The 9 best of a TIFF grappling with a world coming apart

Jordan Firstman's first-time feature Club Kid feels anything but amateurish. (A24)Social SharingLike every year, the Toronto International Film Festival's 51st iteration boasted a basket of incredible, now-buzzy titles for the coming year.

And like most years, the best of those films seemed to fit a theme. This year, it was characters in a sort of psychic crisis: people — overwhelmingly young people — grappling with a confusing and fracturing world and the feeling they weren't made for it.

To navigate those stories of crying and comedy, we've put together a list of some of the best. 

Julianne Moore appears as Mona in The Debut. The Jesse Eisenberg-directed film is off-the-wall, odd and incredible. (NOC Productions Inc. LLC)A kaleidoscopic carnival of comedy and grotesquerie. An unpleasant and fascinating story of self-improvement and self-immolation. Taxi Driver for theatre kids. 

In short, Jesse Eisenberg's The Debut is a sure-to-be-divisive, sure-to-entertain work of art. Showcasing Julianne Moore as a terrifyingly terrible community theatre actress and Paul Giamatti as her Whiplash meets Dead Poets Society mentor, its offbeat narrative style is paired with Moore's transformative performance of a lifetime. You might love it. You might hate it. But either way, you shouldn't miss it. 

Firstman writes, directs and plays the lead role in Club Kid, a film that offers a star turn for just about everyone you see on screen. (A24)Writer/director/star Jordan Firstman's first-time feature feels anything but amateurish. The familiar story it tells, that of a disaffected young man (Peter) suddenly tasked with taking care of a son (Arlo) he never knew he had, would be enough for a good movie. But as soon as the sentimental comedy/drama steamrolls through the normal "reluctant mentor" story beats, it flips and crashes into something more. 

The result is a star turn for just about everyone you see on screen (including Peter's odd roommate Nicky, played by Debut supporting actor Eldar Isgandarov). It also just might make you cry.

Club Kid is one of TIFF's best. It might make you cry

Mahershala Ali plays reluctant hitman Latif in Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother. (Amazon MGM Studios)Bassam Tariq's singular vision — both in terms of the movie's religious themes and gorgeously stylized cinematography — makes Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother something special. On top of that, star Mahershala Ali as Latif and his co-stars make it something incredible. 

But it is Latif himself, a reluctant hitman who's lost his wife, nearly lost his faith, and is soon sent on a whirlwind mission to help a lost rich brat survive the week, that propels the story forward. It's a near-indefinable collage of styles and genres — birthdays, broken glass, smiles and tears — but one that is nearly impossible to look away from. 

In the hand-drawn Canadian co-production Julián, a young boy grapples with his identity over a summer in Brooklyn. (Cartoon Salon/TIFF)As he's dropped off at his grandma's house in Brooklyn for the summer, the star of hand-drawn Canadian co-production Julián (Knyght Darius Jack) is already off-balance. But a niggling sense of unease sets everything on edge: there is something pushing back against the person whom Julián wants to be, how he wants to act and what he's allowed to care about. That confusing, bigger-than-him battle pitches into a higher gear when he tries to join the local girls in making glamorous mermaid costumes for an upcoming parade. 

For some reason he can't fathom, the world keeps telling him the person he wants to be is wrong. And as the movie proceeds to show, the world is better when we fix that.

Iron Boy follows the story of a young boy made to wear an iron back brace while navigating a fracturing relationship with his family. (Sony Pictures Classics)From Pixar animator Louis Clichy (and starring his own son, Gary, in the lead role) Iron Boy is another animated tale of fitting in. A French farm boy with a pernicious case of scoliosis, Christophe, 10, can't seem to keep things straight. He's fighting with his overbearing father, getting into trouble at school — and literally falling over at every opportunity. Our young hero is soon fitted with an iron back brace to keep things from tumbling into chaos. 

Unsurprisingly, things don't go exactly to plan. Iron Boy's resultant charting of failure to meet expectations, first loves and redemptive self-acceptance is as much grounded character study as it is magical realism. Its entirely hand-drawn animation style is also a rare and beautiful sight to behold. 

Félix Munger appears in Toy Gun Bandit as Félix, a French-Canadian teen whose legal situation spirals from bad to astronomically worse. (Spécimen Productions)Like if the infamously over-the-top "Montana Meth Project" anti-drug ads from the early 2000s had made a feature film, Toy Gun Bandit says "not even once" to robbing your local gas station. 

Unfortunately, our star apparently never saw those ads. Instead, French-Canadian teen Félix makes bad choice after bad choice, sending his legal situation spiralling from bad to astronomically worse in a cautionary tale that reads like a modern day Reefer Madness. 

What keeps the eclectic, almost incidental plot from fraying into nothingness is Felix himself: first-time actor Félix Munger — a true revelation — plays the desperate-for-attention eponymous protagonist with an electric, vulnerable and mesmerizing charisma. The film pairs wonderfully with TIFF's other Canadian teen-on-the-run film, In Alaska, as both are character studies grounded by powerhouse young performances. With Munger in front of the camera of Toy Gun Bandit, you cannot help but root — and mourn — for the bright future he constructs, then inevitably destroys. 

With Sunburn, director Serville Poblete displays a serious talent for capturing and evoking senses and sensations. (MoreThan Films)Like street photography in motion, Sunburn makes the everyday fascinating — with serious thanks owed to François Truffaut's Small Change. The plot is as subtle as it is personal: a group of young people try to make sense of themselves, and each other, in Toronto's St. James Town neighbourhood during a heat wave. 

And like TIFF's other teen-ensemble triumph La Gradiva, the true story is under the surface — though in Sunburn, that truth isn't quite so heart-rendingly tragic. What lifts Serville Poblete's coming-of-age hodgepodge to the next level despite its conversely light tone is the serious talent he displays for capturing and evoking senses and sensations. 

The visceral capturing of dripping ice cream on a sweltering day. Of open mouths and dripping sweat. Of bursting pimples and bursting waterballoons and the general exuberance of real life. Every joyfully real aspect of the world he clearly knows so well is delivered in a dreamlike package. 

Eklipse, set in the Tyrolean Alps around the time of a 1999 solar eclipse, is a slow and contemplative success. (Eutopiafilm)"What did I do to you?" asks Tomy of his friend Chris — or the boy who used to be his friend. As Eklipse drifts from Tree of Life-esque shots of the trees, cattle and mountains of its Tyrolean Alps setting, the two drift further and further apart. And Tomy has no idea why. 

However, we know it is because Tomy's father has contracted AIDS, a terrifying and misunderstood death sentence in this rural and remote 1990s setting — though no one has told Tomy. The tender and withholding, riddle-like feature from Manuel Wetscher is the kind many will hate: "Nothing even happens" will likely be a common critique. 

But if you like solving a riddle, there's a wealth of painful, twist-the-knife messages just waiting to break your heart. 

The Smell of Apples, set in apartheid South Africa, is a harrowing account of one child grappling with the sins of his father. (Portobello Productions)Speaking of heartbreaking, that's something The Smell of Apples can deliver in spades. A view of apartheid South Africa told from the perspective of a white child reckoning with the sins of his father, you could call it Zone of Interest refracted through a psychically destructive coming-of-age story. 

Or you could call it a serious Academy Award best international film contender, one made with such power and aplomb it would be an indictment to ignore. Or you could just call it what it is: incredible. 

Jackson Weaver is a reporter and film critic for CBC's entertainment news team in Toronto. You can reach him at jackson.weaver@cbc.ca.