The 51st edition of the Toronto International Film Festival began with jokes about Donald Trump’s attempt to rename Lake Ontario and only became more eventful from there. Prime Minister Mark Carney made a red-carpet cameo, Penélope Cruz and Helen Mirren collected Tribute Awards, and I Play Rocky left Toronto looking like a legit awards-season contender.
The festival’s centre of gravity stretched from the packed bars around King Street to the luxury hotels where the industry regrouped between screenings. The Ritz-Carlton Toronto made an exceptionally comfortable base for closing night. As an official hotel partner of TIFF: The Market, it hosted private exhibitor suites throughout the festival and sits within easy walking distance of TIFF Lightbox, the Royal Alexandra Theatre and several other major venues.
The proximity and plush surroundings help explain why previous guests have included George Clooney, Jennifer Aniston, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Ryan Gosling.
The closing reception was pleasantly low-key, giving the remaining industry crowd one last chance, after ten days of premieres and parties, to unwind after a very long week. Inside Roy Thomson Hall, TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey recapped an edition that welcomed hundreds of filmmakers from 72 countries and drew enormous crowds to its screenings and Festival Street.
“The numbers tell only part of the story,” Bailey told the audience. “The real magic was in the moments.” He thanked the hundreds of thousands of festivalgoers who “felt big feelings, got into arguments over movies and maybe made new friends, including, perhaps, with the same person you were arguing with.”
The closing film belonged to Villeneuve: The Rise of a Legend, director Yan Lanouette Turgeon’s biopic about Formula One driver Gilles Villeneuve. The film begins with Villeneuve’s early years as an adolescent racing snowmobiles in rural Quebec before following him through Canada’s racing circuit as he attempts to attract the attention of Formula One.
Lead actor Rémi Goulet bears an uncanny resemblance to the real Villeneuve, with enough charm and restless intensity to carry the film. His chemistry with Rosalie Bonenfant, who plays Villeneuve’s wife, Joann Barthe, gives the story its emotional centre, and the racing sequences provide the expected edge-of-your-seat thrills. Throughout, the film remains firmly rooted in the distinctly Canadian and Québécois world that shaped Villeneuve’s rise.
With a reported budget of more than $15 million, it ranks among the most expensive Québécois productions ever made, and it certainly shows. Goulet plays Villeneuve with single-minded aggression but an underlying sweetness as he races, fights, and schemes his way to the top (including selling his house to make his dream come true). At times, the film plays like a French-Canadian Marty Supreme.
“What better way to end this great festival than with a Canadian icon, made in Quebec?” Turgeon said before the screening.
The film was an apt choice. TIFF spends most of its run looking outward, bringing Hollywood premieres, international filmmakers, and the opening moves of awards season to downtown Toronto. Villeneuve brought things home.
It arrives amid a welcome run of films that are conspicuously, unapologetically Canadian. Matt Johnson’s BlackBerry and Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie earned critical acclaim and cult followings, while Michael Dowse’s The Stunt Driver, starring Jay Baruchel as Canadian daredevil Ken Carter, also premiered at TIFF this year. All are rooted in local characters and obsessions, proving that Canadian films don’t need to sand down their specificity to travel beyond our borders.
Afterward, it was back across the street to the Ritz, where the lobby remained lively and EPOCH, the adjoining restaurant, kept the TIFF crowd supplied with late-night food and drinks. Closing parties carried on elsewhere around the city, but the speeches had been made, and the festival’s final credits had rolled. TIFF had spent ten days bringing the world to Toronto and closed by reintroducing a Canadian audience to one of its great sporting legends.
FEATURE PHOTO BY NICK WONS, COURTESY OF TIFF.
