You've heard about Widows opening the fest. You've seen the preview for First Man a hundred times. You've even started reading If Beale Street Could Talk so you can be the first on your block to talk about how Barry Jenkins captures the essence of James Baldwin better than any other filmmaker. Even then, you've barely scratched the surface of all the excellent films playing at this year's Toronto International Film Festival, which gets started on Thursday. We'll be on hand throughout the festival with reviews and reactions, but first, here are six films premiering at TIFF that we're super excited about.
High Life
Each and every detail that we glean about this bizarro sci-fi work by French master Claire Denis only makes us want to see it more. Denis isn’t known for science-fiction — in fact, this is her first outing in the genre — and this makes it all the more intriguing. High Life is about a group of criminals who are sent on a mission to see if they can find a rumored alternative energy source — all the while they’re being experimented on, sexually, by a group of scientists. Our main character, Monte (Robert Pattinson) has had a daughter he never wanted thanks to this experimentation, but discovers, as the black hole nears, that he might actually care about her. This may very well be the true highlight of the festival if Denis, Pattinson and the rest of the cast (which includes Andre Benjamin, Mia Goth, and Juliette Binoche) can pull it off. We’re hopeful.
