TIFF Digest: Part 2
Nightbitch
One of my most anticipated films at this year's TIFF was Nightbitch, the adaptation of Rachel Yoder's novel by Marielle Heller. Which, by all accounts, looked to be in the general zip code of my preferred level of weird. A story about a mother (Amy Adams) who, through the trials and tribulations of being a stay-at-home mother raising a toddler, begins to believe that she's turning into a dog. But oddly enough, the synopsis was about as weird as the movie gets, instead veering more towards normalcy. Forging the central allegory in the fires of reality created a much more grounded and emotionally intelligent experience than I was expecting. Allowing the film to oscillate between the wide variety of sacrifices, willing or unwilling, that women have to make while experiencing motherhood. Adams' character was once a successful artist and curator, creating and providing cultural enrichment for her community through her artistic vision. But with a newborn and eventually two-year-old toddler, Adams' career took a backseat to raising her child. Eventually, her identity--she is only credited as "mother" after all--fades into nonexistence. Her days now consist of rigid repetition, and Adams shows it with sincerity with her exhausted expressions. Making the same breakfast every day and going to the same child-centered events at the library where other moms experiencing similar life paths seem like a different species altogether establish just how taxing being a mother is.
Luckily, Adams can find some communal camaraderie when she attracts three random dogs while at the park with her son. Fast forward to finding some new bodily additions, such as a tuft of white hair on her lower back and a handful of extra canine-esque nipples maybe it's all a little too coincidental for Adams. The only explanation is the woman she was before childbirth no longer exists, and in her place is something more primal. With a tinge of body horror transformational imagery, Heller communicates effortlessly not only the physical changes a woman goes through but also the metaphysical changes after birth. Adams' loss of identity and humanity is at the forefront of Nightbitch and how she grapples with her instincts, or lack thereof, as is explored with extraordinary monologues scattered across the film, allows her the space to put on a breathtaking performance. The vulnerability, yet also power that Adams provides delivers an earnest feel to Heller's film that pulls back on the magical realism throughout and establishes a more heartfelt, grounded message about motherhood. Heller's cautious approach to filming, essentially playing it safe, puts the spotlight entirely on Adams, which pays massive dividends for Nightbitch. It is not only a wildly entertaining, sometimes hilarious, ode to mothers but also a deeper exploration of how a blueprint to being a mother doesn't exist, nor should it. Everyone's experience is different, and sometimes, you have to rely on primal instincts because, as Nightbitch shows, being a mom is hard. But clearly, all moms have that dog in them.
The Shrouds
Speaking of weird, I was lucky enough to catch David Cronenberg's latest film, The Shrouds. In what might be one, if not the most personal of Cronenberg's films, the writer/director puts his heart on his sleeve--not in the usual literal sense of body horror--but with an intimate, albeit weighty, exploration of grief.
Karsh (Vincent Cassell), inspired by the passing of his wife Becca (Diane Kruger), creates GraveTech, a company that sells in-coffin surveillance software. By utilizing GraveTech software, grieving widows, friends, and family alike can pull up a live camera view of their passed loved ones decaying corpses in real-time. Cronenberg has always been one to explore the limitations or experiment with transformations of the human body, but The Shrouds is a deviation from tradition. Instead, the film plays more as a somber homage to the human body. Karsh's mourning over not being able to hold or touch his wife's body is the catalyst for his new company. The whole plot line, and Karsh's similar appearance to a younger version of the writer/director, feels incredibly personal to Cronenberg's real-life tragedy of his wife passing several years ago.
Instead of relying on Karsh's corporate entity as the film's vehicle of grief, there's also another layer, even more melancholic than the prior. Through reoccurring dreams, we see how Karsh's wife, Becca, struggled in her fight against cancer, at one point having her left breast and arm amputated. Her bones are so brittle that Karsh's embrace breaks her hip. Beyond all that, in a gut-wrenching, heartbreaking moment, Becca asks Karsh if she's too mutilated for him to love her anymore. In all of its bodily-focused moments, from Gravetech's surveillance to Karsh's comments about Becca's body and even an intimate moment with Becca's twin sister Terry (Kruger), The Shrouds works to highlight love that penetrates deeper than the skin, in a way that only Cronenberg can do. No level of mutilation or decay can take away the love and grief of losing a loved one. While a narrow focus on this topic alone could've made for a wonderfully intimate Cronenberg film, it unfortunately contorts itself into a complex fusion of distractions. Veering off the beaten path into a difficult-to-follow paranoid story involving Karsh's brother-in-law Maury (Guy Pearce), the overall effectiveness begins to weaken. Secret plots between Chinese and Russian governments involving Karsh's GraveTech systems hijack a tender theme of grief, turning The Shrouds inside out and unrecognizably opaque. Under all of the excessive layers of obfuscation, there's a blatant call out on our infantile obsession with technology as Karsh drives everywhere autonomously in his Tesla while his AI assistant Hunny (Kruger) also controls everything in his life, which could've added some depth to Cronenberg's concept of the human condition. But, unfortunately, as the curtain closes on The Shrouds, you're left contemplating what it is exactly that Cronenberg was trying to convey. Funny enough, that just might be exactly what he was going for.
Queer
Mere months after Luca Guadagnino's Challengers hit theaters, he's back with another sexually charged piece of cinema in an adaptation of William S. Burroughs' Queer. At the same time, Challengers was a much more straightforward depiction of desire and competition, Queer finds itself steeped in hallucinogenic and abstract imagery, obscuring its true feelings from the viewer. But, the real fire behind Queer is Luca's unwavering visual panache combined with a stellar performance from Daniel Craig as Lee. Living in Mexico City amidst the throngs of fellow expatriates, Lee fills his time with drugs, alcohol, conversations with his friend Joe (Jason Schwartzman), and the romantic company of other men. Lee's varying addictions eventually lead him to set his sights on Allerton (Drew Starkey), who takes a little more effort to get to know. Ghostly appendages coming from Lee, stroking Allerton's face, effectively show his unrequited desire and set the tone for Guadagnino's venture into more psychedelic imagery. As Lee and Allerton embark on an adventure to the Amazon, where Lee has his sights set on trying Ayahuasca for its believed telepathic properties, Queer focuses more on the literal needs of Lee, as opposed to his desires. Horrendous withdrawal symptoms highlight Lee's dependence on substances while his yearning, or neediness, for Allerton's attention suggests a deeper absence of joy in everything Lee already possesses.
Joining forces once again, Luca Guadagnino and writer Justin Kuritzkes, who wrote Challengers as well, play perfectly to each other's strengths. Namely, the explicit and implicit presence of sex. Where Challengers relied on the sexual competition between the film's main trio (Mike Faist, Josh O'Conner and Zendaya), Queer takes a more abstract approach. Presenting sex as a commodity to be consumed, where the only competition is within one's self to find the right partner at the right place and time. Luca's psychedelic portrayal of this idea takes various forms, like the aforementioned apparitions, but also anachronistic musical choices. Lee first sets his eyes on Allerton while walking the streets to Nirvana's "Come As You Are," which feels appropriate in some regard but jarring when combined with a period film. Simply put, who is the right partner, and is it the right place and right time? While difficult to follow at times, sifting through the opaque imagery can yield some intriguing thoughts. An early dream sequence of Lee's sees everyone he's met in Mexico City wandering in what can immediately be interpreted as prison-striped uniforms, proposing the possibility that Lee is in a prison of his desires. Equating the journey at the center of Queer as a quest to enlightenment, possibly even freedom from the shackles of need. Guadagnino once again shows deft direction, and even though I enjoyed Challengers more, it’s impossible to refute Luca's ambition, not to mention the dizzyingly stellar performance from Daniel Craig that consumes the screen with delicate intensity.
