THN’s Toronto International Film Festival 2014 Round-Up

The red carpets have been rolled up and placed in storage until next September. The streets are re-opened, the plethora of black SUVs used to transport VIPs have retreated, and weary festival goers start their recovery after ten days of film screenings and celeb sightings. The Toronto International Film Festival is now over for another year, and opens the door to all sorts of award season discussions as the festivities come to a close. But what were the hits and misses of the Festival, and who may have now entered the awards race?

One of the biggest buzz worthy moments of the last ten days came in the form of Julianne Moore. Sure, on ticket buying day FOXCATCHER was the film to beat, but by the end of the Festival, Julianne Moore was on everyone’s mind. Starring in the stunning film STILL ALICE, Moore plays the titular character who gets diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s. This film flew under the radar, even premiering on a low-key Monday afternoon, and then took the Festival by storm. Moore will surely be a favourite contender for the Best Actress Oscar race, and it all started here.

The other performance surprise of the Festival seemed to be Jennifer Aniston. Her gutsy and honest portrayal of a woman suffering chronic pain after a tragic accident in the film CAKE certainly is her best and I wouldn’t be surprised if her name starts to come up close to award season. Her fiancé Justin Theroux was in the audience taking pictures as she got a little teary eyed during her well deserved standing ovation at the premiere. It was one of the more touching moments of TIFF that I experienced.

While we often just think of the Festival as a viewing platform for film, it’s also a business where distribution rights are bought and sold. TIFF this year saw its biggest ever sale. Chris Rock, who directed, wrote, and starred in TOP FIVE, came out on the very top when his feature became the focus of a bidding war after its premiere. It eventually ended up being sold to Paramount for $12.5 million. This absolutely shattered the previous record, which was set last year when Harvey Weinstein purchased CAN A SONG SAVE YOUR LIFE? (then re-titled to BEGIN AGAIIN) for $7 million. While purchases were slower in the early days of the Festival, several ended up finding homes including Noah Baumbach’s WHILE WE’RE YOUNG, the aforementioned STILL ALICE and BIG GAME, starring Samuel L. Jackson.

THE IMITATION GAME was the big winner at this year’s Festival. Winning the Grolsch People’s Choice Award (as chosen by Toronto audiences) gave the anticipated film even more buzz as the honour usually means good favour going into the Oscars. The audiences here at the Festival have a pretty good track record, picking 12 YEARS A SLAVE, THE KING’S SPEECH, and SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE in recent years.

Other Festival favourites, from from critics included THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING, 99 HOMES, ROSEWATER, WHILE WE’RE YOUNG and that hot ticket, FOXCATCHER. Add to that list for me the big screen adaptation of Jason Robert Brown’s musical THE LAST FIVE YEARS and the crazy horror flick THE VOICES starring Ryan Reynolds. Also a pleasant surprise was the Norwegian film 1001 GRAMS, which was announced during the Festival as that country’s entry to the Foreign Language category for the Oscars.

The losers at this year’s festival seemed to include THE JUDGE, which seemed to largely cause disappointment amongst critics. Toronto fans were delighted to see Robert Downey Jr. who attracted massive crowds, but his film just didn’t seem to hit it big despite it being the opening night gala presentation. Also a critical flop was THE COBBLER, starring Adam Sandler. While I didn’t have the pleasure of seeing the film, it has seemingly been a unanimous failure based on critic consensus. It’s unfortunate as Sandler did have a great role in MEN, WOMEN & CHILDREN, directed by Jason Reitman. While that film as a whole has garnered lukewarm reviews, Sandler was a standout in the ensemble cast.

When it came to red carpets this year, there were plenty of stars walking and fans there to welcome. But while some celebrities seem to revel in their fan’s attention, others are all business. The winner for best celeb goes hands down to Mark Ruffalo. It didn’t matter if he was heading to a press conference or walking the red carpet, if fans were there he was taking selfies and signing autographs. Kudos as well goes to his THE AVENGERS co-star Chris Evans who stayed after the premiere of his directorial debut, BEFORE WE GO to sign autographs for the film’s viewers. He was literally dragged off stage by security. The award for least fan attention could go a variety of different directions but I’ll give it to Channing Tatum, who barely even gave a wave to fans as he got out of his car at the FOXCATCHER press conference and who seemed to begrudgingly take a few photos with fans at the premiere before retreating to the media tent. There were many in the crowd who had waited most of the day to see the star and were thoroughly disappointed.

So Toronto is done for another year and now allows for speculation of awards season success. But no matter that outcome, it’s a guarantee that Hollywood will return north next September for another round of film festival hits, misses and surprises.

For another look at the festival, reviews, pictures and more, head over to the official TIFF 2014 website here!