Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.

TIFF, the Toronto International Film Festival is now in full swing, showing films from around the world — basically what you’ll be seeing in local theatres over the next year or so. Though tickets have gotten a bit pricey and are hard to get, there are still some free screenings, and you can also stand in line for rush tickets even if they’re sold out. Meanwhile King Street West between University and Spadina is closed to traffic this weekend, and worth checking out — lots of games, free samples, drinks, food, and endless fans looking for a glance at celebrities.

So this week I’ll talk briefly about some TIFF movies to look out for, as well as two TIFF reviews. There’s an exotic dancer who meets a young Russian in Coney Island, and a TV dancercise star who meets her better self in Hollywood.

Curtain raisers

Here are a few movies coming to TIFF that look good.

Triumph, set in post communist Bulgaria, is about some high-ranking military brass on a top-secret mission to find a powerful, secret chamber, with the help of a psychic. 

The Brutalist starring Adrian Brody, Felicity Jones and Guy Pearce, is a drama about a post-WWII Hungarian architect brought to America by a powerful industrialist who will change his and his wife’s lives forever. 

Diciannove, is a first feature about a 19 year old man leaving Sicily to satisfy his obsession with 19th century (and older) literature. 

And We Live In Time, starring Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield as two people who meet at random and form a couple.

These are just a few of many movies premiering at TIFF.

Anora

Wri/Dir: Sean Baker (reviews: Tangerine, The Florida Project, Red Rocket)

Ani (Mikey Madison) is an exotic dancer in her early twenties. She lives with her sister in a small house in Brooklyn. When she’s not performing on stage or doing lap dances in private rooms, she’s probably talking to her friends in the green room. Her best friend works there, and so does rival frenemy. Her whole life is centred on this nightclub, until one night when she is requested to handle a client who specifically wants a Russian-speaking dancer. Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn)

is just a kid, barely legal. After they have fun in the back, he invites her to spend a weekend at his house. It’s a mammoth gated mansion with huge windows and designer furniture.  His king sized bed has red silk sheets, and they make love all night long. She meets his coney island entourage and his moustached body guard. Ivan is infatuated with Anora and she likes him a lot, too. On a whim, he flies them all to Vegas on a private jet where he claims his own special suite at a casino. Ivan throws $1000 chips on the table like petty cash. Then this kid buys Ani a huge diamond ring and a sable coat before he proposes. They are married the same day. What she doesn’t realize is he’s the son of an immemsely rich and powerful Russian oligarch.  All this money and possessions belong to  his parents and they want him back in Russia. They’re flying back to NY to annul the wedding and three tough guys arrive to keep them company. Is this legal? And can Ivan and Ani escape from their clutches?

Anora is a fantastic, high-speed adventure, full of emotion, humour, thrills, a bit of violence and lots and lots of sex. Mikey Madison is amazing as the tough but tender Anora, and newcomer Mark Eydelshteyn bounces around like a bag of springs waiting to uncoil. All of Sean Baker’s movies — Tangerine, The Florida Project, Red Rocket — are about sex work, and are always told from the point of view of the sex workers themselves. But Anora goes far beyond his previous work in both depth and feelings.

Rarely do I walk out of a movie thinking I want to watch this one again. Anora is that good.

The Substance

Wri/Dir: Coralie Fargeat

Elisabeth Sparkle (Deni Moore) is a TV star. She’s the queen of primetime dancercise, and has millions of fans. She’s been pumping away at it for decades in her trademark lycra leotards. She wears brightly coloured designer fashion, drives a snazzy convertible, and lives in a luxurious penthouse suite facing an enormous rooftop billboard with her smiling face and fit body staring back at her. But one day she overhears her oleaginous producer Harvey (Dennis Quaid) talking about her behind her back. To hell with ratings, he says, she’s jumped the shark. We need someone younger and prettier. Is her time running out?

She gets so flustered that she crashes her beautiful sports car and ends up in hospital. Miraculously, she escaped without a scratch, but an unnaturally handsome young medic, slips her a note. It’s a secret clinic where scientists have concocted a substance that can develop a “better” version of yourself — prettier, younger, and with more sex appeal — to keep you on top of your game. And after some misgivings, she follows the instructions to a secret place where she picks up the stuff. What she doesn’t realize is, it doesn’t actually make you any younger looking or prettier. No, it creates a fully formed body double to take your place.  Sue (Margaret Qualley) takes over in public and lands a TV show to replace Elisabeth Sparkle. But like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, they alternate, one sleeps while the other one plays. And if either of them disobey any of the rules around the substance… bad things happen to them both. 

The Substance is a cautionary tale about  Hollywood’s extreme infatuation toward youth and beauty. It is shocking, disgusting and amazing. Quaid and Qualley are both great but if anyone understands Hollywood’s obsession with youth and beauty it’s Demi Moore. In 1991, she appeared naked while pregnant on the cover of Vanity Fair under the headline More Demi Moore. In 2005, she married Ashton Kutcher, 15 years younger than her. In this movie she’s allowed to take it to extreme proportions — no spoilers — toward a totally over-the-top ending. Director Coralie Fargeat is French, and though the cast and topic are American, it uses a quintessentially French female gaze. There’s a grotesque  obsession with food, and who but a French would imagine an American network TV show on New Year’s Eve featuring topless Folies Bergeres dancers?! 

Don’t get me wrong, this is an extreme movie, but it is also like nothing you’ve ever seen.

Anora and The Substance are both featured at TIFF this year — go to tiff.net for details.

This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.