You’ll find me a longtime fan of Julie Delpy the actor, writer, and director — in the Before series, Three Colours: White, and Two Days in Paris. She’s back with this quite broad, clever comedy called Meet The Barbarians, (in French, Les barbares) where a well-meaning group of village folk in a corner of Brittany raise money to bring in a family of refugees but, expecting Ukrainians, get Syrians instead — which doesn’t sit well with a few of the more xenophobic characters in town.
The humour hits more than misses, taking shots at some of the more small-minded amongst the locals, along with a few of the more common cliches associated with bleeding heart liberals. It takes a more dramatic turn around midway as we get to know the Syrian family and what they’ve lived through and making a home in a community that’s not entirely welcoming.
Delpy does a good job managing a sprawling cast and multiple subplots, while also filling one of the key roles herself. The ending is especially heartfelt, putting an especially satisfying bow on it — this is a certified crowdpleaser.
Sharp Corner was the first public screening I’ve attended at TIFF. It was a treat to see this Nova Scotia-shot and produced feature, from writer-director Jason Buxton, adapting a short story from Russell Wangersky.
It stars Ben Foster and Cobie Smulders and Josh and Rachel, raising their six-year-old son, Max (William Kosovic) in a lovely home on the titular sharp corner somewhere in the woods. The night they move in a drunken teen wraps his car around a tree in their front yard. Josh starts to develop an unhealthy obsession with trying to help the people in the frequent crashes caused by poor road planning to the point where he neglects the concerns of his wife and the safety of his son. Josh’s motivations are the fuel for this unusual, singular picture — why is he so compelled?
Jason Buxton, William Kosovic, Cobie Smulders, and Ben Foster this evening at the screening of Sharp Corner
This is a kind of masculinity rarely seen in a male protagonist in a film that’s not a comedy, a milquetoast middle manager with an unironic ‘stache, desperately unlikeable and fundamentally insecure yet driven by inchoate need — Foster creates a fully rounded character. The music, camerawork and editing propel Sharp Corner into serious thriller territory, while at its core is a void that’s chills the parts other films cannot reach.
