By Jake Coyle, Film Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --The top award of the 40th Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday went to Lenny Abrahamson’s “Room,” an emotional tale of a captive mother and her five-year son.
The film took the festival’s People’s Choice award, determined by audience voting. Starring Brie Larson and 8-year-old Jacob Tremblay, “Room” is adapted from Emma Donoghue’s 2010 novel. It’s told from the perspective of a boy who has been locked in a room with his mother for his entire life.
Toronto’s audience award has previously been a harbinger of awards season success. Past winners include “12 Years a Slave” and “The King’s Speech.” That bodes well for the prospects of “Room,” which A24 will release October 16.
Runner-up went to Tom McCarthy’s “Spotlight,” a newspaper procedural starring Michael Keaton and Mark Ruffalo about the Boston Globe’s investigative reporting on sexual abuse by Catholic priests.
The prize for the festival’s inaugural Platform sidebar of international films was awarded to Alan Zweig’s “Hurt,” a documentary about Canadian cancer hero Steve Fonyo.
Evgeny Afieneevsky’s “Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom” won the People’s Choice documentary award. The audience award for the Midnight Madness section went to Ilya Naishuller’s “Hardcore,” a kinetic Russian action movie shot on GoPro cameras. Its $10 million sale to STX Entertainment was the largest purchase from the festival.
The Toronto Film Festival wrapped Sunday after 10 days of red-carpet premieres.
Rom-Com Mainstay Hugh Grant Shifts To The Dark Side and He’s Never Been Happier
After some difficulties connecting to a Zoom, Hugh Grant eventually opts to just phone instead.
"Sorry about that," he apologizes. "Tech hell." Grant is no lover of technology. Smart phones, for example, he calls the "devil's tinderbox."
"I think they're killing us. I hate them," he says. "I go on long holidays from them, three or four days at at time. Marvelous."
Hell, and our proximity to it, is a not unrelated topic to Grant's new film, "Heretic." In it, two young Mormon missionaries (Chloe East, Sophie Thatcher) come knocking on a door they'll soon regret visiting. They're welcomed in by Mr. Reed (Grant), an initially charming man who tests their faith in theological debate, and then, in much worse things.
After decades in romantic comedies, Grant has spent the last few years playing narcissists, weirdos and murders, often to the greatest acclaim of his career. But in "Heretic," a horror thriller from A24, Grant's turn to the dark side reaches a new extreme. The actor who once charmingly stammered in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and who danced to the Pointer Sisters in "Love Actually" is now doing heinous things to young people in a basement.
"It was a challenge," Grant says. "I think human beings need challenges. It makes your beer taste better in the evening if you've climbed a mountain. He was just so wonderfully (expletive)-up."
"Heretic," which opens in theaters Friday, is directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, co-writers of "A Quiet Place." In Grant's hands, Mr. Reed is a divinely good baddie — a scholarly creep whose wry monologues pull from a wide range of references, including, fittingly, Radiohead's "Creep."
In an interview, Grant spoke about these and other facets of his character, his journey... Read More