This year’s Toronto International Film Festival (aka: TIFF) may have been dominated by tales of rage (12 Years A Slave), revenge, (Prisoners) and rebirth (Gravity), but these spectacular films weren’t the only things that had everyone talking…
August Osage County (featuring a decidedly A-list cast that includes Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, and Ewan McGregor) and Rush (a big-budget racing biopic starring Chris Hemsworth and Olivia Wilde, from perennial Hollywood power player, Ron Howard), made it quite clear that “independent film” has come a long way since the days of Sex, Lies, and Videotape and Slacker (for better or for worse). Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto shattered their pretty boy images once and for all, each contributing powerhouse performances in Jean-Marc Vallee’s Dallas Buyer’s Club. And of course, as is the case every year, some underrated talents and gifted new faces were happy to claim their time in the spotlight.
Though he’s been working steadily on both sides of the pond for nearly 20 years, UK-born and bred, Nigerian actor, Chiwetel Ejiofor received the best reviews of his career after delivering what has become the most buzzed about performance of the Festival in Steve McQueen’s harrowing 12 Years A Slave. Discovered by Steven Spielberg while still in his teens (Ejiofor starred in 1997’s Amistad) the gifted actor has delivered smoldering performances in unforgettable films like Dirty Pretty Things, Love, Actually, Kinky Boots, and Children Of Men, but it’s his unflinching portrayal of a New York man captured and sold into southern slavery in the 1840’s in 12 Years that will surely garner the handsome thespian his first Oscar Nomination.
And speaking of nominations… also spawning Academy Award chatter for his dynamite portrayal of Nelson Mandela in Justin Chadwick’s Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom is fellow dashing and debonair Brit, Idris Elba. Like Ejiofor, the actor’s roots are African (his mother is from Ghana, and his father is from Sierra Leone), his resume is lengthy (HBO’s The Wire, Thor, Prometheus), and he too gives a tour de force performance that is so staggeringly complex, it will be hard for Oscar voters to ignore. His costar and countrywoman, Naomie Harris (Pirates of The Caribbean 2 & 3, Skyfall) shines in the film as well, playing Mandela’s controversial bride, Winnie. The positive reception of the film among audiences and critics in Toronto should ensure that both actors’ profiles rise dramatically.
As Charles Dickens’ mistress in another of the Festival’s most talked-about entries, The Invisible Woman, critical darling and perpetual near breakout, Felicity Jones should see her star rise throughout the fall as well. The theatrically trained Brit has built up quite the resume in her native England (The Worst Witch, Cemetery Junction, Brideshead Revisited, Dr. Who); she even made somewhat of a splash Stateside in 2011 with the Sundance fave, Like Crazy. However it’s her latest film, directed by Ralph Fiennes, and starring the Academy Award Nominee as the iconic Victorian novelist, that promises to make Jones much more of a household name here in America.
As Felicity proves, nothing ensures a true Hollywood breakthrough like going head-to head with an A-lister onscreen and emerging star-shine miraculously undimmed. Just ask actress Julianne Nicholson (Boardwalk Empire), who somehow manages to snatch August Osage County out of the ridiculously charismatic, sinfully skilled hands of Meryl and Julia with her quietly emotional performance. Or Lupita Nyong’o, a fresh-faced, Mexican-born, Kenyon beauty who burns dazzlingly bright onscreen in 12 Years A Slave opposite some of the most talented actors working today including, Eijofor, Michael Fassbender, Brad Pitt, and Sarah Paulson.
And then there’s always young Tom Lipinski, an actor whose brooding charm, and striking resemblance to Josh Brolin, whom he plays a younger version of in Jason Reitman’s Labor Day, also seemed to elicit quite a bit of attention up north.
Who knows if today’s toast of Toronto will prove to be tomorrow’s triumph? All we can say is that here at BNH, we continue to search the heavens, or the slew of prestigious Fall Film Festivals, in search of those ever elusive shooting stars.