Hard Luck Love Song

HARD LUCK LOVE SONG is writer/director Justin Corsbie’s feature debut. The story follows Jesse (Michael Dorman), a charismatic but down on his luck troubadour who finds himself at an existential crossroads as bad choices catch up with him during an unexpected reunion with Carla (Sophia Bush), an old flame. The script is based on the … Read more

VIFF 2021: The Worst Person in the World

In turns riotous and reflective, and boasting one of the year’s most transfixing performances, Joachim Trier’s latest is a protracted coming-of-age tale that immaculately captures that phase of early adulthood in which we’re all natural disasters leaving trails of destruction in our wakes. An aspiring surgeon when we meet her, Julie (Renate Reinsve) soon takes … Read more

VIFF 2021: Red Rocket

Arriving on his estranged wife Lexi’s (Bree Elrod) dilapidated doorstep barely dressed, badly bruised, and all but penniless, semi-legendary porn star Mikey Saber (Simon Rex) needs somewhere to hole up for a while. Within a matter of days, the manic motormouth has not only talked his way into Lexi’s bed, but also started peddling weed … Read more

VIFF 2021: The Boathouse

Already anxious and skittish, Anne (Firecrackers’ Michaela Kurimsky) could’ve found a less triggering summer job. With her music professor Natalia (Kelly Martin) having gone missing, Anne’s been hired on by Natalia’s husband, Dominic (Alan Van Sprang), to be a live-in nanny at a lakeside cottage. After winning over the couple’s skeptical kids, Anne finds her … Read more

VIFF 2021: Sinkhole

Middle-manager Park Dong-won saved up for 11 years to buy a home in Seoul for his family of three. When the Parks move in to their condo, they notice some structural glitches, like a slanted floor. But they are more alarmed by their weird neighbour Man-su. As Park’s co-workers gather for his housewarming party, the … Read more

VIFF 2021: The Girl and the Spider

Both very sly and very daring, Ramon and Silvan Zürcher’s long-awaited follow-up to The Strange Little Cat (VIFF 2013) is largely set in a spacious bohemian apartment, as tenant Mara (Henriette Confurius) and various friends and family gather to help Mara’s longtime roommate, Lisa (Liliane Amuat), move out. But the story here takes a backseat … Read more

VIFF 2021: Bipolar

Reminiscent of its monochromatic brethren Dead Man and A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Queena Li’s Bipolar is an odyssey all its own: a buddy comedy featuring a broken-hearted musician and technicolour lobster that sends the Orpheus myth crashing through the looking glass. In the Tibetan capital of Lhasa on a luxury pilgrimage, a … Read more

VIFF 2021: Three Sisters

Laced with poisonous black humour and deliciously vindicating moments, this blistering indictment of patriarchal abuse and religious hypocrisy would make Chekhov’s jaw drop to the floor. Three wildly different sisters are hit by life crises all at once. Thrifty, self-harming doormat Hee-sook (Kim Sun-young) is spurned by her goth daughter and diagnosed with cancer. Mi-yeon … Read more

VIFF 2021: The Book of Delights

Marcela Lordy has made a film as thorny, erotic, and complex as the writing of one of Brazil’s most fêted writers, Clarice Lispector. Set in Rio, and based on Lispector’s novel with the same name, The Book of Delights is a compelling character study focuses on a complicated, intelligent, freedom-loving, slightly damaged woman, Lóri (Simone … Read more

VIFF 2021: Kicking Blood

Robbie (Luke Bilyk) and Anna (Alanna Bale) cross paths courtesy of a “meet macabre:” he’s a despondent alcoholic in desperate need of a drink, while she’s a high-on-hemoglobin immortal who’s looking for her latest fix. Unexpectedly enchanted with his take-it-or-leave-it approach to life, a disarmed Anna stows Robbie away in her sanctuary so that he … Read more