Well, another Toronto International Film Festival has come and gone. Stars were seen! Films were screened! And the discourse is out in full force!
This marked my second year at TIFF, after going in 2022 for what I affectionately remember as “Bros and The People’s Joker year.” How will I remember 2024? Certainly for being just as queer.
Other Xtra writers will be weighing in with full reviews in the coming weeks, and I’ve already shared my review of Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, but TIFF is hardly ever about just one film. Over the course of the festival I saw some good (Sook-Yin Lee’s intimate adaptation of Chester Brown’s graphic novel Paying for It), some bad (Megalopolis … it’s bad in a not even fun way!) and plenty in between. I saw a lot of explicitly queer movies and a particularly wide array of trans stories at this year’s festival. They ranged from the bombastically over the top (Emilia Peréz) to the quietly personal (Really Happy Someday).
And while you can read all about Oscar frontrunner The Brutalist and TIFF People’s Choice winner The Life of Chuck elsewhere, here we are all about the queer and trans stories on screen.
With that in mind, here are four big queer takeaways, coming out of TIFF 2024.
Will and Harper actually has some interesting things to say about hard conversations
I’ll admit I went into Will and Harper as a skeptic. The Netflix documentary—in theatres now and dropping on the streamer later this week—doesn’t exactly feel like it’s “for me.” The film follows comedian Will Ferrell and comedy writer Harper Steele as they road-trip across America following Harper’s coming out as a trans woman. I went in figuring it would offer viewers a sort of “maybe we should all just love each other!” messaging, and that would be that.
And there’s certainly a lot of that. Tonally, the film is in line with the recently departed HBO docuseries We’re Here, which saw drag queens descend upon small towns and connect with the local community. Will and Harper shares much of that DNA, such as one scene where Steele meets up with a fellow trans woman in Iowa who came out late in life, or another where the pair enter an Oklahoma bar and find a surprising level of community.
But there’s some surprisingly thorny stuff too, particularly in the relationship between the two central friends. Ferrell frequently worries about getting things wrong, and when his bombastic personality does put the pair into some less-than-ideal situations, the way he processes his guilt in conversation with Steele is fascinating—I think these scenes can be a great learning experience for other well-meaning allies. Steele’s openness to create a space not only for her to be her true self, but also to welcome others into it, is a wonderful thing to behold. I found myself enjoying it a lot more than I expected, and even referencing it in conversations around my work here at Xtra or in the broader LGBTQ2S+ community.
This is one to watch with your mom, or other well-meaning allies in your life. And maybe there’s something we can all take away from it.
Could this kick off the Amy Adams Oscar campaign?
If there’s one thing homosexuals on the internet love, it’s actresses. And while we’re already girding ourselves for a potential stan-Twitter-breaking “Ariana Grande (Wicked) and/or Selena Gomez (Emilia Peréz) and/or Lady Gaga (Joker: Folie à Deux)” Supporting Actress race, there’s plenty of intrigue in the Lead Actress category as well. Namely: can Amy Adams finally do it?
Adams has been nominated six times across Supporting and Lead, and has never won. Her latest project, Nightbitch, premiered at TIFF this year and once again has us all asking if it’s finally her time. My conclusion is … maybe?
Nightbitch follows an otherwise unnamed “Mother” (Adams) as she grapples with losing her sense of self and purpose after having a kid. It’s an adaptation of Rachel Yoder’s novel of the same name, which sees Mother become convinced that she’s turning into a dog. And I do mean that literally—there’s weird hair, extra nipples and chowing down on meatloaf in the middle of the grocery store.
The film itself is decidedly mid—could use a lot more of the “turning into a dog” part, if you ask me! But Adams is as good as advertised, oscillating between panic and calm, ferocity and containment. It’s a performance many critics are calling “fearless,” and one that will surely have Adams in the Oscars conversation.
So online gays, get your posting fingers ready and wait to see if this is yet another one for her to lose.
Emilia Peréz will be the most talked-about trans film of the year—for better and for worse
Speaking of actresses, there are four of them at the centre of what may be my favourite—or at least most memorable—film coming out of the fest: Emilia Peréz. Adriana Paz, Zoe Saldana, Karla Sofía Gascón and Selena Gomez collectively won the Best Actress award at Cannes this year for their starring performances in the film, and this film is truly unique.
Acclaimed French director Jacques Audiard made a two-and-a-half-hour-long operatic Spanish-language musical about a Mexican cartel leader who transitions. And it’s good? But also, maybe bad? I mean, it’s surely going to start conversations.
This is not a subtle film. And as many trans critics have already pointed out, it does play into some dated stereotypes around trans people. There’s a tone-deaf song about vaginoplasties, and some poorly handled “trans woman deceiving people” aspects of the plot. But the message of the film is one of redemption and love, and the spectacle of it is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Watching it I couldn’t help but think, “I can’t believe they actually managed to make this.”
There will be a big Oscars push for the film, particularly Gascón for Lead Actress (where she would be the first openly trans person nominated for an acting Oscar) and Gomez in Supporting. With a wide theatrical release set for early November before the film drops on Netflix mid-month, get ready for all of your friends to be talking about it.
The future of trans film in Canada is bright
I attended the annual Trans Filmmakers Summit on Sept. 8 (in part to give a short presentation on our parent company Pink Triangle Press’s Pink Paper), an event that is quickly becoming a highlight of the festival for me. There’s something magical about being in a room of mostly trans people, particularly one as grounded in joy and progress and talents as this one.
The event is organized by the Trans Film Mentorship and Spindle Films Foundation, both groups that work to support emerging filmmakers through mentorship and work placement programs (I profiled the work of TFM two years ago). This year’s summit saw three emerging gender-diverse filmmakers pitch short films to panel of experts Sasha Leigh Henry, Sam Intili and Jane Schoenbrun. The winner, Ayo Tsalithaba, received a jolt of funding and resources to get their short film made—though I was equally impressed by runners-up Onyeka Oduh and Jessie Posthumus. Baby Reindeer actress Nava Mau also received the Barrier Breaker Award at the event for her work paving the way for trans people in film.
All to say, it was a star-studded room equally bursting with the future filmmakers of tomorrow. That same night, I caught the premiere of Really Happy Someday, the debut directorial feature of Spindle Films founder J Stevens and co-written by Stevens and star Breton Lalama. An intimate look at a trans musical theatre actor grappling with his changing voice, it was an almost uncomfortably relatable film to my personal experience. And watching it really reminded me, as cheesy as it may sound, of the power film and why diversity in film matters. It’s impossible to describe the value of seeing yourself that way until you see it.
Why you can trust Xtra
