One thing – perhaps the main thing – I love about film festivals is the ability to juxtapose very different films with one another in a very short period of time. In a single day, one can ping-pong between wildly different genres, styles, and levels of depth. Day four of TIFF was exactly one of those days.
I started off the day with Midnight Madness selection Nick Corirossi’s The Napa Boys, which is a nearly unclassifiable comedy that feels like almost nothing I’ve seen before. With a tone that resembles TIFF Day One selection Maddie’s Secret but somehow even more unhinged, Corirossi’s ensemble piece of comedians doing a sendup of Alexander Payne’s 2004 hit Sideways is a high-concept project that had me laughing hysterically throughout.
The Napa Boys essentially assumes that Sideways became a massive franchise hit, complete with multiple sequels and comic tie-ins, to the point that the title card for this movie reads “The Napa Boys 4: The Sommelier’s Amulet.” The titular boys (Armen Weitzman, Corirossi, Nelson Franklin, Sarah Ramos, and Jamar Neighbors) are, at this point, well-known celebrities and have gone on several wine-centric adventures over the years and are getting the gang back together for one more outing to help their friend Mitch (Mike Mitchell) win the Greatest Grape competition. I’m not sure I stopped laughing for more than a minute or two in the entire film, as the jokes keep coming and they don’t stop coming (to borrow a phrase), but it really never resolved into a cohesive piece or nailed down what it was trying to convey. A fun experience for sure and an incisive takedown of Hollywood franchise filmmaking, but it fell a little short of a fully fleshed-out film to me.
My pal Sam saw Romain Gavras’ eco-thriller/satire Sacrifice, which stars Chris Evans, Anya Taylor-Joy, Vincent Cassel, Salma Hayek Pinault, John Malkovich, Ambika Mod, and Charli xcx. Here’s what she thought of it:
Sacrifice was interesting with offbeat humour and also culty religious/prophetic terrorism. I think it could have been 15-20mins shorter and the director was trying to build up the grandeur, but it dragged because of it in my opinion. It poked fun at rich society the way it has been done in films like The Menu and Triangle of Sadness with a bit of Force Majeure. The acting was great– they really invested in their characters. The character development for Mike (Evans) and Joan (Taylor-Joy) was interesting. Overall, the film fell a bit short for me because of the pace at the end and I would have liked to see more interesting cinematography.
Sam Dizon
One of the biggest surprises of the fest for me so far is Mona Fastvold (co-writer of The Brutalist)’s The Testament of Ann Lee which stars Amanda Seyfried as Lee, the leader of the Shaker movement in 1747 in England through the 1780’s in the United States. The puritanical, egalitarian beliefs that rejected sexual desires led to a dying out of the movement, but Seyfried and Fastvold portray Lee as a charismatic, devoted, and influential leader. And did I mention that the film’s a musical? Hypnotic and such an unconventional way to tell this story that it became compelling in a way that historical religion-themed stories basically never are for me, and really show how the Shakers supplanted (or at least attempted to supplant) their sexual urges with physically exertive movements and song. Seyfried owns every single second she’s onscreen, bolstered by a supporting cast of Thomasin McKenzie, Lewis Pullman, and Christopher Abbott. Other than Rose Byrne in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Seyfried’s portrayal is my favourite single performance of all of TIFF for me, so far.
Finally, I headed back to Midnight Madness for the premiere of Ben Wheatley’s Normal which stars Bob Odenkirk as the ‘interim’ sheriff of a small town after the mysterious death of his predecessor. This is Wheatley at his most irreverent and unexpectedly ultraviolent best, and Odenkirk is perfect as the lead since he’s in his Action Movie Era now. The Midnight audience (and I) adored Normal and once again added so much to the experience with its reactions to just about everything. Keep an eye out for Normal when it gets released.
Today’s photo dump is very Normal-centric, but here’s some shots of the premiere and some edible swag we got.
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!
