TIFF 2019
Hotlist
Knives Out Rian Johnson steps away from Star Wars with a modern twist on the classic whodunnit BEFORE HE BEGAN enraging Star Wars purists by imagining they might finally be ready to see something actually new in the eighth film of a nine-film story cycle, Rian Johnson was a fast-rising star in the indie world. His 2005 debut Brick, a fast-talking school-set noir, was a Sundance sensation, and 2012’s ingenious sci-fi Looper elevated him to the major leagues, but it was the curio in between, the lesser-seen, lesser-loved The Brothers Bloom (2008), that perhaps best represents the director’s aesthetic—a quirky, talky road movie in which two smooth-talking brothers plot to swindle a naïve millionairess. It’s the gateway film to Knives Out (Special Presentations), his follow-up to The Last Jedi, a drawingroom thriller starring Daniel Craig as a larger-than-life, Poirot-like detective investigating the murder of superstar mystery writer Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer). “I’ve actually been cooking this story up for about a decade,” says Johnson. “I’d always wanted to do kind of a classic whodunit murder mystery, and then about 10 years ago I hit
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upon the specific hook and I’ve been chewing on it ever since. After coming out of this isolation chamber of making a Star Wars movie, what seemed incredibly appealing to me was making a very dialogue-heavy movie with some great actors that was just people in rooms, talking. I found myself, just as comfort food, going back to a lot of Agatha Christie’s stuff around that time anyway, so it just seemed to make sense.” But despite such archaic influences, Knives Out is very much a film planted firmly in the present day, as Thrombey’s in-fighting family—played by a starry cast featuring Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, Don Johnson, Michael Shannon, Toni Collette and others— come under suspicion for the murder, each with their own unique place in today’s divided America. “An important thing about Agatha Christie,” notes Johnson, “was that her books were always kind of caricaturizing British society of the time—not that they were primarily political commentary or anything. It just seemed like a potent moment to do that right now with American society.” —Damon Wise
Lucy in the Sky Noah Hawley launches Natalie Portman into orbit in an existential sci-fi tale FARGO AND LEGION CREATOR NOAH HAWLEY was already one of television’s hardest working talents when he decided to tackle his feature directorial debut. “It was all a bit of a blur,” he says. Lucy in the Sky (Special Presentations) stars Natalie Portman as Lucy Cola, a type-A, high achieving astronaut who struggles on terra firma when she returns from space, disconnecting from her husband and taking up with fellow astronaut Mark Goodwin (Jon Hamm) who, like her, has had a spiritual experience among the stars. It’s loosely based on the true story of NASA astronaut Lisa Nowak, who made headlines in 2007 for the attempted murder of Colleen Shipman, whom she suspected of having won the heart of her colleague, former NASA astronaut William Oefelein. “I found myself compelled by the idea of taking a tabloid story and restoring dignity to to those involved,” says Hawley. “Ultimately this isn’t a movie about an affair, it’s about a woman having an existential crisis.” Hawley has a knack for photographically capturing a natural environment’s inherent drama in Fargo and Legion, symbolically highlighting colors and eccentric production designs. Here in Lucy in the Sky, Hawley expands and contracts the aspect ratio to achieve a similar effect. “My goal was to make a movie that was as close to the experience of being her,” he notes. “It’s a full-screen experience when she’s up there and she feels alive in a way that she’s never felt alive before. Then, the moment she returns to Earth, everything feels smaller, and the screen closes to a 4:3 box.” —Anthony D’Alessandro
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8/27/19 12:39 PM