however, is a problem with the way the central characters arc takes shape, and a key piece of miscasting.

Bashing Gwyneth Paltrow has become a tired, easy sport that anyone can play. But her preening performance in an inconsistently drawn role here is a major intrusion.

A smart, soulful environmental consultant celebrating five years in recovery, Marc Ruffalos Adam is carefully set up to give the film a core of emotional integrity. When his sponsor, Mike (Tim Robbins), insists its time for him to bite the bullet and start dating again, he conveniently meets Paltrows Phoebe at a foodie bug-tasting evening. Shes a cancer survivor and fitness fanatic whose last boyfriends alcoholism gave her an aversion to addicts, which means Adam predictably stalls before sharing details of his recovery.

In a staggeringly miscalculated scene, Phoebe processes the unsettling news and then gives the relationship another shot by stripping down to fetish lingerie and demonstrating her lap-dancing skills on a stunned Adam. While this reads as insensitive, sadistic, stupid or all three, Blumberg and co-scripter Matt Winston justify the behavior by having Phoebe say, Im a very sexual person. I need to express that side of me. The queen of mixed signals, shes a phony character, and a too-transparent catalyst for Adams inevitable fall from the wagon.

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This shortchanges Ruffalo, who gives a typically sensitive performance, both in his monastic adherence to the vigilant rules of sobriety and his wounded admission of defeat. But its hard to remain invested in whether or not Adam and Phoebe work things out. He deserves better.

The film has more nuance and credibility in its secondary strands. One concerns the stubbornness of Mike, an aphorism-spouting addiction group elder statesman, who has little faith in the claim that his ex-junkie son Danny (Patrick Fugit) is now clean and eager to atone for his missteps. And Danny is still waiting for Mikes contrition for his drunken toxicity during the boys childhood. Both actors bring conviction to the gradual bridging of the distance between them, and the test of their hard-won trust, with Joely Richardson adding tender notes as Dannys mother.

Also getting considerable attention is the progress of Neil (Josh Gad), a chubby young ER medic doing court-ordered SAA time for nonconsensual frottage. Unrepentant at first, and reluctant to adopt the austerity measures required by the program no television, no Internet, no masturbation, no subways Neil alienates his designated sponsor, Adam. But when hes fired as a result of his illness, he gets serious. Help comes, paradoxically, from the lone female in the group, Dede (Alecia Moore), a tattooed tough girl who has hit 30 with the realization that she can only relate to men through sex.

A breakout star of The Book of Mormon on Broadway, Gad does the films comedic heavy lifting, much of it demeaning physical gags and scenes with his suffocating Jewish mother (Carol Kane). But its in the sweet blossoming of Neils loving yet platonic friendship with Dede, and their mutual support, that Gads work resonates most. Better known as pop-punkster Pink, Moore proves a capable actor and a relaxed, enormously likeable screen presence.

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Showing an even-handed mix of dramatic episodes with light moments, Blumberg and Winstons script mostly treats sex addiction not as joke fodder but as a serious condition. Unlike the directors work on The Kids Are All Right, however, in which every emotional response felt organic to the characters and their situation, Thanks for Sharing is resolutely neat and tidy. Not to mention overwritten. Too much of what happens as the characters undergo their various brushes with failure and redemption feels predetermined, slapping what aims to be a much savvier film with a debilitating touch of the formulaic.

Venue: Toronto Film Festival (Special Presentation)
Production company: Olympus Pictures, Class 5 Films
Cast: Mark Ruffalo, Gwyneth Paltrow, Tim Robbins, Josh Gad, Joely Richardson, Patrick Fugit, Carol Kane, Alecia Moore, Emily Meade, Isiah Whitlock, Michaela Watkins, Poorna Jagannathan
Director: Stuart Blumberg
Screenwriters: Stuart Blumberg, Matt Winston
Producers: William Migliore, David Koplan, Leslie Urdang, Dean Vanech, Miranda de Pencier
Executive producer: Edward Norton
Director of photography: Yaron Orbach
Production designer: Beth Mickle
Music: Christopher Lennertz
Costume designer: Peggy Schnitzer
Editor: Anne McCabe
Sales: Voltage Pictures/UTA
No rating, 112 minutes

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