Jean-Marc Vallée enjoys playing heartstrings. He’s drawn to more irreverent forms of playing them but his end goals are clear, and what worked so well in Dallas Buyers Club and Wild—using broken and imperfect people to explore physical and emotional journeys—breaks down Demolition. The flawed protagonist in this case-study in grief is Davis Mitchell, whose emotional intelligence is so low it borders on sociopathic, proven by the (literally) destructive way he chooses to deal with the sudden death of his wife. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Mitchell as well as can be expected for such an irrational character, and Vallée’s introspective style pushes things as far as it can in building real feelings toward the story. It’s Bryan Sipe’s screenplay (his first major feature) that appears to be at fault, shoving as many emotionally explosive elements as possible into one script and only hinting at the sort of saving grace that would allow audiences to forgive the sentimental melodrama capping off the film.

Davis Mitchell is reminiscent of American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman in more ways than just his emotional numbness. Clean-shaven, well-groomed, and career-driven, the house he and his young wife Julia (Heather Lind) share is all glass and metal—antiseptic like he is. During an argument while driving one day he and his wife are hit by a truck and Julia dies at the hospital while Davis escapes without a scratch. Shortly after receiving the news of her death, Davis attempts to buy some M&Ms from a vending machine and, when the package sticks in the machine, he takes down the vending machine company’s info.

With keen editing, Davis’ experience of the details of his wife’s death focuses more on everyone else’s emotions surrounding him, while he remains undisturbed. He escapes during the funeral reception to write a letter to the vending company, describing in awkward detail the circumstances surrounding his attempt to buy M&Ms. It feels distinctly unnatural, as nothing of Davis’ nature suggests he’d care much either way at having gotten the candy or not, but we’re meant to understand this is his way of emoting.

After returning to work as an investment banker soon after Julia’s death, Davis’ father-in-law Phil (Chris Cooper), who is also his boss, encourages him to take some time off and deconstruct his feelings. Davis decides to take him at his word, and though he doesn’t immediately take time off work, he does start taking apart almost anything that annoys him or causes him to wonder. This includes a bathroom stall, his refrigerator, an espresso machine, and his work computer. This behavior, of course, leads to some forced time off, and by this point the customer service representative of the vending machine company, Karen Moreno (Naomi Watts), reaches out to Davis after becoming intrigued by his letters.

What follows is a hard to swallow friendship between the privileged Davis and Karen, a low-income single mother dating her boss and a marijuana—or cannabis, as she prefers to call it—user. While much of what happens on-screen is difficult to believe, such as Davis joining a construction crew to help destroy a house just for a reason to use a sledgehammer, his relationship with Karen and her son Chris (Judah Lewis) feels the most contrived. As if unable to pick a theme, the film slips into piling one high drama scenario onto the next, but through the filter of Davis’s inability to feel anything. If emotional appropriation is a thing, this movie embodies it.

How much more can a rich white man take from the world just to try and elicit some sense of grief for his perfectly awesome dead wife? As Davis bitches to the void through his letters to Karen (which continue, by the way, even after he knows she’s reading them, like some real-life Facebook status update), destroys millions of dollars of material possessions many people would be thrilled to own, and then forces his sorry self into the lives of poorer and more generous people than himself all while ignoring his own family’s attempts to show him love, it gets harder and harder to feel any empathy for Davis. It’s a case study in indulgent and privileged grieving.

Vallée is ever ambitious in exploring the nuances of the human condition and, as usual, he creates a film that looks and sounds beautiful. He’s an expert at incorporating music, even if Heart’s “Crazy On You” doesn’t fit here as smoothly as he might think. I find obvious fault with Gyllenhaal’s character but it’s not to do with his performance. If given the chance to express a more complicated range of emotion, it would have been easier to be endeared to Demolition. Watts is likable but her character is a washrag for Davis to wipe his face on. But the standout of the film is Judah Lewis, who is the only one capable of breaking hearts as a teenager trying to both find and be himself. Lewis’ character is the only one portraying emotions that make some sort of sense: teen angst, passion, and uncertainty. If only the film was about him.

The Divergent series has, in many ways, been doomed from go. Propping up the dystopian hero’s story is a clumsily conceived, confusing “faction” system that makes so little sense it can cause spontaneous combustion if meditated on for extended periods of time. So, here we are, considering Allegiant, the third entry in the series based on Veronica Roth’s popular YA books, directed by Robert Schwentke. While the overlong, bland, uninspired, nonsensical movie didn’t cause said spontaneous combustion, my explosive demise is imminent; there’s another one coming out next summer, part two of this miserably drawn-out finale, and if there’s any silver lining, it’s that we can at least say there’s an end game in sight.

Again, we join Tris (Shailene Woodley) as she continues to unravel the mystery of “the founders,” the people who set up the cockamamie faction system however-many years ago. To catch up: Until the final events of Insurgent, Chicago had been divided into districts, whose residents are assigned according to their dominant personality traits. Upon opening a mystery box left by the founders, Tris and the rest of Chicago learns that there are people beyond the sky-high city walls that have confined them for all this time, a revelation that effectively collapses the longstanding faction system and sends plucky Tris, her super-soldier boyfriend Four (Theo James) and their rebellious friends on a quest to find out, once and for all, what’s beyond the wall.

An underwhelming run-n-gun sequence follows our heroes as they evade military forces sent by Four’s mom, Evelyn (Naomi Watts), who in the last movie disposed of the tyrannical Janine (Kate Winslet), only to (predictably) adopt the former leader’s totalitarian tendencies. The group makes it over the wall, but not before two of the series’ prominent characters of color—played by Mekhi Phifer and Maggie Q, who are each given virtually no dialogue as a parting gift—are gunned down, likely to make room for the new influx of white actors we’re about to meet (Daniel Dae Kim shows up for a second too, another minority bit-part designed to create a false sense of diversity). Not an uncommon Hollywood practice, but frustrating nonetheless.

On the other side of the wall, we find a Martian-looking wasteland, an army bearing futuristic weaponry, a new city (built, amusingly, on the remains of O’Hare International Airport), and a benevolent leader David (a sleepy Jeff Daniels), who informs Tris that she is the sole success of the “Chicago experiment” the founders set up all those years ago. There are details, but they’re too stupid and uninteresting to get into here. The basics are, Tris is the key to the prosperity of the human race, and David, who (surprise!) isn’t as benevolent as he appears to be, pampers her into ignoring her friends to concentrate on fulfilling his Hitler-y dreams. Four, Christina (Zoe Kravitz), and Tris brother Caleb (Ansel Elgort) do their best to snap Tris out of her self-aggrandizing daydream while also dealing with a civil war that’s broken out back in Chicago between Evelyn and Johanna’s (Octavia Spencer) respective followers.

The logic of the faction system was already frustrating, but now the series introduces this master-race narrative that only makes things worse. It simply isn’t clear what the message is Roth and the filmmakers are trying to get across. Is it that everyone’s special? No one is special? Tris seems pretty special. So do her friends. They all specialize in one thing—Four kicks major ass, Caleb’s good with tech—but the movie seems to be saying that their laser career focus is the result of genetic tampering or something, which leads us back to the secret behind the faction system mess. I can feel my body wanting to burst now, as I type this.

The enjoyable thing about Insurgent was that the action was urgent and inventive, but the set pieces here feel more trite and way less entertaining. The folks beyond the wall have nicer looking lasers and flying bubble ships than the dirty trucks and machine guns we’ve seen in the previous installments, which is a welcome change, but one can’t get over the fact that every bit of art design we see feels woefully generic, as if they were scrounged from a bin of unused video game assets. Unexpectedly missed are the surrealistic dream sequences from the first movies.

Perhaps the biggest head-scratcher of all is how a movie can fail so epically with such an amazing cast of seasoned vets and young stars populating the screen at any given moment. For goodness sake, you’ve got Spencer, Watts, and Daniels bouncing off of Woodley, Elgort, James (who’s not half bad here, actually), Kravitz, and Miles Teller, whose charisma can make the most terrible line work, at least to some extent. The Whiplash star is a standout as the opportunistic Peter, whose flips in allegiance have been enjoyable throughout the series. My feeling is that the cast makes a terrible script feel somewhat coherent and emotionally grounded, and for that the unlucky few who actually see this movie in a theater should be thankful.

Jean-Marc Vallée is pretty intent on making sure audiences get their yearly dose of heavy-duty emotion. After pulling our hearts out in Dallas Buyers Club and making our eyes red with last year’s Wild, it appears he’s back to beat on our empathetic heartstrings once again. And, this time, he’s getting literal.

In the new trailer for Demolition, which opened last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, Jake Gyllenhaal plays Davis Mitchell, who writes letters of complaint against a vending machine company for that too-often occurrence of a machine failing to deliver on its candy promise. An especially infuriating experience because his wife had died hours earlier in a car accident. When a customer service representative, Karen (Naomi Watts), calls back out of concern for Mr. Mitchell, the two form a wayward friendship which introduces Mitchell to Karen’s son Chris (Judah Lewis).

Davis struggles to truly mourn his wife’s loss and begins a literal deconstruction of his life, with the help of Chris. Chris Cooper plays his father-in-law trying to get him to move on. We imagine tissues will be a must for this one.

Demolition releases theatrically April 8th, 2016.

The first round of titles for the 40th Toronto International Film Festival were announced this morning by Piers Handling, CEO and Director of TIFF and artistic director Cameron Bailey. 15 Galas and 34 Special Presentations were announced and, as usual, represent a diverse range of directors and countries.

Among the standouts are the opening night film starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Naomi Watts, Jean-Marc Vallée’s Demolition, a film about a man struggling with his wife’s tragic death through an unlikely communication with the customer service department of a vending machine company. Other titles to get excited for: Ridley Scott’s hotly anticipated The Martian, a new comedy from Julie Delpy, Peter Sollett’s Freeheld, and Cary Fukunaga’s much buzzed about Beasts of No Nation, and a new documentary from Michael Moore. Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl starring Eddie Redmayne is sure to garner great interest as well.

Previous festival favorites, such as Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth and John Crowley’s Brooklyn, will also make their North American and Canadian premieres, as well as Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster and Sebastian Schipper’s Victoria.

One thing’s for sure, TIFF continues to lead the Fall festival pack, and although Telluride’s lineup won’t be revealed until Labor Day weekend, TIFF continues to be the launching platform for awards season, and this year looks as promising as any.

The 40th Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 10 to 20, 2015.

GALAS

Beeba Boys
Deepa Mehta, Canada, World Premiere
An adrenaline-charged violent Indo-Canadian gang war mixes guns, bhangra beats, bespoke suits, cocaine, and betrayal. Gang boss Jeet Johar and his loyal, young crew are audaciously taking over the Vancouver drug and arms scene from an old-style crime syndicate. Hearts are broken and family bonds shattered when the Beeba Boys (known as the “nice boys”) do anything “to be seen and to be feared” — in a white world.

Demolition
Jean-Marc Vallée, USA, World Premiere (Opening Night Film)
In Demolition, a successful investment banker, Davis (Jake Gyllenhaal), struggles after losing his wife in a tragic car crash. Despite pressure from his father-in-law (Chris Cooper) to pull it together, Davis continues to unravel. What starts as a complaint letter to a vending machine company turns into a series of letters revealing startling personal admissions. Davis’ letters catch the attention of customer service rep Karen (Naomi Watts) and, amidst emotional and financial burdens of her own, the two strangers form an unlikely connection. With the help of Karen and her son (Judah Lewis), Davis starts to rebuild, beginning with the demolition of the life he once knew.

The Dressmaker
Jocelyn Moorhouse, Australia, World Premiere
Based on the best-selling novel by Rosalie Ham, The Dressmaker is a bittersweet, comedy-drama set in early 1950s Australia. After many years working as a dressmaker in exclusive Parisian fashion houses, Tilly Dunnage, a beautiful and talented misfit, returns home to the tiny middle-of-nowhere town of Dungatar to right the wrongs of the past. Not only does she reconcile with her ailing, eccentric mother Molly, and unexpectedly falls in love with the pure-hearted Teddy, but armed with her sewing machine and incredible sense of style, Tilly sets out to right the wrongs of the past and transforms the women of the town but encounters unexpected romance along the way. Starring Kate Winslet, Liam Hemsworth, Judy Davis and Hugo Weaving.

Eye in the Sky
Gavin Hood, United Kingdom, World Premiere
London-based military intelligence officer Colonel Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren) is remotely commanding a top secret drone operation to capture a group of dangerous terrorists at their safe-house in Nairobi, Kenya. The mission suddenly escalates from a capture to a kill operation, when Powell realizes that the terrorists are about to embark on a deadly suicide mission. American drone pilot Steve Watts (Aaron Paul) is poised to destroy the safe-house when a nine-year-old-girl enters the kill zone just outside the walls of the house. With unforeseen collateral damage now entering the equation, the impossible decision of when to strike gets passed up the kill chain of politicians and lawyers as the seconds tick down. Also stars Alan Rickman, Barkhad Abdi and Iain Glen.

Forsaken
Jon Cassar, Canada, World Premiere
Tormented by a dark secret, an aging gunfighter abandons a life of killing and returns home, only to discover his mother has died. He’s forced to confront his estranged father and the life he left behind. Starring Donald Sutherland, Kiefer Sutherland and Demi Moore.

Freeheld
Peter Sollett, USA, World Premiere
Based on the Oscar-winning documentary and adapted by the writer of Philadelphia, Freeheld is the true love story of Laurel Hester and Stacie Andree and their fight for justice. A decorated New Jersey police detective, Laurel is diagnosed with cancer and wants to leave her hard-earned pension to her domestic partner, Stacie. However the county officials — the Freeholders — conspire to prevent Laurel from doing so. Hard-nosed detective Dane Wells and activist Steven Goldstein come together in Laurel and Stacie’s defense, rallying police officers and ordinary citizens to support their struggle for equality. Starring Julianne Moore, Ellen Page, Michael Shannon and Steve Carell.

Hyena Road (Hyena Road: Le Chemin du Combat)
Paul Gross, Canada, World Premiere
A sniper who has never allowed himself to think of his targets as humans becomes implicated in the life of one such target. An intelligence officer who has never contemplated killing becomes the engine of a plot to kill. And a legendary Mujahideen warrior who had put war behind him is now the centre of the battle zone. Three men, three worlds, three conflicts — all stand at the intersection of modern warfare, a murky world of fluid morality in which all is not as it seems.

LEGEND
Brian Helgeland, United Kingdom, International Premiere
The true story of the rise and fall of London’s most notorious gangsters, brothers Reggie and Ron Kray, both portrayed by Tom Hardy in an amazing double performance. LEGEND is a classic crime thriller that takes audiences into the secret history of the 1960s and the extraordinary events that secured the infamy of the Kray twins.

Lolo
Julie Delpy, France, North American Premiere
While on holiday in the south of France, Parisian sophisticate Violette falls in love with carefree geek Jean-René. As their relationship blossoms, Jean-René heads to Paris to spend more time with Violette but finds himself up against her possessive teenage son Lolo who is determined to sabotage their relationship by any means necessary. A razor-sharp comedy from Julie Delpy.

The Man Who Knew Infinity
Matthew Brown, United Kingdom, World Premiere
A true story of friendship that forever changed mathematics. In 1913, Ramanujan, a self-taught mathematics genius from India, travelled to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he forged a bond with his mentor, the eccentric professor GH Hardy, and fought to show the world the magic of his mind. Starring Dev Patel and Academy Award winner Jeremy Irons.

The Martian
Ridley Scott, USA, World Premiere
During a manned mission to Mars, astronaut Mark Watney is presumed dead after a fierce storm and left behind by his crew. But Watney has survived and finds himself stranded and alone on the hostile planet. With only meager supplies, he must draw upon his ingenuity, wit and spirit to subsist and find a way to signal to Earth that he is alive. Millions of miles away, NASA and a team of international scientists work tirelessly to bring “the Martian” home, while his crewmates concurrently plot a daring, if not impossible rescue mission. Based on a best-selling novel, and helmed by master director Ridley Scott, The Martian features a star-studded cast that includes Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Michael Pena, Kate Mara, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Donald
Glover.

The Program
Stephen Frears, United Kingdom, World Premiere
From Academy Award-nominated director Stephen Frears (The Queen, Philomena) and producers Working Title (The Theory of Everything), comes the true story of the meteoric rise and fall of one of the most celebrated and controversial men in recent history, Lance Armstrong. Starring Ben Foster, Dustin Hoffman, Chris O’Dowd and Guillaume Canet.

Remember
Atom Egoyan, Canada, North American Premiere
Remember is the contemporary story of Zev, who discovers that the Nazi guard who murdered his family some 70 years ago is living in America under an assumed identity. Despite the obvious challenges, Zev sets out on a mission to deliver long-delayed justice with his own trembling hand. What follows is a remarkable cross-continent road-trip with surprising consequences. Starring Academy Award winners Christopher Plummer and Martin Landau.

Septembers of Shiraz
Wayne Blair, USA, World Premiere
A thriller based on the New York Times bestseller, this is the true story of a secular Jewish family caught in the 1979 Iranian revolution and their heroic journey to overcome and ultimately escape from the deadly tyranny that swept their country and threatened to extinguish their lives at every turn. Starring Salma Hayek and Adrien Brody.

Stonewall
Roland Emmerich, USA, World Premiere
This fictional drama inspired by true events follows a young man caught up during the 1969 Stonewall Riots. Danny Winters (Jeremy Irvine) finds himself alone in Greenwich Village, homeless and destitute, until he befriends a group of street kids who introduce him to the local watering hole, The Stonewall Inn — however, this shady, mafia-run club is far from a safe haven. As Danny and his friends experience discrimination, endure atrocities and are repeatedly harassed by the police, the entire community of young gays, lesbians and drag queens who populate Stonewall erupts in a storm of anger. With the toss of a single brick, a riot ensues and a crusade for equality is born. Starring Jeremy Irvine, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Ron Perlman and Joey King.

SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS

Anomalisa
Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson, USA, Canadian Premiere
A man struggles with his inability to connect with other people. Starring Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tom Noonan and David Thewlis.

Beasts of No Nation
Cary Fukunaga, USA/Ghana, Canadian Premiere
Based on the highly acclaimed novel, director Cary Fukunaga’s Beasts of No Nation brings to life the gripping tale of Agu (newcomer Abraham Attah), a child soldier torn from his family to fight in the civil war of an African country. Idris Elba dominates the screen in the role of Commandant, a warlord who takes in Agu and instructs him in the ways of war.

Black Mass
Scott Cooper, USA, Canadian Premiere
In 1970s South Boston, FBI Agent John Connolly persuades Irish-American gangster Jimmy Bulger to act as an informant for the FBI in order to eliminate their common enemy: the Italian mob. The drama tells the story of this unholy alliance, which spiraled out of control, allowing Whitey to evade law enforcement while becoming one of the most ruthless and dangerous gangsters in Boston history. Starring Johnny Depp, Joel Edgerton, Benedict Cumberbatch, Rory Cochrane, Jesse Plemons, Kevin Bacon, Dakota Johnson, Julianne Nicholson, Corey Stoll and Peter Sarsgaard.

Brooklyn
John Crowley, United Kingdom/Ireland/Canada, Canadian Premiere
Set on opposite sides of the Atlantic, this drama tells the profoundly moving story of Eilis Lacey, a young Irish immigrant navigating her way through 1950s Brooklyn. Lured by the promise of America, Eilis departs Ireland and the comfort of her mother’s home for the shores of New York City. The initial shackles of homesickness quickly diminish as a fresh romance sweeps Eilis into the intoxicating charm of love. But soon, her new vivacity is disrupted by her past, and Eilis must choose between two countries and the lives that exist within. Starring Saoirse Ronan, Domhnall Gleeson, Emory Cohen, Jim Broadbent and Julie Walters.

The Club
Pablo Larraín, Chile, North American Premiere
Four men live in a secluded house in a seaside town. Sent to purge sins of the past, they live under a strict regime and the watchful eye of a caretaker. Their fragile stability is disrupted by the arrival of a fifth man who brings with him their darkest secrets.

Colonia
Florian Gallenberger, Germany/Luxembourg/France, World Premiere
Colonia tells the story of Lena and Daniel, a young couple who become entangled in the Chilean military coup of 1973. Daniel is abducted by Pinochet’s secret police and Lena tracks him to a sealed off area in the south of the country called Colonia Dignidad. The Colonia presents itself as a charitable mission run by lay preacher Paul Schäfer but, in fact, is a place nobody ever escapes from. Lena decides to join the cult in order to find Daniel. Starring Emma Watson, Daniel Brühl and Michael Nyqvist.

The Danish Girl
Tom Hooper, United Kingdom, North American Premiere
The Danish Girl is the remarkable love story inspired by the lives of artists Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener (portrayed by Academy Award winner Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander), directed by Academy Award winner Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech, Les Misérables). Lili and Gerda’s marriage and work evolve as they navigate Lili’s groundbreaking journey as a transgender pioneer.

The Daughter
Simon Stone, Australia, North American Premiere
A man returns to his hometown and unearths a long-buried family secret. As he tries to right the wrongs of the past, his actions threaten to shatter the lives of those he left behind years before. Starring Geoffrey Rush, Paul Schneider, Miranda Otto and Sam Neill.

Desierto
Jonás Cuarón, Mexico, World Premiere
Moises is traveling by foot with a group of undocumented workers across a desolate strip of the border between Mexico and the United States, seeking a new life in the north. They are discovered by a lone American vigilante, Sam, and a frantic chase begins. Set against the stunningly brutal landscape, Moises and Sam engage in a lethal match of wits, each desperate to survive and escape the desert that threatens to consume them. Starring Gael García Bernal and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

Dheepan
Jacques Audiard, France, North American Premiere
To escape the civil war in Sri Lanka, a former Tamil Tiger soldier, a young woman and a little girl pose as a family. These strangers try to build a life together in a Parisian suburb.

Families (Belles Familles)
Jean-Paul Rappeneau, France, World Premiere
When Shanghai-based businessman Jérome Varenne learns that his childhood home in the village of Ambray is at the centre of a local conflict, he heads there to straighten things out and finds himself at the centre of familial and romantic complications. Starring Mathieu Amalric.

The Family Fang
Jason Bateman, USA, World Premiere
Annie and Baxter Fang have spent most of their adult lives trying to distance themselves from their famous artist parents. But when both siblings find themselves stalled in life, they return home for the first time in a decade where they become entangled in a dark mystery surrounding their parents’ disappearance. Jason Bateman directs and stars, along with co-stars Nicole Kidman and
Christopher Walken, in this film based on the New York Times bestseller.

Guilty (Talvar)
Meghna Gulzar, India, World Premiere
Based on true events that set off a media frenzy all over the world, Guilty follows the 2008 Noida Double Murder Case of an investigation into the deaths of 14-year-old Aarushi Talwar and 45-year-old Hemraj Banjade, a domestic employed by Aarushi’s family, in Noida, India. The controversial case lives on in the mind of the public, despite a guilty verdict that sentenced the parents of
the murdered girl to life in prison. Starring Irrfan Khan.

I Smile Back
Adam Salky, USA, Canadian Premiere
Adapted from the acclaimed novel by Amy Koppelman, I Smile Back explores the life of Laney (Sarah Silverman), a devoted wife and mother who seems to have it all — a perfect husband, pristine house and shiny SUV. However, beneath the façade lies depression and disillusionment that catapult her into a secret world of reckless compulsion. Only very real danger will force her to face the painful root of her destructiveness and its effect on those she loves.

The Idol (Ya Tayr El Tayer)
Hany Abu-Assad, United Kingdom/Palestine/Qatar, World Premiere
A young boy in Gaza, Mohammad Assaf, dreams of one day singing in the Cairo Opera House with his sister and best friend, Nour. One day, Nour collapses and is rushed to the hospital where it is discovered that she needs a kidney transplant. Nour leaves Mohammad with a dying wish that someday, he will become a famous singer in Cairo. Escaping from Gaza to Egypt against
unbelievable odds, Mohammad makes the journey of a lifetime. From two-time Academy Award nominee Hany Abu-Assad comes this inspirational drama inspired by the incredibly true story of Mohammed Assaf, winner of Arab Idol 2013.

The Lady in the Van
Nicholas Hytner, USA/United Kingdom, World Premiere
Based on the true story of Miss Shepherd, a woman of uncertain origins who “temporarily” parked her van in writer Alan Bennett’s London driveway and proceeded to live there for 15 years. What begins as a begrudged favour becomes a relationship that will change both their lives. Filmed on the street and in the house where Bennett and Miss Shepherd lived all those years, acclaimed director Nicholas Hytner reunites with iconic writer Alan Bennett (The Madness of King George, The History Boys) to bring this rare and touching portrait to the screen. Starring Maggie Smith, Dominic Cooper and James Corden.

Len and Company
Tim Godsall, USA, North American Premiere
A successful music producer (Rhys Ifans) quits the industry and exiles himself in upstate New York, but the solitude he seeks is shattered when both his estranged son (Jack Kilmer) and the pop-star (Juno Temple) he’s created come looking for answers.

The Lobster
Yorgos Lanthimos, Ireland/United Kingdom/Greece/France/Netherlands, North American Premiere
In a dystopian near future, single people are obliged to find a matching mate in 45 days or are transformed into animals and released into the woods. Starring Colin Farrell, Academy Award winner Rachel Weisz, John C. Reilly, Léa Seydoux and Ben Whishaw.

Louder than Bombs
Joachim Trier, Norway/France/Denmark, North American Premiere
An upcoming exhibition celebrating photographer Isabelle Reed three years after her untimely death brings her eldest son Jonah back to the family house, forcing him to spend more time with his father Gene and withdrawn younger brother Conrad than he has in years. With the three men under the same roof, Gene tries desperately to connect with his two sons, but they struggle to reconcile their feelings about the woman they remember so differently. Starring Isabelle Huppert, Gabriel Byrne and Jesse Eisenberg.

Maggie’s Plan
Rebecca Miller, USA, World Premiere
Maggie’s plan to have a baby on her own is derailed when she falls in love with John, a married man, destroying his volatile marriage to the brilliant Georgette. But one daughter and three years later, Maggie is out of love and in a quandary: what do you do when you suspect your man and his ex-wife are actually perfect for each other? Starring Julianne Moore, Greta Gerwig, Ethan Hawke, Bill Hader and Maya Rudolph.

Mountains May Depart (Shan He Gu Ren)
Jia Zhang-ke, China/France/Japan, North American Premiere
The new film from master filmmaker Jia Zhang-ke (A Touch of Sin) jumps from the recent past to the speculative near-future as it examines how China’s economic boom has affected the bonds of family, tradition, and love.

Office
Johnnie To, China/Hong Kong, International Premiere
Billion-dollar company Jones & Sunn is going public. Chairman Ho Chung-ping has promised CEO Chang, who has been his mistress for more than 20 years, to become a major shareholder of the company. As the IPO team enters the company to audit its accounts, a series of inside stories start to be revealed. Starring Chow Yun Fat, Sylvia Chang, Tang Wei and Wang Ziyi.

Parched
Leena Yadav, India/USA, World Premiere
Three ordinary women dare to break free from the century old patriarchal ways of their village in the desert heartland of rural India. Starring Tannishtha Chaterjee, Radhika Apte and Surveen Chawla, this unforgettable tale of friendship and triumph is called Parched.

Room
Lenny Abrahamson, Ireland/Canada, Canadian Premiere
Told through the eyes of five-year-old-Jack, Room is a thrilling and emotional tale that celebrates the resilience and power of the human spirit. To Jack, the Room is the world… it’s where he was born, where he and his Ma eat and sleep and play and learn. But while it’s home to Jack, to Ma it’s a prison. Through her fierce love for her son, Ma has managed to create a childhood for him in their 10-by-10-foot space. But as Jack’s curiosity is building alongside Ma’s own desperation — she knows that Room cannot contain either indefinitely. Starring Brie Larson, Jacob Tremblay, Joan Allen, Sean Bridgers and William H. Macy.

Sicario
Denis Villeneuve, USA, North American Premiere
In the lawless border area stretching between the U.S. and Mexico, an idealistic FBI agent (Emily Blunt) is enlisted by an elite government task force official (Josh Brolin) to aid in the escalating war against drugs. Led by an enigmatic consultant with a questionable past (Benicio Del Toro), the team sets out on a clandestine journey that forces Kate to question everything that she
believes.

Son of Saul (Saul Fia)
László Nemes, Hungary, Canadian Premiere
October 1944, Auschwitz-Birkenau. Saul Ausländer is a Hungarian member of the Sonderkommando, the group of Jewish prisoners isolated from the camp and forced to assist the Nazis in the machinery of large-scale extermination. While working in one of the crematoriums, Saul discovers the body of a boy he takes for his son. As the Sonderkommando plans a rebellion, Saul decides to carry out an impossible task: save the child’s body from the flames, find a rabbi to recite the mourner’s Kaddish and offer the boy a proper burial.

Spotlight
Tom McCarthy, USA, International Premiere
Spotlight tells the true story of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe investigation that would rock the city and cause a crisis in one of the world’s oldest and most trusted institutions. When the newspaper’s tenacious “Spotlight” team of reporters delves into allegations of abuse in the Catholic Church, their year-long investigation uncovers a decades-long cover-up at the highest levels of
Boston’s religious, legal, and government establishment, touching off a wave of revelations around the world. Starring Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, Stanley Tucci, Brian d’Arcy James and Billy Crudup.

Summertime (La Belle Saison)
Catherine Corsini, France, North American Premiere
Delphine, the daughter of farmers, moves to Paris in 1971 to break free from the shackles of her family and to gain her financial independence. Carole is a Parisian, living with Manuel, actively involved in the stirrings of the feminist movement. The meeting of the two women changes their lives forever. Starring Cécile De France, Izia Higelin, Noémie Lvovsky and Kévin Azaïs.

Sunset Song
Terence Davies, United Kingdom/Luxembourg, World Premiere
Terence Davies’ epic of hope, tragedy and love at the dawning of the Great War follows a young woman’s tale of endurance against the hardships of rural Scottish life. Based on the novel by Lewis Grassic Gibbon and told with gritty poetic realism by Britain’s greatest living auteur, Sunset Song stars Peter Mullan and Agyness Deyn.

Trumbo
Jay Roach, USA, World Premiere
The successful career of 1940s screenwriter Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston) comes to a crushing end when he and other Hollywood figures are blacklisted for their political beliefs. Trumbo tells the story of his fight against the U.S. government and studio bosses in a war over words and freedom, which entangled everyone in Hollywood from Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren) and John Wayne to Kirk Douglas and Otto Preminger.

Un plus une
Claude Lelouch, France, World Premiere
Charming, successful, Antoine (Jean Dujardin) could be the hero of one of those films he composes the music for. When he leaves for a job in India, he meets Anna (Elsa Zylberstein), a woman who isn’t like him at all, but who attracts him more than anything. Together, they are going to experience an incredible journey.

Victoria
Sebastian Schipper, Germany, Canadian Premiere
On a night out in Berlin, Victoria meets four young local guys. After joining their group, she becomes their driver when they rob a bank. Finally, as dawn breaks, everyone meets their destiny.

Where to Invade Next
Michael Moore, USA, World Premiere
Oscar-winning director Michael Moore returns with what may be his most provocative and hilarious movie yet. Moore tells the Pentagon to “stand down”— he will do the invading for America from now on. Discretely shot in several countries and under the radar of the global media, Moore has made a searing cinematic work that is both up-to-the-minute and timeless.

Youth
Paolo Sorrentino, Italy/France/United Kingdom/Switzerland, North American Premiere
Youth explores the lifelong bond between two friends vacationing in a luxury Swiss Alps lodge as they ponder retirement. While Fred (Michael Caine) has no plans to resume his musical career despite the urging of his daughter Lena (Rachel Weisz), Mick (Harvey Keitel) is intent on finishing the screenplay for what may be his last film for his muse Brenda (Jane Fonda). And where will inspiration lead their younger friend Jimmy (Paul Dano), an actor grasping to make sense of his next performance? From Italy’s Oscar-winning foreign language film writer and director Paolo Sorrentino, Youth asks if our most important and life-changing experiences can come at any time — even late — in life.

It’s a dreadful feeling to know, deep down, that you’re not where you should be in life. It’s a feeling that can strike at any age, really, but Noah Baumbach‘s generational comedy While We’re Young aligns itself with the middle-aged set with which the Brooklyn-bred director associates. Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts play a New York couple in their mid-40s who glom onto a young hipster couple in their twenties (Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried) as a way of redefining and rejuvenating their relationship and finding their place in the world. It’s a witty, funny, sharply composed film about mid-life restlessness and paranoia that unfortunately takes a sour turn in its third act, which is so hostile and caustic it ends things on an unpleasantly dour note.

Josh (Stiller) and Cornelia (Watts) live in a gray domestic malaise, living in comfort in their cozy New York apartment. Comfort; not contentment. While most couples their age, like their buddies Fletcher and Melina (Adam Horovitz and Maria Dizzia, respectively), repurpose their lives by having a baby, thereby solving any identity crisis they might have (or at least distract themselves from it). Josh and Cornelia are still undecided on whether they want to have kids or not, but a random friendship they strike up with Jamie (Driver) and Darby (Seyfried), a vibrant pair of young lovebirds, sucks them into a world of hipster cool that makes them excited about living life again.

Josh and Cornelia’s silly attempts to acclimate to millennial culture is the main source of humor, and being that Baumbach is a mid-lifer living in New York, he’s clearly got a grip on what’s funny about people in their 40s trying to act like their younger friends. Whether it’s Cornelia practicing moves she learned at a hip-hop dance class or Josh pulling a back muscle while riding bikes with Jamie, the jokes are all hilarious and presented sneakily enough by Baumbach that they don’t appear as broad gags (even though, really, that’s exactly what they are). When Josh starts wearing an ill-fitting fedora to mimic his buddy Jamie, it makes for a running visual gag that echoes Stiller’s quick turn as “Tom Crooze”, Tom Cruise’s loser stunt double, in a sketch they did at the 2000 MTV Movie Awards. Driver looks like a slick Brooklynite wearing a cool hat; Stiller looks like a clown.

What’s also funny is Baumbach’s spot-on portrayal of hipster culture. Jamie and Darby love to run through abandoned tunnels at night, make artisanal ice cream, throw summer block parties, and listen to Lionel Richie on vinyl. Their phony adoption of vintage things and forced eschewing of all technology hints at the major conflict on the horizon. Jamie is an aspiring documentary filmmaker, which is how he connects with Josh, who’s a more experienced (struggling) documentarian himself. When we discover the real reason Jamie befriended ol’ “Joshie”, his true nature is revealed and the movie becomes something of a curmudgeon, presenting the young characters as entitled pests.

In the film’s easygoing first two-thirds, Stiller seems to be struggling to fight off the manic, fidgety mode of acting he’s so comfortable in. When the Jamie revelation comes, however, Stiller reverts back to the panicked, fidgety actor we’re all so familiar with, and it’s for the worst. Josh’s arc is an interesting one, in which he learns to let go of his competitive, jealous nature and be at ease with himself, but Stiller is so agitating on-screen that it’s a little too easy to stop caring about him. Driver’s character isn’t likable either, so all we’re left with are the two female counterparts, both of whom aren’t afforded nearly enough time. By the end of While We’re Young, there’s an overriding feeling of apathy for the characters. It’s a shame, because in the first half of the movie we learn to like them, but after the shit hits the fan, our affection for them never returns.

Driver’s lanky physique and dopey charm is perfect for the role of Jamie. There are some nice, subtle details to the character Baumbach throws in, like how Jamie sometimes ends some sentences with “see?”, like someone from a vintage gangster movie. Watts and Seyfried are terrific, but unfortunately fade into the background as the plot becomes progressively more fixated on Stiller. Charles Grodin is pitch-perfect as Cornelia’s gruff, revered documentarian father, whose success is a point of envy and rage for Josh, ever the insulated starving artist.

Surprisingly, the breakout star of the film is Horovitz, whose measured, even-keeled performance is the polar opposite of the wild-man Ad-Rock persona he flaunted for so many years in the Beastie Boys. (Stiller, on the other hand, loses his composure as the film goes on.) He’s shockingly good, and the prospect of him working with Baumbach again (or with anyone for that matter) excites me. While We’re Young is a mostly breezy movie that’s mostly very enjoyable and would have been great save for the uneven drama that emerges near the end making the film more of a downer than it needed to be.

Noah Baumbach loves making movies. Somehow, he’s got two coming out in 2015: Mistress America, his latest collaboration with Frances Ha‘s Greta Gerwig, is tentatively set to come out later this year, and While We’re Young, a cross-generational comedy starring Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts, is out tomorrow in limited release, with an expansion to follow.

Stiller and Naomi play a married, middle-aged couple living in New York whose lives are rattled to the core when they meet a younger, more spontaneous, hipper couple (Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried) who inspire them to ditch their bland home-body life and reinvigorate their long-dormant adventurous side. The presence of the hip twenty-somethings eventually drives a wedge between them, leading to jealousy, restlessness, and self-loathing.

In a media roundtable interview, we spoke to Baumbach about being so prolific, the film’s generational theme, Adam Horovitz’s acting career, his relationship with Dreamworks Animation, writing the lead role for Stiller, his writing process, portraying hipsters, and much more.

Was the plan always to make While We’re Young and Mistress America back-to-back?
Yeah. It goes back even further. The initial plan was to make While We’re Young first, but it didn’t happen for various reasons. Then we made Frances Ha, and Ben was making Walter Mitty, which was a much longer commitment. Greta [Gerwig] and I were working on Mistress America and had this other movie we wanted to do, and we felt like, we’re not going to have enough time to finish it, but why don’t we just do it as far as we can do it. I knew we had enough time to shoot it and start cutting it, but I wasn’t going to be able to [finish it.] I actually cut it fairly well, but I wasn’t finished, so I made While We’re Young and then went back and finished Mistress America.

Several of your films have this generational conflict going on.
I wasn’t really that conscious of the notion of being young or old as much as I was characters that were interesting to me and stories that I was interested in telling. I was thinking about couples from different generations and how they interact, but I wasn’t thinking of it in terms of my other work. That doesn’t mean it’s not there.

You’ve got one of my childhood heroes in the movie, Adam Horovitz. He’s great in the film. From being around him do you get a sense that he might want to keep acting?
Yeah, I think so. I hope he’ll do it for me again. I love working with Adam. There was no question in my mind that he was going to be great. You could just tell.

In the credits you thank Dreamworks Animation.
I worked on Madagascar 3. They’ve been great partners in a way, and I really like working with them. I felt like I wanted to acknowledge their support for me even though they weren’t involved in this movie.

Were you thinking of Ben as your lead while you were writing the script?
I don’t always write with someone in mind, but I started writing this after Greenberg came out, and we had a really great time on that. There was a connection and we became friends. I did this one with him in mind, and it was clear to me early on that I wanted to write a comedy of a type, something that connected me to movies from my adolescence, when studios would make comedies for adults that could be mainstream and have broad humor, but could also be character oriented. I felt like using Ben’s comic iconography in my terrain.

One of the first things I asked Richard Linklater when I met him was if his actors improvised in his films, and he said, “No. Nothing.” It’s astonishing to me, because the dialogue sounds so natural, as if it had to be improvised, and yet it’s not at all. From what I understand you work the same way, with your actors not improvising at all on set.
To quote Richard Linklater, “No.” [laughs]

Does writing dialogue come naturally to you?
Dialogue for me is something that comes quickly. That doesn’t mean the scenes come quickly. Often I kind of write my way and have conversations [in my head] to find the characters and the scenes early on. In a way, I’m improvising with myself. I can write dialogue for quite some time, but it’s like, where in it is the scene? Sometimes you’re lopping off the top and bottom and it’s in the middle, and other times it’s like, I found it over here, and now I can start the scene. It really depends. In some ways, that’s the motor for me.

I admire the fact that your portrayal of hipsters is so balanced, making them very likable and not too douche-y.
Part of it is that we meet the [hipster couple] through Naomi and Ben. We’re kind of learning them through the eyes of another couple. Because Ben’s character is stuck in many ways and looking for answers, he puts so much of it on Adam Driver’s character. I felt like, from Adam Driver’s character’s perspective, no human being should have to bear the responsibility of saving somebody else’s life. As it turns out, he doesn’t hold up under that weight, nor should he. Some people have looked at it the other way. “You’re saying the hipsters are destroying [everything.]” But I don’t see it that way at all. There are also arguments about technology and truth in art, which are subsets of the major story that I’m telling, which is of a marriage. Sometimes you have to come apart to come back together, which is a traditional comedy structure. Shakespearean even. In that I could then wrestle with all these arguments about things in the moment and generational fights without needing to take sides. I wouldn’t know what side to take anyway.

Charles Grodin is sort of a picky actor and doesn’t work as much as a lot of us would like him to. How did you get him involved?
One of my casting directors, Doug Aibel, was at a benefit or something and saw Grodin there. He intimated that he was open to working, and we happened to be casting. We were thinking about this character, and Doug told me [about Grodin] immediately, and I said, “Let’s make this happen.” I met with him, had a long meeting, and he did it.

A small detail I noticed was that Adam Driver’s character sometimes ends sentences with “see.”
In crafting the way he talked, I felt like that was a sort of old-timey way of saying things. It might be something he kind of took to. It’s kind of like a Damon Runyan thing, like he’d be into old New York. The way he says “beautiful” is like in the ’60s when people would say, “It’s just beautiful! It’s just beautiful!” It’s like a compilation of old stuff.

You’ve mentioned that you were trying to get The Squid and the Whale into the Criterion Collection. Has there been any progress on that?
Yes. It’s more like dealing with a rights thing right now, but yeah. Everybody wants it to happen.

The soundtrack is really eclectic. Why Vivaldi?
Vivaldi supplied a timeless aspect to the movie, which balanced it out because it is so eclectic. I felt like the overarching score would almost take you into another era entirely, or all eras, really. Vivaldi for me also brings back older movies that I liked. Kramer vs Kramer is one that used Vivaldi very well, obviously to different effect. I thought it was working really well for the movie, but it also was bringing me back in touch with movies from my childhood that had real meaning for me. I saw this movie as my version of those films. I love the energy, and there’s something very New York-y about it.

I read in an interview that you loved Naomi Watts in Mulholland Dr. and that you thought her performance was very funny. I agree.
I saw humor in it. That audition [scene] she does…you can’t do that if you don’t know what’s funny. It’s funny because it’s not funny. I’d wanted to work with Naomi for a while, and there were times when I thought of her, but I didn’t have a part for her. She’s just somebody I’ve had on a wish list of actors I’ve wanted to work with. This just seemed like an ideal thing for her. Again, thinking of Kramer vs Kramer, I thought Ben and her together almost evoked Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep. We even sort of dressed them similarly. I was thinking of that symmetry. She’s just lovely. I always think of the hip-hop [dance class] scene. I felt like Naomi Watts going into that class feels much more intimidating because you feel her anxiety about what’s going to happen. Thus, it’s that much funnier when she actually jumps in and commits. It was like a way to have a comic set piece without announcing, “Here comes the funny dance scene.”

Surprise: The action scenes in Insurgent, the follow-up to 2014’s dystopian sci-fi sensation Divergent (as if you haven’t heard), are actually pretty good. Take a late, trippy scene in which our returning, plucky heroine, Tris (Shailene Woodley), sprints after her mom (Ashley Judd), who’s trapped in a room on fire and detached from its building, floating away toward the horizon. Tris scrambles across rooftops and clings to hanging electrical wires, rubble whizzing by her face, as the mass of concrete and broken plumbing threatens to fly off into the stratosphere like a child’s lost balloon. It’s a thrilling, urgent sequence that manages to feel dangerous despite it taking place within a virtual landscape. (Tris’ mom is dead and, you know, rooms don’t fly. I’ll explain in a bit.) If only Insurgent were a straight-up action movie, it may have stood a chance.

But alas, those familiar with the first film and Veronica Roth’s hit young adult book series on which the franchise is based know that the series’ focus lies not in exciting set pieces, but in an ill-conceived mythology centered on a walled-in city (formerly Chicago) that herds people into factions based on predominant personality traits. A few moments of thought reveals this faction system to be laughably illogical and impractical, and yet it there it is, the bubble of idiocy within which all of the film’s events are informed and take place. So, while the action is entertaining when judged on its own, it always leads us back to the story’s dimwitted conceit. Practicality isn’t a storytelling prerequisite (especially when it comes to sci-fi), but there’s a point where suspending one’s disbelief so actively and extensively becomes a mind-numbing chore. Just like its predecessor, Insurgent is a head-scratcher from beginning to end, further cementing the series as the inferior alternative to the mighty Hunger Games juggernaut.

Things pick up shortly after the events of the first film, with Tris and her boyfriend, Four (Theo James), sharing a light chat and a kiss on a farming compound overseen by Amity (the pacifist faction), where they’re hiding from the military forces of Jeanine (Kate Winslet), the leader of Erudite (the rich, entitled faction). Her death, Tris thinks, is the key to city-wide peace, or something. Joining the killing-machine lovebirds on the farm are Peter (Miles Teller), Tris’ Dauntless arch-rival, and Caleb (Ansel Elgort), her formerly Erudite brother, but the four hideaways get quickly disbanded when a tank-driving hoard of Jeanine’s troops, led by merciless Dauntless turncoat Eric (Jai Courtney), raids the compound in search of Tris.

Oh, that Tris. She’s so special. Jeanine’s hunting her down because she found a mysterious box in Tris’ old Abnegation home. She needs a Divergent—someone who carries the primary traits of all five factions—to open it: Contained within is a message from the architects of the city (not Chicago, the new city, the one based on segregation), and only when someone endures all five faction-themed “sims” (that floating room deal was the Dauntless sim) will its contents be revealed. There are plenty of Divergents running around, but none that Jeanine’s managed to capture have thus far been able to survive the five virtual trials. She needs a special Divergent. The best Divergent. Who do you think that could be? Hm?!!

The main appeal of female-centric young adult series like Twilight, Hunger Games, and Divergent is that they provide young girls with a powerful, brave, sought-after, special heroine to project themselves onto, thereby feeding into their wildest center-of-the-universe fantasies. Allegory is the vessel by which these stories deliver their coming-of-age messages (Insurgent‘s happens to be one of self-forgiveness), but the problem with Roth is that she piles on so much on-the-nose allegory and symbolism that her messages feel hokey and forced and obtuse. The film’s cast is talented for days, and its director, Robert Schwentke, despite having a hit-or-miss catalogue (Flightplan, R.I.P.D., RED), has proven to be a very capable filmmaker. Everyone involved is capable of making good stuff, but what ultimately does them in is the shoddy source material.

The actors are pros put forth a decent effort, though it’s clear some of them would jump ship if they could. Teller and Elgort, who’ve each found major success in the 12 months since the first film, feel a bit overqualified for their roles at this point, but they make lemons out of lemonade, particularly Teller, who plays a great, love-to-hate-him turncoat weasel. He’s always a welcome on-screen presence, especially when he manages to squeeze some real humor out of otherwise lifeless scenes with nothing but a sarcastic eyebrow raise or a shifty glance. Woodley doesn’t do the action hero thing as well as Jennifer Lawrence does, but she’s better at looking vulnerable: when she’s in pain or letting out a heartened battle cry, her voice shakes and then cracks a bit, kind of like Sia when she belts out the chorus of “Chandelier”.

Though their performances feel uninspired across the board, the older actors lend the film some gravitas. Winslet plays Jeanine as a straight-up sociopath authority figure, showing no remorse for subjecting innocent Divergents to her evil experiments (though technically, the city’s founders designed The Box and how to open it, so are they evil too?), and Naomi Watts shows up as Four’s thought-to-be-dead, insurrectionist mother and leader of a group the heroes fall in with called the “factionless” (they’re essentially the opposite of Divergents). What’s strange is—and forgive me if this sounds lewd—Watts (who looks insanely good for her age) seems to have more sexual chemistry with James than Woodley does, despite playing his mom. Just throwing that out there. Octavia Spencer pops up for a second as the leader of Amnity, but she’s quickly forgotten before she can make an impression.

The visual effects are impressive, especially during the inevitable simulation set pieces, though the digital effects team seems to have a strange fascination with floating rubble (tons and tons of frozen-in-time rubble). What stands out more is the tangible stuff, the fight and action choreography, which is way better than it has any right to be. A nighttime Erudite vs. Dauntless ambush sequence is the best moment in the entire series, as it actually convinces you that there are human lives at stake (instead of miraculously dodging a zillion bullets, people actually get shot).

Without spoiling too much, I will say that the forthcoming two entries in the series, the Allegiant two-parter, have hope of not being bogged down by the same nonsensical premise as the first movies. But as far as Insurgent is concerned, it’s still stuck in the muck. The reveal of what’s inside “the box” is so dumb it hurts to think about. It simply doesn’t make any sense, which seems to be this series’ unintended overriding theme. Funny thing is, during the climax, Woodley actually says, “I know it doesn’t make any sense, but you have to trust me,” to Four as he stares at her quizzically. That was worth a chuckle. If you’re able to push aside the confused machinations of the larger plot during the scenes of flashy violence, you may be able to find a bit of enjoyment in Insurgent. Beyond that, there isn’t much nice to say.

A new Noah Baumbach release is indie film’s version of a tentpole summer blockbuster. The writer-director behind The Squid and the Whale and Frances Ha is returning in a few weeks with his newest film, While We’re Young, and the second trailer for the film has been released.

While We’re Young stars Baumbach vet Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts as a middle-aged couple whose relationship is tested after they meet a spontaneous couple played by Amanda Seyfried and Adam Driver. The film premiered at TIFF 2014, where we saw it and called it a “very funny film thanks to a wonderful cast.”

While we’re anticipating the film’s release on March 27th, check out the trailer below!

While We’re Young Trailer

Bill Murray as a sourpuss isn’t a stretch. He has played unlikeable to absolute likability on many occasions, especially as the grand master curmudgeon Scrooge in Scrooged and as the primadonna news anchor in Groundhog Day. Using him in older age as the prosaic “Grumpy Old Man” seems a natural progression. So here he is in writer-director Theodore Melfi’s newest film St. Vincent and it would be easy to write the film off for its somewhat uninspired lead casting and its familiar storyline. But strangely what makes St. Vincent work isn’t the believability of Bill Murray in the role based on past work, or that he brings any of his usual sensitivity to the role, it’s that for once, he doesn’t. He keeps up his coarseness throughout the entire film, and strangely, it works.

In the film, Murray is Vincent, a Brooklyn native living alone, spending his days gambling, drinking, dodging those he owes money, and shacking up with Daka (Naomi Watts), the pregnant Russian prostitute who counts as his only friend. Disturbing his usual routine is Oliver (Jaeden Lieberher), the new kid next door, whose single mother Maggie (Melissa McCarthy) is at her wits end trying to provide for her and her son while dealing with her ex’s custody battle. After bullies at school steal his house keys, Oliver spends an afternoon with Vincent and an unlikely babysitting situation emerges. Vincent needs money, Maggie needs childcare, it all works out. Except of course that Vincent isn’t exactly babysitter material. His idea of supervising Oliver includes trips to the race track, threatening Oliver’s bullies, visiting his alzheimer-stricken wife in her convalescent home, and hanging out in his favorite bar.

At first glance the film’s eventual plot conclusion seems a given. In these situations an emotional transformation seems inevitable. And while the incredibly clever Oliver does end up seeing the good in Vincent, deciding to feature him in a school project around finding everyday saints, the film focuses more on forgiveness and modern patchwork family formation than personal growth. Lieberher and Murray’s chemistry sells it. It would be easy to focus on Murray’s performance as the impetus for the film working, but Lieberher plays Oliver as more than just a sorry sort of kid, infusing him with real empathy and cleverness.

McCarthy’s usual rambling gimmick is put to best use here, for once giving her a chance to do so with the emotional realism of a frazzled mother. Chris O’Dowd is maybe a bit obvious in his part as a progressive Catholic school teacher, but as always he picks up the humor and adds his own indelible touch to it. In fact so many enjoyable characters really throw into light the one that just doesn’t work, which is Naomi Watts’ Daka. Whether or not making her Russian was deliberate in order to make her dimwittedness seem more excusable, or worse, a cheap joke poking fun at Russian accents, Daka stands out like a sore thumb as unoriginal and unfunny. I’d prefer not to blame Watts, and instead blame Melfi, but she owns the role and plays it up. It’s certainly part of why St. Vincent isn’t spotless.

Because the script is based on many of his own personal experiences and people he’s known, it seems harsh to pinpoint Melfi’s plot holes (for one, he successfully uses a health setback to throw off the story, but then makes too light of the reality of recovering from such an ordeal), but they do exist. Terrence Howard has a small but substantial role as a loan shark lackey trying to collect from Vincent, but there’s no clear resolution on his story thread. Vincent’s inevitable super-grump moment seems a little out of step in the film’s storyline. Some sharper editing might have helped there.

All in all, St. Vincent is everything you do expect, and a few things you don’t. Murray does this particular role quite well (why else would he have done two Garfield movies if a grumpy cat wasn’t relatable to him?) and he pushes the film beyond the obvious. The emotional climax isn’t as hard-hitting as it could be, but audiences will enjoy St. Vincent for its humor and performances, not for any depth Melfi may have been hopeful to convey. And to be honest, who needs another sappy tale of late-life redemption? I’d rather watch Murray be crotchety from beginning to end.

Three of our most anticipated films at the Mill Valley Film Festival played on Day 9 in the 11-day stretch, and they didn’t disappoint. From Bill Murray’s performance as the grumpy titular character in St. Vincent; to Steve Carell’s long-awaited dramatic turn in Foxcatcher; to Marion Cotillard’s incredibly vulnerable performance in the Dardenne brothers’ Two Days, One Night, the festival is still going strong as we approach the final days. Stay with us through the weekend as we continue to bring you more coverage from Mill Valley!

Patron Saint of Despicability

[Ananda]

Opening today in New York and Los Angeles, Theodore Melfi’s St. Vincent is almost as quirky as the story behind its main star signing on. In a Q & A after the Mill Valley Film Festival screening, Melfi described what exactly is involved in getting Bill Murray to agree to do your movie. First you call his 800 number, leave a lot of messages, and hope he calls you back. Then you snail mail him a description of the film to a PO box provided by his attorney.  If you’re lucky, like Melfi, he might just call you out of the blue, tell you to meet him in an hour at LAX and proceed to drive you around for 6 hours into the desert to discuss the project, at the end of which a handshake seals the deal. And while Melfi has plenty of fun stories about Bill Murray — he demands avocados, chocolate, and Mexican coke in his trailer — anyone who has seen the movie will say whatever it took to get Murray, it was worth it.

Acting opposite Jaeden Lieberher as small-for-his-age Oliver, Murray plays Vincent, a curmudgeonly old alcoholic in Brooklyn with a load of debt, a gambling addiction, and a “professional” relationship with a pregnant Russian prostitute, Daka (Naomi Watts). Oliver and his mother Maggie (Melissa McCarthy) move in next door to Vincent, and due to her late working hours (necessary because of the custody battle she’s in) Maggie is forced to ask Vincent for help as Oliver’s babysitter. Only ever concerned with earning a spare buck, Vincent thinks very little of his duties, shlepping Oliver to bars, the race track, and to visit his alzheimer-consumed wife in the home she lives in. The film is funny, due in major part to Murray’s delivery, but much of the true cleverness is given to Lieberher, who holds his own with a skill much larger than his age. Somehow the film manages to avoid the typical conventions of the reverse parenting gimmick, focusing less on transformation and instead on forgiveness.

St. Vincent is warm and well-told, but it’s the excellent chemistry between Murray and Lieberher that makes it worth watching.

Gold Medal In Crazy

[Ananda]

We’ve seen some truly impressive performances this week. In fact our Oscar prediction list is getting so long that narrowing things down later in the year is going to be a serious challenge. But having seen many of our most anticipated films of the fall now, I think I can say with confidence one performance that will undoubtedly surpass any cut to that list is Steve Carell in Foxcatcher. Whether you know anything about the true story of Mark and David Schultz, the Olympic gold winning sibling wrestlers representing the U.S. in the ’80s, or whether you enter into a screening of Foxcatcher completely unaware of the history behind it, I guarantee the film will have you hanging onto every scene transition, wondering when it’s all going to cave in.

The Schultz brothers were two successful wrestlers in the ’80s, and after both winning gold in the ’84 olympics they went on to coach. In the film, Mark (Channing Tatum), the younger brother, was practically raised by his brother David (Mark Ruffalo), and, since David was the more sought after wrestler, Mark often interpreted his success as having some connection to his older brother. So when billionaire John E. du Pont (Steve Carell and a foreboding fake nose) reaches out to Mark wanting to hire him to help build an award winning wrestling team, Mark finally finds the attention he has been craving. Carell as du Pont is disturbing from the get go. While the transformation of his face is distracting at first, the perfect awkwardness of Carell’s delivery quickly becomes the focus. His shuffling gait, his too big smile, his lack of eye contact at times, all paint du Pont as a man whose subtle madness hovers just below his surface at all times. Whether by wealth, loneliness, bad parenting, or an innate mania, du Pont is a slow building volcanic eruption waiting to happen. And with the physicality of wrestling, it seems an obvious choice of obsession for a depraved and disconnected man. Just as compelling is the chemistry between Ruffalo and Tatum. As brothers, their connection is ever-present, driving the film forward, each each other’s motivation in life.

Bennett Miller seems to have followed a direct path from Capote to Moneyball to Foxcatcher. The first dealing in a murderous mind, the second in a competitive sport, and the third throwing the two together. While undoubtedly grim, Foxcatcher is historically-based filmmaking at its best. Providing a speculative insight into the lives and minds of people who have lived events so bizarre and tragic that no similar Hollywood fiction could be remotely plausible. It’s a hard watch, but the kind that reminds viewers that every person is a story unto themselves.

On Her Hands and Knees

[Bernard]

Like Vittorio de Sica’s Italian Neorealist classics Umberto D and Bicycle Theives, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s Two Days, One Night (one of my favorite films at Mill Valley) is so relevant, so aware of the socio-economic climate of its time that it’s hard not to surrender yourself to it completely. This is a film for those who struggle; it understands how money—or more specifically, the lack thereof—can trick us into becoming lesser people than we ought to be, forgetting that self-worth is the most invaluable treasure we own.

Marion Cotillard plays Sandra, a factory worker who’s been dismissed from work due to issues with depression. On a Friday, her 16 co-workers have voted to keep their bonuses rather than let Sandra keep her job. There will be a second vote on Monday, however, giving our heroine the weekend to convince her colleagues to forego their much-needed bonuses for the sake of she and her family. 

Cotillard is the biggest star the Dardennes have worked with yet, and she gifts them with one of the best performances of her career. She can be anything—glamorous, dangerous, sultry—but here, she bares her soul for all to see. Tremendously vulnerable and earnest, Cotillard has our vote from the beginning. As with the Dardenne’s other work, the plot and camerawork is elegant and simple, giving the actors all the room they need to tell their story. A bracingly truthful film.

Two years ago Noah Baumbach charmed Toronto audiences with Frances Ha, although fans of the whimsical free-form narrative in his last film might be disappointed with the concise structure and fastened script found in his latest film While We’re Young. Forty-something married couple Josh (Ben Stiller) and Cornelia (Naomi Watts) begin to notice the signs of growing older–close friends are having babies, arthritis settles in, and bed time is always at 11 o’clock sharp. Though it’s when they meet a spontaneous mid-20s couple Jamie (Adam Driver) and Darby (Amanda Seyfried) that they really start to question their own lives.

There’s a huge age gap between the couples which accounts for how differently they act and think from each other. Though ironically, it’s the older couple that has the CD collection and prefers digital films while the younger one enjoys antiquated technology like vinyl records and VHS tapes. Spending time with the impromptu hipster couple makes Josh and Cornelia feel young again, envying the way they show unconditional love towards each other. But they soon realize it’s easy to take for granted what already you have and that everyone has their own problems.

Unlike Frances Ha which pleased critics and the arthouse crowd, While We’re Young tightens things up on all levels, making it appeal to a wider audience. While the comedy is more conventional, it’s nonetheless a very funny film thanks to a wonderful cast led by Stiller and Driver. Baumbach continues to show he has a knack for creating relatable characters, this time in the form of relationship routines and the act of growing old. Despite a formulated script and an awkward rant on Fair Use policies, While We’re Young remains a very watchable film that many people will find enjoyable.

Ominous, awash in blue, and unexpectedly epic-looking, Alejandro González Iñárritu‘s upcoming Birdman has an heir of something special from the looks of its first trailer. With a star-studded cast lead by Michael Keaton, Birdman follows a washed-up actor (Keaton), known for playing the titular superhero, who launches an attempted career comeback with a Broadway play. From the looks of this trailer Keaton butts heads with his Broadway co-star (played by Edward Norton) and causes a very concerned-looking Zach Galifianakis stress. Emma Stone, Naomi Watts, Andrea Riseborough, and Amy Ryan also star in the film shot by recent Oscar-winner Emmanuel Lubezki, who is responsible for the beautifully orchestrated long-takes on display in the trailer. Lubezki fans will remember his gripping long-take cinematography from 2006’s Children of Men.

Birdman is set for its domestic release on October 17th of this year, watch Michael Keaton walk through Times Square in his tightey whiteys set to a remix of Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” in the trailer below:

Watch trailer for Birdman

Somehow, some way, director Oliver Hirschbiegel has managed to make one of the most enchanting, magnetic, ravishing people of the last century one of the dullest, lifeless movie subjects in recent memory. Diana, a wreck of a film, chronicles the final years in the life of the late Princess of Wales, before her tragic car accident in 1997. Poor, poor Naomi Watts, who’s typically phenomenal, does a fine impression of the Princess, but is given zilch to work with in the emotionally anemic script, which fancies itself a classical romance but ends up having all the emotional depth of a week-long junior high hallway fling.

The real-life Diana was damaged goods, the child of a broken home, who also happened to be one of the most iconic beauties of our time. She was utterly fascinating, which is why the world watched her so intently. Hirschbiegel and Watts’ Diana is a perpetually wailing, pedestrian fool. This isn’t a dramatization–it’s a sterilization, sapping all vitality and wonder out of our precious Princess.

There are oh so many blunders to choose from in this royal mess of a film, but I’ll start with the most excruciating of all. Hirschbiegel and screenwriter Stephen Jeffreys focus on one of the most uneventful (albeit significant) relationships of Diana’s life: her two-year romance with heart surgeon Hasnat Khan, played here by Naveen Andrews (Lost). The film is fixated exclusively on their relationship which, quite frankly, there isn’t that much to say about. In fact, I can sum up the romance in one sentence. Here goes: Hasnat and Diana love each other deeply, but Hasnat can’t handle her enormous celebrity, so they split. The movie is 113 minutes long, for god’s sake.

Jeffreys’ script (based on a novel by Kate Snell) runs round and round, repeating scenes and conflicts ad nauseum, elongating the already skinny narrative until it’s thin as air. The film opens with an underwhelming tracking shot of Diana getting ready in her Paris hotel room, moments before the fatal tragedy. Then, we flash back a few years and we see a sullen Diana, separated from her husband, Prince Charles, sitting alone in large, extravagant, empty rooms, suffocating from the isolation of her celebrity. She meets Khan, an exceedingly accomplished surgeon, at the hospital and invites him over for dinner. The idea initially strikes Khan as absurd–this is The Most Famous Woman in the World!–but when it sinks in that she’s serious, he obliges with English gentleman charm. Khan makes Di feel like she’s a normal person again, which thrills her.

Let the cycle of boredom begin! They make love, Hasnat gets tired of the press, they break up. They get back together, Hasnat gets tired of the press, they break up. And again, and again. To compound the tedium, Diana’s family–Charles, her sons–is left completely out of the picture, reduced to fleeting, throw-away mentions by Diana.

Thrown into the mix are some reenactments of Diana’s philanthropic acts, most notably a famous stunt she pulled to eliminate the use of land mines across the globe, in which she walked gingerly across a minefield wearing a helmet and a flak jacket. These segments feel like cheap theater reenactments and don’t add dimensions to her character so much as they provide moments of respite from Watts’ brutal scenes with Andrews.

Watts is a great actress, but she doesn’t do well in her role as Diana. But one wonders if anyone could, with vapid material like this. It’s like expecting Tiger Woods to win the U.S. Open with a hockey stick. This is a fail for Watts, but she was doomed from the start. She looks the part (though her prosthetic nose is weird), appearing truly glamorous on occasion, exuding the grace of an old-fashioned Hollywood starlet (a bird’s-eye shot of her in a bright blue dress facing a sea of photographers on a royal red carpet is undeniably stunning). Andrews, also a good actor, is a victim of the material just as much as Watts, and the two have the romantic chemistry of cousins forced to make out on camera. It all feels really, really…awkward.

Diana is a yawner, and the Princess’ memory deserves much, much better than this. There’s a big responsibility that comes along with portraying a recently deceased, widely beloved person on-screen, a responsibility to dig at the truth. The truth is, Diana was as complex, compelling, and vivacious a public figure as any in recent memory, but Hirschbiegel’s Diana is a miserable, irritating bore without an iota of spirit in her body. This is a lie.

Premiering at the Sundance Film Festival under the name Two Mothers (an arguably more fitting title) has been since changed to Adore, Anne Fontaine’s film about two best friends who end up in relationships with each other’s sons. Due to the on-the-nose dialog the characters are not able grow beyond two dimensional, and although the film begins as a wild ride with a tantalizing setup in tow, it puts itself in cruise control for most of the way.

Lil (Naomi Watts) and Roz (Robin Wright) have never parted ways since growing up together in a serene Australian beach town. The two best friends are now neighbors and each have a son of their own, who are now young adults and have also remained best friends since childhood. From the very beginning you could sense an offbeat relationship between Lil and Roz, which is only magnified when Lil’s husband passes away and the two get even closer. While they both deny that any sexual attraction between them exists, Roz’s husband believes otherwise.

But as it turns out, the sexual attractions that unfold are even more taboo than one would have initially thought. One of the first indications of an attraction between Roz and Lil’s son Ian (Xavier Samuel) is when they share a smoke together, something that makes Roz feel sinful because she has not smoked in such a long time, but Ian assures her that feeling sinful is not a bad thing. Flirting quickly escalades into a sexual encounter that is witnessed by Roz’s son Tom (James Frecheville), who immediately makes his intentions with Lil abundantly clear.

Adore plays out only a little less soap opera- esque than the story sounds. First of all, everything mentioned takes place in the first thirty minutes of the film, allowing opportunity for the story to develop when the film jumps ahead two years after the initial encounter. Secondly, the characters are wise enough to realize that the age gap will eventually become a factor, though it does not make the situation any less difficult for everyone involved.

However, the film cannot completely rid itself of its melodramatic tent poles. Sure, the story carries on but nothing that happens outside the first thirty minutes is at all surprising or half as exciting as what came before it. Adore is very unbalanced in its emotions by coming off far too dramatic in some scenes while being too nonchalant during others.

There is so much beauty packed in every aspect of Adore that it actually becomes a little overwhelming. Residing on a postcard beach that is completely surrounded by crystal clear water makes it easy for the cinematographer Christophe Beaucarne to capture the stunning imagery. There is rarely a scene where the sun is not shinning or the water begging to be occupied. Though the attractiveness does not stop with scenery, the chiseled young men look like they walked straight from the runway, even their own mothers (who are equally as gorgeous) comment on how they “look like young gods”. I realize that it sounds like I am complaining about how everything looks beautiful, but aside from its unconventional setup nearly everything else found in the film is too perfect and calculated. Adore seems to reside in a fantasy world that is proven when the characters never seem to age along with the timeline.

Considering Adore is based off a novel written by a female and also directed by one, you would not assume the female leads would be so utterly inert. Both mothers have seemingly no control over the situation and easily give into the sons desires without much of a fight. The film does not do itself any favors by completely missing the emotional angle that it tries so hard to attain and instead generating unintentional humor. Unfortunately Adore’s promising premise never fully ripens into something worth biting into.

Adore trailer:

Michael Haneke’s Funny Games is a shot by shot and line by line remake of his own 1997 film of the same title only with a different cast and with English dialog instead of German. Even the set of the house had the exact same proportions as the original house did. You might ask why a director would choose to remake his own film? If I had to guess it would be that many Americans skipped the original version because we shamefully tend to avoid subtitles. It is a mentally exhausting art house thriller about strangers abusing a family but after watching it you feel like you are the one being abused.

Funny Games begins with a family taking a trip to their vacation home on Long Island. As George (Tim Roth) and Ann (Naomi Watts) and their son Georgie (Devon Gearhart) approached the house they stop by the neighbors place to see if they will lend a hand to launch their boat. They noticed that the neighbors were acting a bit out of the ordinary as they hesitated to help. Also the husband and wife did not recognize the other men dressed in white that accompanied the neighbors but it was only enough to notice and not be alarmed.

The neighbor comes over as promised but brings along a gentleman named Paul (Michael Pitt) who he claims is the son of a business associate of the neighbor. George still found the behavior of the neighbor to be a little off. As Ann is preparing dinner for the family the two men dressed in white show up at the door. Paul introduces himself as well as his friend Peter (Brady Corbet) even he keeps addressing him as Tom and eventually fatty.

Although the two men are very polite you get the sense that something is very off about them. This begins to show when they ask to test out one of George’s golf clubs. Ann is very put off by them and asks them to leave. That is when the games begin but none of them are funny.

Paul and Peter being to terrorize the family with ridiculous games such as making a bet with them that they will all be dead by morning as long as the family bets they will be alive. It is during this bet that something profound happens. Paul turns to the camera and begins to talk to us to see which side of the bet we are on. It is important because it blatantly tells the audience that this film is playing games with them as well.

Without giving away any more spoilers, I will try to be vague as possible on this topic. There is a scene near the end of the film that is very controversial that will have you either cheering or booing. By the end of the film you realize that the film tries to find out the difference between reality and non-reality.

Michael Haneke was quoted saying “Anyone who leaves the cinema doesn’t need the film, and anybody who stays does.” on his original version of Funny Games. The opening credits makes it clear that what you think you are in store for is not what you will find when the classical music is abruptly interrupted by loud death metal music. After finishing the film I can understand what Haneke was trying to say, it is definitely not for everyone. Drawing some comparisons to Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange is easy to do based on the perverse violence that resides in both.

The performances from the whole cast were astounding. Naomi Watts is particularly good as the frantic wife whose family is being terrorized. Tim Roth compliments Watts well and lets her do most of the heavy lifting. One interesting note is that Roth said that his role abused him enough that he will never watch the film. Michael Pitt is downright creepy and unsettling as the main villain.

Funny Games is as unique as it is distributing, both which the film strived for and succeed in. I appreciated the film more than I enjoyed it. However, I am not sure if the film was even meant to be enjoyed but rather experienced instead. From the opening to closing credits the film plays games with you and eventually you realize that the actual villain is the director and you are the victim. You will not find one shred of comfort in Funny Games but that is the point.

The 2011 Independent Spirit Award nominations were announced today with Debra Granik’s Winter’s Bone being the front runner. Winter’s Bone could be this year’s Precious as it has the most nominations this year with seven which include; Best Feature, Best Director, Best Screenplay and acting nominations for Jennifer Lawrence, Dave Dickey, and John Hawkes. Some of the other major nominees include The Kids Are All Right which received 5 nominations, Black Swan and Rabbit Hole which received 4. All four of those films have a good chance at Oscar nominations as well.

Although, I have not seen the Duplass brother’s Cyrus or Philip Seymour Hoffman‘s Jack Goes Boating, I am a little surprised that they were not one of the major contenders. I suppose Jack Goes Boating did haul in 3 nominations and Cyrus did receive 1 for Best Male Lead. I would have thought they would have had some more praise considering the people behind the films. Also Best Worst Movie did not make an appearance for Best Documentary, bummer.

Joel McHale will host the 26th Film Independent Spirit Awards in Santa Monica on Saturday, February 26 which will air that night on IFC at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT.

127 Hours, Danny Boyle, Christian Colson, John Smithson
Black Swan, Scott Franklin, Mike Medavoy, Arnold W. Messer, Brian Oliver
Greenberg, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Scott Rudin
The Kids Are All Right, Gary Gilbert, Philippe Hellmann, Jordan Horowitz, Jeffrey Levy-Hinte, Celine Rattray, Daniela Taplin Lundberg
Winter’s Bone, Alix Madigan-Yorkin, Anne Rosellini

Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
Danny Boyle, 127 Hours
Lisa Cholodenko, The Kids Are All Right
Debra Granik, Winter’s Bone
John Cameron Mitchell, Rabbit Hole

Everything Strange and New, directed by Frazer Bradshaw; Producers: A.D. Liano, Laura Techera Francia
Get Low, directed by Aaron Schneider; Producers: David Gundlach, Dean Zanuck
The Last Exorcism, directed by Daniel Stamm; Producers: Marc Abraham, Tom Bliss, Eric Newman, Eli Roth
Night Catches Us, directed by Tanya Hamilton; Producers: Sean Costello, Jason Orans, Ronald Simons
Tiny Furniture, directed by Lena Dunham; Producers: Kyle Martin, Alicia Van Couvering

Daddy Longlegs, written and directed by Benny Safdie and Josh Safdie; Producers: Casey Neistat, Tom Scott
The Exploding Girl, written and directed by Bardley Rust Gray; Producers: Karen Chien, Ben Howe, So Yong Kim
Lbs., directed by Matthew Bonifacio, written by Matthew Bonifacio and Carmine Famiglietti; Producers: Matthew Bonifacio, Carmine Famiglietti
Lovers of Hate, written and directed by Bryan Poyser; Producer: Megan Gilbride
Obsedila, written and directed by Diane Bell; Producers: Chris Byrne, Mathew Medlin

Stuart Blumberg, Lisa Cholodenko, The Kids Are All Right
Debra Granik, Anne Rosellini, Winter’s Bone
Nicole Holofcener, Please Give
David Lindsay-Abaire, Rabbit Hole
Todd Solondz, Life During Wartime

Diane Bell, Obselidia
Lena Dunham, Tiny Furniture
Nik Fackler, Lovely, Still
Bob Glaudini, Jack Goes Boating
Dana Adam Shapiro, Evan M. Wiener, Monogamy

Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right
Greta Gerwig, Greenberg
Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone
Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine

Ronald Bronstein, Daddy Longlegs
Aaron Eckhart, Rabbit Hole
James Franco, 127 Hours
John C. Reilly, Cyrus
Ben Stiller, Greenberg

Ashley Bell, The Last Exorcism
Dale Dickey, Winter’s Bone
Allison Janney, Life During Wartime
Daphne Rubin-Vega, Jack Goes Boating
Naomi Watts, Mother and Child

John Hawkes, Winter’s Bone
Samuel L. Jackson, Mother and Child
Bill Murray, Get Low
John Ortiz, Jack Goes Boating
Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right

Adam Kimmel, Never Let Me Go
Matthew Libatique, Black Swan
Jody Lee Lipes, Tiny Furniture
Michael McDonough, Winter’s Bone
Harris Savides, Greenberg

Exit Through The Gift Shop, Banksy
Marwencol, Jeff Malmberg
Restrepo, Tim Hetherington, Sebastien Junger
Sweetgrass, Ilisa Barbash, Lucien Castaing-Taylor
Thunder Soul, Mark Landsman

Kisses, Lance Daly
Mademoiselle Chambon, Stéphane Brizé
Of Gods and Men, Xavier Beauvois
The King’s Speech, Tom Hooper
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Please Give
Director: Nicole Holofcener
Casting Director: Jeanne McCarthy
Ensemble Cast: Ann Guilbert, Rebecca Hall, Catherine Keener, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Lois Smith, Sara Steele

In-Ah Lee, Au Revoir Taipei
Adele Romanski, The Myth of the American Sleepover
Anish Savjani, Meek’s Cutoff

Hossein Keshavarz, Dog Sweat
Laurel Nakadate, The Wolf Knife
Mike Ott, Littlerock

Ilisa Barbash, Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Sweetgrass
Jeff Malmberg , Marwencol
Lynn True, Nelson Walker, Summer Pasture