Few days are more exhausting at TIFF than having a day with 4 screenings, one which starts at 9:30 a.m. and the last one in which the closing credits end around 8:30 p.m.  What this usually entails is running from one screening to another and eating on the run or standing up in line.   But I love every minute of it.

On Sunday my day began with $5 a Day .   The film is directed by Nigel Cole and stars Christopher Walken and Alessandro Nivola with a supporting cast that includes Amanda Peet and Sharon Stone.  Walken plays a hustler who claims that he can live on $5 a day with all the scams he has going.  Nivola plays Walken’s son who has tried to distance himself from his father and his schemes.  Walken convinces his son to drive him to New Mexico for some experimental treatment because he claims now that he is dying.  The film then becomes an intelligent yet very funny road film as both come to terms with their past and their relationship.   Walken is charming in this and gives a wonderful performance.  Nivola is very good as well and they have excellent chemistry together as father and son.  Very good film.   But last I heard it had yet to be picked up by a distributor which is a shame because there was a very enthusiastic response from the audience and  I think it would definitely appeal to the audience that liked Sideways.  Nigel Cole was present for the screening and stayed for a Q & A session after the film.  Some of the interesting info from the Q & A was that it took about 7 years to make.  It had a budget of about $4 million, hence 15 hour days and about 23 days to shoot.   Cole spoke to his friend Paul Greengrass about this and in contrast, he said that he had “that amount for reshoots on the Bourne films.”  All the actors signed on for this because they loved the story, and Stone in particular signed on for the chance to work with Walken.  About working with Walken, Cole described it as, “about the nearest he had come to genius”.  Walken memorized the script and then he played with it, hence it has a spontaneous quality to it.

The second film of the day was Toa Fraser’s Dean Spanley starring Jeremy Northam, Sam Neill, Bryan Brown and Peter O’Toole.  The story takes place in Edwardian England and Northam and O’Toole play father and son.  O’Toole has never gotten over losing his dog Wag years earlier and also has never allowed himself to grieve the loss of his older son in the Boer War.Neill plays Dean Spanley, the district’s new clergyman who takes pleasure in drinking Hungarian Tokay wine and seems to be transported to another life when he drinks it.  I will not go any further with this strange but interesting plot,  but all of these characters become interconnected and the film unfolds in a most intriguing and entertaining story.  All the actors are good in this but O’Toole is extraordinary.  He once again demonstrates his genius by the incredible transformation his character undergoes, from loud eccentric boor to a man who you feel incredible sympathy for by the end.  In the last 30 minutes of the film there wasn’t a dry eye in the theatre and that’s a testament to O’Toole’s incredibly moving performance.

The next film I saw was a fascinating documentary by Arne Glimcher called Picasso & Braque Go to the Movies.  For any cinephile or anyone interested in the history of film this is a must see.  The film features today’s leading curators and artists including Martin Scorsese and Julian Schnabel discussing the relationship of film to art, and art to film and in particular the influence of cinema on the early cubists such as Picasso and Braque.  The documentary is an hour long and after the film there was a fascinating live discussion on the stage with Julian Schnabel, Chuck Close and the director about the film.

For the final film of the day, I attended the Gala for The Duchess, directed by Saul Dibb and starring Keira Knightley, Ralph Fiennes, Dominic Cooper, Hayley Atwell and Charlotte Rampling.  Dibb, Knightley, Fiennes and Cooper attended the Gala.  This is the story of The Duchess of Devonshire, Georgiana Spencer (Knightley) who married at the age of 17 to the Duke.  She soon finds herself in a loveless marriage and one of the sources of tension between her and her husband is the inability to produce a male heir.  Both the Duke and Duchess soon seek comfort in others. The overall story was fine and the film looked gorgeous via the art direction, costumes and cinematography.  If I were to find fault with the film it would be in the performances of Knightley and Cooper who plays Charles Grey.  For a couple who are so passionately in love, I found little chemistry between them.  The most fascinating performance and the most riveting is the always reliable Ralph Fiennes.  Yet another masterclass to add to his resume.  As a character the reserved Duke appears heartless and cruel but somehow with Fienne’s skilled delivery and subtlety, the audience comes to understand him as does Georgiana as well.  In many ways he is a prisoner in his role and his obligations as she is in her role.  He also delivers some of the film’s most comedic moments.  You never really get that range from Knightley or Cooper.  Atwell and Rampling also give fine supporting performances.

More from the film festival tomorrow from Monday screenings which included Richard Eyre’s The Other Man, starring Liam Neeson, Laura Linney, Antonio Banderas and Ramola Garai, New York I Love You (by various directors) and Deepa Mehta’s, Heaven and Earth.