I'm sure there are going to be a lot of great movies at the Toronto International Film Festival this year, but sadly, the opening night choice, Jeremy Podeswa's adaptation of Anne Michaels' novel Fugitive Pieces, isn't one of them.
Based on the novel by Anne Michaels and clearly influenced by every single European movie about the Holocaust, it follows the life of Jakob, who was found as a young boy hiding in Poland from the Nazis that killed his parents by a Greek archaeologist (Rade Sherbedgia) and eventually winding up in Canada after being smuggled out of the country. There, he begins to establish a career as a writer and meets the beautiful Alex (Rosamund Pike), but it's a marriage that's doomed from the start as he's unable to let go of his past and get over his obsession with his missing older sister.
This might sound like a fairly reasonable premise for a movie derived from stories of the Holocaust, but the movie isn't as much about Jakob as a boy during the war as it is about everything that happens in his life after that. If a story like this one were told linearly, it might be interesting, but instead it jumps forwards and backwards in time as the older Jakob (played by Stephen Dillane) reflects on his past or as his wife Alex reads from his diary, an action that ultimately ruins their marriage.
The movie's problems may lie in the source material, Anne Michael's novel. Presumably those who liked it might enjoy the movie, but for everyone else, we're never given much reason to care about this man or his life. Okay, fine, he faced a traumatic tragedy as a boy, but decades later, he's still a generally dour and depressing individual, despite having an incredibly hot wife (and later, a hot girlfriend), and he really doesn't deserve it. Mostly, he just spouts a lot of pretentious flowery words to win them over and then he drives them away with his behavior.
It's bad enough that we have to watch this man's boring life unfold, but the fact that it jumps around in time doesn't help. While the transitions between the various periods are surprisingly fluid and seamless, it keeps one off-guard in a way that doesn't help either the young or old Jakob develop as characters. Many of the lengthy flashbacks are uneventful and uninteresting and some scenes desperately needed to be cut shorter.
Stephen Dillane isn't bad as the older Jakob, though by the nature of the part, it's a fairly flat and emotionless role, and it tends to be overshadowed by Rosamund Pike, giving one of her better performance as his beautiful and vibrant wife who feels neglected and unloved due to Jakob's obsession with his past. Rade Sherbedgia should have shined as the Greek archeologist Athos Roussos, but the bland writing makes it tough for the veteran actor to do much with the character, nor does the fact that most of his scenes are played opposite the younger Jakob, played by Robbie Kay, who's so shy that he doesn't even win over the viewer with the cute factor.
On the other hand, the film does look good and the locations in Greece are particularly gorgeous, but Podeswa tends to go for the obvious in every aspect of the film, from the framing that makes every shot look like it was taken from another movie to the soundtrack, which includes some of the most overused film themes ever. ("Fur Elise"...Bach's "Cello Suite"... yawn.) Podeswa tries way too hard to make this movie important and moving, but anyone whose seen any of the similar movies will just be annoyed by Podeswa's lack of originality as filmmaker.
Worse than that is the fact that the movie is just dull and dreary and by the time it settles into some much-needed linear storytelling and things seem to be looking up for Jakob, his story ends in a way that will make you even angrier at how much of your time has just been wasted.
Tragically, "Fugitive Pieces" might be a classic example of a novel that really didn't need to be turned into a film.
Rating: 5/10
