Beyond the Hills (Cristian Mungiu) is another grim, spare, long and completely absorbing Romanian film. It follows women who were lovers in their youth, then separated when Alina (Cristina Flutur) went to Germany to work and Voichita (Cosmina Stratan) stayed behind in Moldavia and joined a convent. Alina has returned to bring Voichita to Germany – but Voichita doesn’t want to go. As he did with 4 Weeks, 3 Months And 2 Days, Mungiu uses long, static takes to make ostensibly calm situations feel fraught with unspoken tension he also makes the spare mise-en-scène an essential element of the drama. The middle section is a bit on the nose, metaphorically speaking, but it’s a necessary evil. We need to see how badly people want things to work out for the best in order to see how they go so dreadfully wrong. Subtitled. 150 min.
Rating: NNNN (NW)
Opens Mar 29 at TIFF Bell Lightbox. See here for times.
Ginger & Rosa (Sally Potter) stars a sensational Elle Fanning as Ginger, a high schooler who’s terrified by the escalating Cold War and bewildered by her best friend, Rosa’s (Alice Eng lert), changing affections. Written by director Potter (Orlando), the film conveys a strong sense of place – postwar London in 1962 – and that gloomy time when anti-nuclear demonstrators clashed with police while other Londoners remain apathetic in the pursuit of some semblance of social stability. The narrative centres on the changing relationship between best friends at first joined at the hip and relishing the risky behaviours inspired by roiling hormones. Soon, however, Ginger becomes politically conscious, while Rosa grows more sexually aware and has an affair that deeply threatens the friendship. Potter’s assembled an impressive supporting cast, including Christina Hendricks (in a role nothing like Mad Men’s Joan), Annette Bening and Oliver Platt. But it’s Fanning who makes this a must-see movie. 90 min.
Rating: NNNN (SGC)
Opens Mar 29 at Varsity. See here for times.
A Good Death (Wannie De Wijn) is never anything more than a filmed play, but it never tries to be. Director De Wijn elegantly translates to the screen his own stage production about a Dutch family gathering for the assisted suicide of a terminally ill member, focusing on the characters and their issues. Not a particularly original story – I’ve seen three or four variations on it in the last couple of years alone – it’s well acted and solidly directed, and allows every character some measure of humanity. It’s also interesting that when anyone argues against Ben’s decision, it’s more about processing the shock of it than making a moral objection to complicate the plot. This is a movie for grown-ups. We could use a few more. Subtitled. 88 min. NNNN (NW)
Opens Mar 29 at Yonge & Dundas 24. See here for times.
Miami Connection (Y.M. Kim, Woo-sang Park) isn’t so much a bad movie, or even a “so-bad-it’s-good” movie, as an utter misfit. The Warriors meets The Karate Kid in this star vehicle for Korean-American tae kwon do grandmaster Y.K. Kim (who also produced), which centres on a group of college-age orphans who fight crime with martial arts. Oh, and they’re also members of a synth-rock band called Dragon Sound. Armed with tae kwon do proficiency and undying friendship, Dragon Sound set about cleaning up Orlando’s clownish criminal underworld. Like the best schlocky movies, Miami Connection has more than enough heart to make up for its dimness. It’s hard not to feel for the film – even if you’re feeling embarrassed for it. 83 min.
Rating: NNNN (John Semley)
Opens Mar 29 at TIFF Bell Lightbox. See here for times.
Spring Breakers (Harmony Korine) delights in the dumbness of modern American youth culture, following four listless college students (Ashley Benson, Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez and Rachel Korine) who knock over a fast food joint and peel south to Florida for some fun in the sun. After landing in the drunk tank, they’re bailed out by Alien (James Franco), who indoctrinates them in his audaciously stupid gangster subculture. The girls graduate from imitating unchecked sex and violence to actively engaging in it. Korine emphasizes the divides in American culture by depicting a permissible, mostly white party economy and the largely black criminal underworld that sustains it. After all, all those coked-up college kids on MTV specials and Girls Gone Wild videos need to get their drugs from somewhere. 92 min.
Rating: NNNN (John Semley)
Opens Mar 29 at Coliseum Mississauga, Colossus, Courtney Park 16, Eglinton Town Centre, Queensway, SilverCity Yorkdale, Yonge & Dundas 24. See here for times.
Birth Story: Ina May Gaskin and the Farm Midwives (Sara Lamm, Mary Wigmore) profiles the prolific midwife and author partly responsible for resurrecting a profession older than the Old Testament. The 73-year-old Gaskin still lives in and operates from Tennessee commune The Farm. She convincingly schools us on the undeniable advantages of midwifery and her process, which can be viewed as a reaction to the old medical system’s cold and clinical approach to childbirth. Painting a saintly and heroic portrait of their subject, the filmmakers ignore her hippie roots. A simple Google search reveals what’s been swept under the tie-dyed rug, like polygamous marriages and Gaskin’s own loss of a premature baby. These details would have added more shading to her character and made a more interesting narrative. 95 min.
Rating: NNN (RS)
Opens Mar 29 at Bloor Hot Docs Cinema. See here for times.
Wake in Fright (Ted Kotcheff) falls somewhere between grindhouse fodder and sun-baked psychodrama. Kotcheff’s long-lost 1971 debut feature – originally released in North America as Outback! – focuses on an unassuming schoolteacher (Gary Bond, a dead ringer for Peter O’Toole) whose stopover in a tiny Australian town turns into a nightmarish five-day bender. This is a movie well ahead of its time – though it’s also entirely of its era, with horrific footage of a real kangaroo hunt that simply wouldn’t be tolerated today, and Donald Pleasence’s capering, pop-eyed turn as a drunken doctor comes straight out of the 60s. Kotcheff’s merciless intensity carries it through, if only just, as Bond’s hapless protagonist falls apart in slow motion. 109 min.
Rating: NNN (NW)
Opens Mar 29 at TIFF Bell Lightbox. See here for times.
Emperor (Peter Webber) is ostensibly about General Douglas MacArthur arriving after the Second World War to meet with Emperor Hirohito and establish a proper peace – and quietly determine whether the emperor would stand trial for war crimes. For whatever reason, the filmmakers have chosen not to engage directly with that weighty narrative – or even think too much about MacArthur himself, which is a shame because Tommy Lee Jones really seems to have a lock on the guy. Instead, Emperor focuses on General Bonner Fellers (Matthew Fox), to whom MacArthur assigns the actual job of gauging Hirohito’s complicity in the attack on Pearl Harbor. But Fellers is more interested in finding out what happened to the Japanese woman (Eriko Hatsune) with whom he fell in love at college, long before the war. It’s a clunky subplot, invented by the filmmakers presumably to give us an issue we can relate to. Some subtitles. 104 min.
Rating: NN (NW)
Opens Mar 29 at Varsity. See here for times.
Mad Ship (David Mortin) is a Depression-era tale about Scandinavian immigrants Tomas (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) and Solveig (Line Verndal), whose dreams of a better life are buried in Manitoba’s dust bowl. With their farm verging on foreclosure, Tomas travels in search of work, leaving Solveig to tend their children and contend with a banker whose impractical attempts to save the family are in conflict with his primal feelings for Solveig. He ends up screwing the family in more ways than one. The story begins dire and continues in free-fall, pushing every emotional button to moisten the eyes. Unfortunately, Mad Ship still feels as dry as the prairies. Surplus tragic plot turns and overwrought symbolism leave no room for character development to anchor our sympathies. The cast (Verndal especially) give fine performances in vain, since they’re working with material as impoverished as its subjects. 94 min.
Rating: NN (RS)
Opens Mar 29 at Canada Square, Varsity. See here for times.
G.I. Joe: Retaliation (Jon Chu) is a lesson in why the rest of the world hates America. Loaded with cartoon violence and jokes about North Korea, it’s the latest in Hollywood’s pile of arch-conservative fantasies. After being framed for stealing nuclear weapons, three Joes (Dwayne Johnson, D.J. Cotrona and Adrianne Palicki) sneak back into America to stop Cobra Commander (Luke Bracey) and a shape-shifting terrorist impersonating the president (Jonathan Pryce, very good, considering). Some swift sword-clanking aside, Retaliation is dreadful. The action is dominated by jittery cinematography, the jokes clunk, and the politics are abysmal. This is screaming–eagle jingoism at its most meat-headed and infantile: Zero Dark Thirty for babies. 111 min.
Rating: N (John Semley)
Opens Mar 29 at 401 & Morningside, Beach Cinemas, Carlton Cinema, Coliseum Mississauga, Coliseum Scarborough, Colossus, Courtney Park 16, Eglinton Town Centre, Grande – Steeles, Grande – Yonge, Humber Cinemas, Queensway, Rainbow Market Square, Rainbow Promenade, Rainbow Woodbine, Scotiabank Theatre, SilverCity Fairview, SilverCity Yonge, SilverCity Yorkdale. See here for times.
The Host (Andrew Niccol) The Host (Andrew Niccol) is set on a near-future Earth where most humans have been taken over by alien symbiotes – and where one symbiote finds itself at war with the restless conscience of the previous occupant of the body it’s possessed. It demonstrates that author Stephenie Meyer understands science fiction about as well as she did Twilight’s vampires and werewolves, using an intriguing premise to set up a long, dull love triangle in which our heroine (Saiorse Ronan) finds herself drawn to her human body’s former boyfriend (Max Irons) and a hunky rival (Boyd Holbrook) who loves her for her soul. Niccol, who wrote The Truman Show and directed Gattaca, is no stranger to fantastic premises, but he’s undone by Meyer’s static narrative, which tops the Twilight books in its love for scenes where characters stand around talking about how important it is to stand around talking about things. It’s awful. 125 min.
Rating: N (NW)
Opens Mar 29 at 401 & Morningside, Beach Cinemas, Carlton Cinema, Coliseum Mississauga, Coliseum Scarborough, Colossus, Courtney Park 16, Eglinton Town Centre, Grande – Steeles, Grande – Yonge, Queensway, Rainbow Market Square, Rainbow Promenade, Rainbow Woodbine, SilverCity Fairview, SilverCity Mississauga, SilverCity Yonge, SilverCity Yorkdale, Yonge & Dundas 24. See here for times.
Bolshoi Ballet – Esmeralda Encore is a broadcast from Russia’s renowned company of the ballet about the Hunchback of Notre Dame’s beloved, based on the Victor Hugo novel. 171 min.
Opens Mar 31 at Coliseum Mississauga, Coliseum Scarborough, Colossus, Grande – Yonge, Queensway, Scotiabank Theatre, SilverCity Yonge. See here for times.
Royal Opera House: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a high def broadcast of Christopher Wheeldon’s all-ages ballet based on the beloved Lewis Carroll tale. 120 min.
Opens Mar 28 at Coliseum Mississauga, Coliseum Scarborough, Colossus, Grande – Yonge, Queensway, Scotiabank Theatre, SilverCity Yonge. See here for times.
Tyler Perry’s Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor (Tyler Perry) is the latest by the prolific Perry. It follows a married woman’s attraction to a handsome billionaire. Screened after press time – see review April 1 at nowtoronto.com/movies. 112 min.
Opens Mar 29 at 401 & Morningside, Coliseum Mississauga, Coliseum Scarborough, Colossus, Courtney Park 16, Eglinton Town Centre, Rainbow Woodbine, Scotiabank Theatre, SilverCity Yorkdale. See here for times.
