Toronto International Film Festival 2021: The best (and worst) of the fest

After the coronavirus pandemic forced the 2020 festival to take place primarily online, the Toronto International Film Festival returned this year to its former in-person glory to yet again treat moviegoers to two weeks’ worth of this year’s buzziest up-and-coming films.

Though some of the festival’s most high-profile titles were limited to in-person only screenings, we still caught more than our fair share of flicks in our digital coverage – from sci-fi rom coms to nihilistic Christmas comedies and everything in between.

With yet another film festival in the rearview mirror, we’re rounding up the best, worst, and in-betweens from our coverage of the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival.

Toronto International Film Festival: Best – I’m Your Man

“Sci-Fi” and “Rom-Com” don’t typically come to mind when we think of the most compatible movie genres, but Maria Schrader’s melancholic I’m Your Man proves us utterly wrong – a thoroughly charming and breezy film that manages to be both disarmingly goofy and heartbreaking at the same time.

The film follows a scientist named Alma (Maren Eggert) who is roped into participating in an ethics study to fund her research. The study? She lives with a robotic embodiment of her dream boyfriend (Dan Stevens) for three weeks, determining along the way whether or not such robots should be considered sentient beings worthy of the same rights afforded to humans.

It’s a simple yet clever premise that’s more than followed through on by a sharp script that walks the perfect balance between lighthearted and thoughtful – the film is equally interested in showcasing Stevens’ comedic talent as it is exploring the nature of loneliness as a part of the human condition, and does so in a way that doesn’t minimize either aspect of the narrative. Though we (like Alma) know that her relationship with the robot Tom can never be truly real, we still can’t help but fall in love with him (and, later, them as a couple): I’m Your Man‘s unique twist on both rom-coms and the question of AI sentiences makes for an instant date night classic with a pensive core, anchored by two faultless lead performances.

Toronto International Film Festival: Worst – Earwig

Though we had high hopes heading into Earwig – Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s film based on the Brian Catling novel of the same name, we found ourselves struggling to make it through the nearly two-hour film that has painfully little urgency, narrative, or drive of any kind.

Earwig follows a shifty caretaker tasked with watching over a 10-year-old girl with ice cubes for teeth. It’s certainly an intriguing premise, but Earwig squanders such a fascinating concept by bogging it down as a banal task to be completed each day, instead of centering the story around the caretaker and his unremarkable exploits.

It’s a difficult film to make sense of or even follow narratively, and though we’re no stranger to enjoying the macabre or the disorienting, Earwig is so inaccessible it’s difficult to savor how it adapts the novel or approaches its character work. Though the cast is strong and the film features striking sound design from Ken Yasumoto and a unique, haunting score (played on the ondes martenot) from Augustin Viard, the creative strengths are smothered by the icy (no pun intended) filmmaking and alienating pacing.

Toronto International Film Festival: In-Between – Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over

From her storied singing career to her more recent and infamous rise as the queen of Twitter, David Heilbroner and Dave Wooley’s documentary Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over chronicles the 50+ year career of legendary chanteuse Dionne Warwick.

Don’t Make Me Over features a gaggle of high-profile interviewees (everyone from Elton John to Bill Clinton), all paying tribute to the 80-year-old vocalist whose career highlights include being the first Black woman to win a pop Grammy, being named a health ambassador for her work in publicizing the AIDS crisis, and inviting iconic rappers like Snoop Dog and Suge Knight to her home so she could school them about misogyny in their lyrics.

Though Warwick is a larger-than-life personality with an entertaining story and an impressive career full of timeless songs, Don’t Make Me Over is an unambitious documentary that’s less interested in providing new revelations about her or her life, and more interested in celebrating her accomplishments and building her up as a legend of the industry. The thing is, we already know she’s a legend: the unwillingness to delve beyond surface trappings and explore any of Warwick’s struggles or vulnerabilities in-depth prevents Don’t Make Me Over from being as impactful as we would’ve liked.

Toronto International Film Festival: Best – Petite Maman

From acclaimed director Céline Sciamma, Petite Maman is one of 2021’s most anticipated titles, and we’re happy to report that it lives up to expectations – a short but sweet tale of motherhood, loss, and mortality told through the eyes of a little girl. The film follows Nelly (Josephine Sanz) a young girl whose grandmother has just passed away. While helping her parents (Nina Meurisse, Stéphane Varupenne) clean out her mom’s childhood home, Nelly meets a mysterious girl her age playing outside in the woods, and the two form a close bond in the short span of a few days.

At just an hour and ten minutes long, Petite Maman flies by, but Sciamma injects every frame with thoughtfulness and the film feels in no way half-baked or lacking: if anything, it’s a remarkable testament to just how much Sciamma can do with so little. Propelled to greatness by the simple yet effective script and two revelatory performances from real-life sisters/child actors Josephine and Gabrielle Sanz, Petit Maman is a quiet and introspective depiction of mourning that leaves a distinct impression even with its tiny runtime.

Toronto International Film Festival: In-Between – Silent Night

Closing out the festival, our final film of TIFF 2021 was Silent Night, the pseudo-apocalyptic Christmas black comedy from Camille Griffin. The film follows a posh British family reuniting for the holidays one last time – because, as we find out – the world is about to be engulfed by a cloud of poison gas that gives its victims painful, bloody deaths. As the night progresses, the typical tensions that pop up at strained family gatherings are dialed up to eleven with the ever-looming threat of mortal peril and each family member grapples with whether or not to take a poison pill that will kill them painlessly before the gas can reach the house.

It’s a macabre concept but one that works beautifully to illustrate the futility of wealth in the face of mortality, and Silent Night as a result that (in its best moments) is a biting yet somehow still bittersweet interfamilial drama. While it boasts a stellar premise and a stacked cast (including Keira Knightly, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Lily-Rose Depp, and Jojo Rabbit’s Roman Griffin Davis), Silent Night wasn’t quite as fierce or funny as we might’ve hope – never truly moving past the (admittedly clever) premise in an exciting or interesting way.

Though predictable and slightly under-baked, Silent Night‘s cast and script still make it a thoroughly enjoyable romp, and an utterly original take on the idea of a Christmas nightmare.