Great characters often come in twos: Butch and Sundance, Scooby and Shaggy, Han and Chewie. Of course, the Toronto International Film Festival was chock full of great character duos too. How could you have hundreds of films without at least a few noteworthy character couples. What follows are a handful of TIFF features - some great, some not so great - with special character duos. Enjoy.

The Banshees of Inisherin

Martin McDonagh has proven himself - yet again - to be one of Hollywood’s masters of comedy. After a ten-year hiatus from the genre, in which the Irish filmmaker filmed only one movie: the American drama and Academy Award winning Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, McDonagh is back. And he’s still yet to miss.

McDonagh’s newest film, The Banshees of Inisherin, sees the pairing of Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson in a friendship that could be described two different ways: lifelong and nonexistent. On a small Irish island in the 1920s, two adult-men (and I emphasize they are adults) come to a childish reckoning on what it is to be friends. What begins as a simple misunderstanding - one man wouldn’t like to be friends anymore, one man can’t accept that - slowly twists into a mirrored spiral, reflecting the men’s insecurities and regrets not only back onto each other but onto the film’s audience, as well. The Banshees of Inisherin has just as much to say about masculinity and purpose as it does about friendship. 

The film is anchored by two amazing performances - including, maybe the best performance of Farrell’s career? - and a couple of fantastic supporting performances, as well, from Barry Keoghan and Kerry Condon, which will surely keep the film in the public’s heart. There’s nothing to love more than a well-acted movie that will make you laugh and make you cry. And, you know, make you question the extent of every friendship you’ve ever had…there’s that too.

Biosphere

There’s almost no way to write about Biosphere without giving away one too many twists. Itself a surprise at the Toronto International Film Festival, Biosphere came out of nowhere, shocking audiences as the only late-addition to the festival. There was no press screening. There was no trailer. Going into the world premiere there was almost nothing to be known about Biosphere other than that it starred Mark Duplass and Sterling K. Brown. And, I’ll be honest, it was better that way.

Set in the (not-so?) distant future, two men live alone in an artificially constructed dome, the world ravaged by apocalypse, leaving it inhabitable. They talk about all of the things two men with nothing left to live for and nothing left to do except take care of their fish and play Nintendo would talk about: what they miss, what they regret, what extremely stupid theory they came up with most recently is. It makes for a film that is funny, and human, if not totally relatable to the collective experience of the Covid-19 pandemic. Brown and Duplass have a natural chemistry that makes staying locked up with them feel like a cakewalk, rather than a chore. But then after the fish have been taken care of and the Nintendo has been played and the theories have been talked through, Biosphere’s plot hits a bump, and jumps the rails. 

What follows is a film teetering on the windy tight-rope of cultural cancellation. The boundaries it pushes, but never crosses, are respected, though not fully explored. The words that are used aren’t sensitive, but they aren’t technically indictable either. It is, in no small word, a miracle that Biosphere reaches the finish line without collapsing in on itself. I could give you a thousand guesses as to where Biosphere goes, and you still wouldn’t get it right. But for now, I won’t dare say more.

The Eternal Daughter

It wouldn’t be a Joanna Hogg film if someone didn’t loudly snore in the audience. That’s how you know that The Eternal Daughter is a Joanna Hogg film. Hogg, the paced and patient auteur behind The Souvenir I & II, returns to the silver screen this year with yet another collaboration with her childhood friend, Tilda Swinton. This time, however, Swinton isn’t playing alongside her daughter, Honor Swinton Bryne; but rather, Tilda is playing her own daughter. 

Set in a remote English hotel, The Eternal Daughter is something of a ghost story, where Tilda Swinton pulls double duty. Playing mother and daughter, Swinton executes Joanna Hogg’s vision to a tee. That vision, one of a daughter reflecting on her own life, while struggling to take care of her mother, mirrors the very real story of Joanna Hogg. Of course, Hogg is no stranger to making movies about herself through proxy (see the aforementioned Souvenirs), but The Eternal Daughter takes it up a notch. The Eternal Daughter has as many layers in its story as it does in its technical achievement. Editing two Tildas into every scene without disrupting the carefully constructed atmosphere of the hotel, the beautiful cinematography, and the gentle flow of time that Hogg channels is a singular achievement, rivaled by the complexities of the screenplay. 

The Eternal Daughter is funny but never a comedy, somber but never a chamber-drama, frightening but never a horror. It hovers between genres, flitting back and forth like a woman between ages. It is quintessential Joanna Hogg: slow, alienating, and eerily personal. It is, for lack of a better term, masterful.

The Son

Something unfortunate happened when Anthony Hopkins won Best Actor at the Academy Awards for The Father. That ultimately correct - albeit ill-fated - decision seemed to give Florian Zeller a modus operandi: use family dramas as star vehicles for pageantry. Zeller’s second feature film and follow-up to The Father, appropriately titled The Son, seeks to replicate that Academy Award winning formula. The Son trades out aged dementia for adolescent depression, Olivia Colman for Zen McGarth, and Anthony Hopkins for Hugh Jackman. Despite keeping a consistent crew behind the camera (same writer, editor, cinematographer, etc. as The Father), the aforementioned trade-offs fail to bring The Son to the level of its predecessor. Just the contrary - they sink under the weight of inflated self-importance, a hack script, and one of the most infuriating screenplays in recent film history.

The Son is the rare film where the more you think about it, the less you like it. To start, Florian Zeller (who wrote the play the film is based on) and Christopher Hampton (the screenplay writer who adapted said play) seem to have no idea what teenage depression actually looks like. Its manifestations in The Son are as shallow as they are dull. “Sad boy who momentarily pretends to be happy,” seems to be as far as they got on their character development whiteboard. On the other hand, The Son is almost entirely focused on the father (ironic, right?), played by Hugh Jackman. While an Oscar campaign began weeks before the film’s premiere this fall for Jackman as a Best Actor contender, what becomes evident mere moments into the film is that Jackman doesn’t have a handle on the character. From a slip of the Australian accent five minutes into the film to being totally blown off screen by a one scene appearance by Anthony Hopkins, the only saving grace Hugh Jackman has going for him is how utterly terrible Zen McGarth is in the titular role. The writing and direction were no ballasts for the young McGarth, as he doesn’t just drown, he helps sink the film along with him. 

The lead performances are objectionable and overdramatized, sure, but the real thing that anchors The Son to the bottom of the ocean floor are the final fifteen minutes. Plodding along at a tortoises’ pace, the screenplay thinks it’s lulling you into a sense of false security, only to shock and strum on your heart strings. Instead, it does the opposite. It takes all of the ham-fisted depictions of depression, rolls them up into a predictable ball of displeasure, and bowls them straight down the gutter. Florian Zeller exhibits some particularly shallow, despicable filmmaking in the film’s final frame; filmmaking that could be called emotionally manipulative if it weren’t for how heavy-handed it was. 

The Son is unfortunately everything its predecessor was not. Zeller was unable to capture lightning in a bottle twice, despite repeating the same formula. It seems the only lesson gleaned from this abominable attempt at Oscar-bait is that Anthony Hopkins has still got it. And Florian Zeller wouldn’t be here without him.