Toronto International Film Festival: 7 more movies you should know about

(Image credit: Fox Searchlight)

last updated 8 January 2015

TORONTO, CANADA — After a week and a half of non-stop screenings, the 38th installment of the Toronto International Film Festival has finally ended. (Read our round-up of 9 films you should know about from the first half of the festival here.) The festival juries awarded top prizes to films like The Amazing Catfish and When Jews Were Funny, while the People's Choice Awards noticed some of the festival's most buzzed-about features, like Stephen Frears' Philomena, Denis Villeneuve's Prisoners, and the film many critics are calling a "sure bet" at the Academy Awards, Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave. Read on to learn more about McQueen's powerful film and six other films from TIFF that you should know about:

1. 12 Years a Slave

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Based on Solomon Northrup's once-forgotten autobiography, 12 Years a Slaveis a harrowing exploration of Northrup's experience as a man forced into slavery. Before the Civil War, Northrup was living as a free man in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., when men lured him to Washington to perform on the violin — a ruse to facilitate his kidnapping and sale into slavery. For 12 years, Northup faced slave owners both kindly passive (Benedict Cumberbatch) and unhinged (Michael Fassbender) as he struggled to stay alive and find a way back to his family and freedom.

Absolutely. McQueen's third feature flat-out refuses to follow the epic grandeur normally seen in films focused on the slavery-plagued pre-war South. There is no regal score as the camera pans over gorgeous landscapes with slaves in the distance, nor awe-inspiring introductions to massive and beautiful plantations or gentility. The focus is always on the slaves. McQueen tears into the weakness of slave owners — both those who are uncomfortable yet too weak to fight it, and those whose cruelty is informed by feelings of inferiority. Ejiofor is commanding as Northrup, and is well-teamed with a parade of top Hollywood talent and newcomers like scene-stealing Nyong'o — who will be a force to be reckoned with, if she's lucky enough to find more roles of this caliber.

Yes. Gravity is a wild ride, and one that had many critics gushing hyperbolic praise. But let's be clear: The film is one theater of moving seats away from actually being a ride. Long, CG-laden shots make even the humans look motion-captured at times. They joke and chat until everything goes wrong and chaos descends as the film's focus spins to and fro to dizzying effect. Unfortunately, the story is wildly on-the-nose, ignoring subtlety for audacity, and substituting artificial tension for nuance. Gravity is an all-in-caps type of story that's eager to make you FEEL HOW EPIC IT IS. Between its weak script and so-so CG, it's not exactly a perfect film — but it is, without a doubt, one hell of a ride.

Unfortunately, no — even though this is the role Kevin Kline was born to play, and likely his last chance (he's pushing 70 to Flynn's 50). Kline is the spitting image of the late Flynn, with the same showman charisma he boasted on both stage and screen. Sadly, the film is nothing more than a glossy telling of the story, free of any exploration of emotion, the darkness to the tale, or even Flynn's charismatic magic. Bare-bones sets give the film a made-for-TV cheap feel, pushing the hands-off story into tabloid-crazy biopic territory. There's no sense of passion or chemistry between Kline and Fanning, which is good for viewers unsettled by their extreme age difference — though, thankfully, she is a legal adult — but bad for the film.

Yes, but with reservations. Reitman's film is beautiful, thoughtfully exploring the dynamics between a woman damaged by life and the young son who is desperate to make her happy, along with the gray area that prompts good people to do bad and bad to do good. It is also, however, yet another tale of a damaged woman falling for a domestic abuser. Frank is Adele's savior, and her health and well-being are wholly dependent on his presence in her life. It is easy to get swept up in the romanticism, but there is that genuinely problematic undercurrent that makes any positive resolution equally devastating.

Meh. The movie begins as a sort of modern riff on Reservoir Dogs, with Law's Dom waxing philosophic about his penis in a long, masculine monologue. But the conceit doesn't last. The film dovetails between shiny, slickly shot adventures and sappily scored dramatic moments where Dom tries to reconnect with his daughter. The unevenness is the film's downfall, which masks its best element: Jude Law, who's a pleasure to watch as the absurdly macho henchman — so much so that one might even wonder what he would've done not as Watson, but Sherlock Holmes.

Yes. The Grand Seduction is a super-sweet community tale sparked by the inclusion of McKellar's wry humor. It's a film overflowing with charm from end to end: The ladies who spy on the doctor to figure out what might entice him to stay; Gleeson, who makes the heart-warming affair both sweet and grounded; and Kitsch, who should put aside the blockbuster and pick up more interpersonal cinema like this.

Monika Bartyzel is a freelance writer and creator of Girls on Film, a weekly look at femme-centric film news and concerns, now appearing at TheWeek.com. Her work has been published on sites including The Atlantic, Movies.com, Moviefone, Collider, and the now-defunct Cinematical, where she was a lead writer and assignment editor.

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