You probably won't find two more different movies than two of the ones shown on Day 2 of TIFF, both press screenings shown in the largest Varsity theatre which holds 580 people. There was a lot of interest in both movies since each movie is the sophomore effort from the director of a popular debut, Rendition (New Line) being Gavin Hood's second movie after winning an Oscar with his South African crime-drama Tsotsi, and Juno (Fox Seachlight) is Jason Reitman's second movie after Thank You for Smoking, which was picked up by Fox Searchlight after the Toronto Film Festival two years ago. Both directors return to Toronto with full studio backing and movies in which their female stars are pregnant, although in Juno, the premise revolves around that pregnancy, while in Rendition, Reese Witherspoon's pregnancy is far less important to the story. More importantly than any of this is the fact that both movies star J.K. Simmons of HBO's "OZ", best known as Spider-Man's J. Jonah Jameson.
We'll start with Juno, because it's a fun movie, probably the last adjective that can be used when talking about Rendition. It revolves around Ellen Page's Juno MacGuff, a quirky, smart-ass 16-year-old who's gotten pregnant from her best friend Bleeker (played by Michael Cera). After weighing the options, she decides to have the baby and give it to a deserving couple, who she finds in Mark and Vanessa, a well-to-do suburban couple played by Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner (who also appear together later this month in The Kingdom). Juno's father (J.K. Simmons) and stepmother (Allison Janney) support Juno's decision, but the teen soon finds out that being a surrogate mother isn't so easy.... oh, and before you start worrying, this is in fact a very funny comedy.
Although Judd Apatow probably got more laughs a minute with the unwanted pregnancy in Knocked Up, he certainly has some competition in the irreverent humor department from screenwriter Diablo Cody, who fills Juno's mouth with some of the most outrageous thoughts and digs at those around her. Cody's dialogue might not have been nearly as effective without Ellen Page's perfectly deadpan delivery, but the young actress gives a performance on par with the one in Hard Candy despite this being significantly lighter. Most of the film is filled with similarly edgy and dark humor that could easily be compared to the work of Alexander Payne, though at times, it does get a bit too "cool for school" forcing the viewer to be hip enough to get some of the more esoteric references that will surely go over at least a few heads. Then again, people were laughing so hard at most of the gags that one might miss some of the jokes while recovering.
Michael Cera plays a similarly "nerdy cool" character that he does in Superbad and "Arrested Development" and he has many sweet scenes with Page, but the movie is more interesting for the bond that forms between Juno and Jason Bateman as the hip musician husband who has to grow up to meet his wife's expectations. This role allows Bateman to show that he can play a more serious grounded role, as the impending baby puts his marriage to the test, and he's just as likable in that sort of role as he is when doing the cut-up clown he's gotten so good at. Allison Janney also has a number of funny scenes where she's trying to be protective of her teen daughter in her fragile state.
Jason Reitman does a decent job with his second film and first based on someone else's original screenplay, and this is far lighter and easier to absorb than Thank You for Smoking even if it does sometimes try way too hard to be hip and quirky.
Rating: 8/10
Juno is scheduled to open in select cities on December 14.
TIFF Public Screenings Monday, September 10 at 3pm.
Rendition uses a similar storytelling method as Crash, Traffic and Syriana with a number of seemingly disparate stories converging to show how everything is related. Much of the story centers around a suicide bombing in an undisclosed Mideast country (that we're forced to suss out for ourselves as in Tunis, Egypt due to the film's inconsiderate lack of helpful identifying labels). This deadly blast might immediately draw comparisons to Peter Berg's upcoming The Kingdom, although that's a much stronger film in the way it deals with how the U.S. government deals with terrorists.
Neglecting the fact that we've seen this thing way too many times before, the film at least deals with a new aspect of the post-9/11 world, that being the case of "extraordinary renditions", in which the CIA has permission to extradite those thought to be involved in terrorism without needing any sort of warrant. Because of this, Egyptian chemist Anwar El-Ibrahami (Omar Metwally), who has a pregnant wife (Witherspoon) and 6-year-old boy in the United States, mysteriously disappears when the CIA removes him from his flight home from abroad and deports him back to Egypt where he's imprisoned and systematically tortured since he's suspected of having collaborated with the terrorists responsible. Essentially, their case revolves around phone calls made from the suspected terrorist to Anwar's celphone, but in order to find out why, he is stripped naked and tortured in unspeakable ways for an extended period of time while his wife Isabella has no idea what happened to him. (The CIA has also conveniently removed any record of his presence on the airplane from which they removed him, and he isn't allowed to call home.)
She contacts a friend in Washington (presumably an ex-lover, played by Peter Sarsgaard) who works for a high-powered senator that might be able to look into Anwar's disappearance, although they both are tenuous about damaging their own image by supporting someone potentially with roots to terrorists. Meanwhile, CIA analyst Douglas Freeman (Jake Gyllenhaal) has been called in by his superior (played by J.K. Simmons and Meryl Streep) to supervise the "questioning" of Anwar by a high-powered Egyptian official. The other story running through the movie is that of two young Egyptian lovers, the girl who is the daughter of Anwar's interrogator, and their involvement might be somewhat vague until near the end of the movie.
Granted, there's sufficient reasons for making a movie like this to show how the government has used 9/11 and the war to justify their involvement in all sorts of questionable activities like the torture of those suspected of terrorism, but the script by Kelley Sane isn't particularly impressive and while Hood has made a decent-looking second film, with so many films exploring similar material, the film seems predictable and redundant.
More than anything else, the movie seems to exist merely to show off its superstar cast and what Hood can do when given a bigger budget. Sadly, the Western actors tend to come across the worst and not nearly as convincing as their Mideast counterparts. The latter unknowns are the true standouts of the film, particularly Omar Metwally, who gives a heart-breaking performance as the tortured family man with an equally strong counterpoint in Yigal Naor as the man doing the torturing. Since Hood's last movie succeeded so well with the use of non-actors, it's surprising he didn't try to develop unknown American talent rather than going with big names who detract from the story.
Jake Gyllenhaal is grossly miscast as the CIA analyst whose partner was killed in the bomb blast, since he looks way too young and spends much of the film brooding or watching Anwar's torture without saying much or doing anything significant. Reese Witherspoon also seems way too young for her role, and she overcompensates with overdramatic hysterics. Meryl Streep shows up, then disappears then returns with a heavy Southern accent as the head of the CIA who approves Anwar's deportation, in a role closer to that she played in Jonathan Demme's The Manchurian Candidate. Of the known actors, Peter Sarsgaard delivers the most convincing performance, reminding us of his last visit to Toronto with Flightplan, another movie about a missing person from a plane, but this is a much stronger part for him, his scenes with Alan Arkin and Streep being the strongest ones in the movie.
Without giving away the "surprise twist", there's a non-linear aspect to the way the film resolves itself that explains the important part the young lovers play in the story, but by that point--over an hour and 45 minutes into the movie--it starts to create way too many questions and possible flaws in the film's temporal logic, and it does very little to make up for some of the bland storytelling leading up to it.
Rating: 6/10
Rendition is scheduled to open October 19.
