I decided to start off Day Two with another lighthearted comedy; Nadia Latif’s The Man in My Basement. Just kidding, this is a weighty, emotional horror anchored by two (literal?) killer performances by Corey Hawkins and the always-great Willem Dafoe. As much as you might have expectations of a horror film that centres around the relationship between captor and captive, this one subverts pretty much all of them while taking the power struggle between Hawkins’ Charles Blakey and Dafoe’s Anniston Bennett to some very dark places. Charles is plagued by these waking nightmares while his money troubles seem to be forcing him into the difficult choice of selling off vital pieces of his family history, leading him to rent to the mysterious and sinister Bennett. You’re never going to go wrong with Dafoe’s monologuing, and he is in expert form here.
Speaking of difficult choices, next up was waiting in the longest line I’ve encountered this year for Park Chan-Wook’s No Other Choice which was every bit as riveting and impactful as critics have been saying. I’ve always been a Wook-fan going back to Oldboy and the Vengeance films, but I can honestly say that No Other Choice is by far his funniest script, which I was not expecting at all. There were big Parasite vibes as nearly the whole family, led by Lee Byung Hun’s desperate and disgraced Man-soo and his wife Mi-ri (Son Yejin), undertake extreme measures to retain their quality of life and social status when Man-soo is fired from his job in the paper industry. As I always say, “the family that crimes together, is fine together,” and No Other Choice validates that in a major way with biting comedy and a cast that is operating at the highest level. Park Chan-Wook’s famously painterly eye means that you can probably pause this movie at any point and find yourself with a beautiful image, and not a single shot feels unnecessary or wasted. This is not a horror film, but there are traces of PCW’s horror roots here as well.
My pal Karen Shute joined me for this one, and had this to say:
Near the beginning of the film we find Yoo Man-soo rehearsing a plea to his company’s new American owners to not give his long time colleagues “the axe” before being given the axe himself after years of faithful service. The irony isn’t lost on the viewer that the company at issue produces paper from trees that historically were felled by an axe wielded by a human hand. Just like the film’s human subjects, technology makes that skill obsolete in the march towards modernization and efficiency. While watching the movie I couldn’t help but think of the Turkish Proverb “The forest was shrinking but the trees kept voting for the axe, for the axe was clever and convinced the trees that because his handle was made of wood he was one of them”. Yoo Man-soo is driven to extremes as his financial situation becomes more desperate, but rather than taking that wrath out on the companies who caused his current strife, it’s his fellow workers who must suffer for the sins of progress. The film raises a bleak question with no easy answer. As we rush towards a future where technology is set to replace humans at an uncontrollable rate, do we really have no other choice but to turn on each other for the scraps left behind in the pursuit of profit?
Karen Shute
Next on the list for me was the premiere of Byun Sung-hun’s Good News, which is the funniest film about a real-life terrorist event that you’re likely to see at the Festival or otherwise. The Festival website blurb promises “dizzying twists, bursts of mayhem, and teeming ensemble of colourful characters,” and Good News delivers all of the above in spades.
With the biting satire of Armando Iannucci punctuated with bursts of Wes Anderson-esque fantasy moments, Good News delivers the very prescient message of how news and information is carefully crafted and curated, while never feeling preachy. It was the perfect way to chase No Other Choice as a hilarious afternoon of Korean film.
In today’s photo dump, here’s a couple of Sanjay Rajput’s shots of the In Conversation With Ryan Reynolds!
Catch you on the flip for Day 3, friends!
The 50th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 4-14, 2025. Ticket and lineup information can be found at the TIFF website, and stay tuned to Biff Bam Pop for our coverage all week!