Broke angels, holy murders, grave illnesses, gambling and Putin feature in five must-see TIFF films

The 50th Toronto International Film Festival just wrapped and it feels a little like the end of the holiday season. Celebrity sightings, TIFF-themed street parties and breaks for between-movie sushi are all over (or at least significantly reduced) for another year, but we can say farewell to one of the world’s biggest film festivals knowing that some big–and small–films made a splash in TO. 

Here’s a look at five big films shown at TIFF that are worth checking out, if only for the conversations they’ll provoke:

Good Fortune

I suspect this movie doesn’t need a positive review from us (or anyone, really) to drive butts into seats when it opens in theatres next month. Directed by Aziz Ansari (who also stars as Arj, a down-on-his-luck film editor whose multiple odd jobs still can’t get him out of his car and into an apartment), this genuinely funny comedy features Keanu Reeves as a bumbling ‘loser’ angel with small wings and Seth Rogan as a wealthy venture capitalist with a modern California mansion and his own cold plunge circuit. A timely and contemporary take on It’s a Wonderful Life that does not happen at Christmas, the movie is quotable and endearing, and while the messages about the gig economy and cost of living crisis are a little on the nose, all the leads are charming and you will laugh (more than once or twice). 

Ballad of a Small Player

Edward Berger has followed up the fascinating Academy Award-winning movie Conclave with a somewhat perplexing character study of a desperate gambling addict who requires divine intervention to reverse his run of bad luck. Set in the world-renowned gambling paradise of Macau, the film is short on story but heavy on character, carried brilliantly by Colin Farrell. Unlike Conclave, this isn’t a peek behind the curtain of a fascinating world most will never step into, but more a glimpse into the mind of a man (who is not who he says he is), trying desperately to right the many wrongs that have piled up with bad hand after bad hand. The supernatural elements feel abrupt and out of place, but watching Farrell go from dapper to decrepit and back again is satisfying. You have to admire a movie that makes you cheer–and people did literally cheer–for a person who is mostly undeserving of applause. 

Wizard of the Kremlin

This talky chronicle of the rise and fall of a fictitious Kremlin insider hasn’t wow’d critics, and it’s easy to see why. The film, which features a fantastic performance by Jude Law as Vladimir Putin, violates the “show, don’t tell” rule from beginning to end, often feeling like a well-acted, well-polished reenactment of a fictionalized history textbook. That said, you walk away from the movie feeling like you learned a lot and in fact, Paul Dano, who plays protagonist Vadim Baranov, told the audience at the Q&A that he gleaned some geopolitical knowledge from the script. The movie also offers something unexpected: a dispassionate and quietly neutral (yet jarring in its simplicity) look at the more hopeful 1990s era in post-Soviet Russia and its hard turn back to its repressive communist roots. It also highlights the dangers of allowing one person to hold the whole world in his hands. You might check your watch (or phone) a few times, but you’ll have a lot to talk about later. 

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

This loud–literally, it’s very loud–film perfectly encapsulates the bubbling rage that comes when crisis after crisis after crisis piles up and no one, not even people paid to help you, can offer any sort of hope or insight or workable solution. Directed by Mary Bornstein, the memorably titled film features an Oscar-worthy performance from Rose Byrne, an utterly overwhelmed mother and therapist who is forced to live in a motel with her seriously ill child after the roof of her apartment caves in while her pilot husband is out of town. It’s apparent from the first moments of the film that Byrne’s character, Linda, is drowning. Her daughter won’t (can’t?) eat, her home is flooded, her absent husband is unsympathetic and her own therapist, played by a pleasantly austere Conan O’Brien, has little time or patience for her. Her patients are endlessly demanding and the front desk clerk at the motel she’s living in won’t sell her wine. Too many straws on a camel’s back make for an unforgettable, if confronting, glimpse into the life of a person who’s truly underwater. 

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery

We don’t want to say the outcome is predictable, but while the final moments are not exactly shocking, the journey to get to those final scenes is delicious. The third film in the Knives Out series, this polished and relevant murder mystery unfolds in an insular community in a small New York state town. Crack detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is called in to investigate when an unhinged fire-and-brimstone monsignor meets a grisly end during a church service, shortly after a new priest with a violent past comes to town to find out why the parish is repelling new congregants. The town is quaint, the church is beautiful and the faithful churchgoers are undeniably strange, as you have to be to coalesce around an angry alcoholic who rails against his mother from the pulpit every Sunday. Riveting and taught, the twists and turns are engrossing and the outcome is satisfying. Much different–and much more entertaining–than Wizard of the Kremlin, the film also asks viewers to be cautious how much trust they put in the hands of someone who doesn’t deserve it and will inevitably use it against them.