Haunted Houses, Kidnapping, and more from TIFF 2025
I had the pleasure of covering the 50th Toronto International Film Festival this year and wanted to share my thoughts on some of the features I saw there. If you didn't know, TIFF usually runs at the beginning of September, with this year taking place between September 4–14, 2025. Films from all over the world are played, and I saw 19 of them during my time there.
I skipped the festival in 2024, most likely do to my poor experience the previous year. 2023 was the year of the writers’ strike, and the festival suffered as a result. I’m happy to share that this year felt like a return to the TIFF I know and love. While I saw the Criterion Closet truck parked on Festival Street, I decided I would only go up to it and take a picture rather than wait for hours for the privilege of purchasing discounted Criterion Collection releases. And I got to mingle with other journalists with whom I’ve remained friendly over the years.
I covered the festival not only for this podcast/newsletter, but also for the website Pop Heist, where you can find my reviews for Wake Up Dead Man, No Other Choice, and The Smashing Machine. Below are my thoughts on some of the other movies I saw over the first two days of the festival, including Sentimental Value, It Was Just an Accident, The Choral, No Other Choice, and The Last Viking. Free subscribers get the first two, while paid subscribers have the other reviews unlocked. If you’d rather hear my thoughts on these films, stay tuned for some podcast episodes I plan to record from the festival.
Sentimental Value
This is the new film from director Joachim Trier, whose previous film, The Worst Person in the World, is absolutely fantastic (and available via Criterion). He's once again teamed up with the star of that movie, Renate Reinsve. Nora (Reinsve) has a rough relationship with her father, Gustav (played by Stellan Skarsgard). She performs on the stage, while her father is known as this big, international director. When her mother passes away, they finally come into contact with each other again. Her father has asked her to be the star of his new movie, but she has no plans of working with him; she doesn't even want to see him.
There’s a riveting prologue about the house that they live in, and everything that the house has experienced. It's a really fascinating short story as the house plays a big role in what happens in the film. Gustav is determined to make his film, and when he gets the opportunity to work with actress Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning), he believes he has finally found the right fit for his movie.
I enjoyed Sentimental Value [A-] quite a bit. Out of all the films I saw there, it was definitely in my top five. I think the distributor, Neon, has plans to release it in theaters soon.
It Was Just an Accident
It Was Just an Accident [A-] is directed by Jafar Panahi, an Iranian director who often encounters difficulties while making his films, and this one's no exception. It starts kind of in a misdirection, where this family is driving late at night, and they run over a dog by accident. Understandably, they feel really terrible about it. The car is also damaged after the accident, and they have to stop at the nearby gas station.
While they're there, somebody overhears him walking. He has a prosthetic leg that squeaks when her walks. That noise triggers something in the gas station owner, and the next day, he kidnaps the man, drives him out to the desert, and digs a hole where he's going to bury the guy alive. To go from not knowing who this guy was to all of a sudden wanting to bury him alive is a big stretch.
I had so many questions. Why would he kidnap this guy? Why are these people doing what they are, and how are they all connected? It’s a fantastic movie.