SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS


SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS


US. 2011. 83mins Directors/screenplay Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass Production companies Right of Way Films, Indian Paintbrush, Mr Mudd Productions Producers Lianne Halfon, Russell Smith, Jason Reitman Worldwide distribution Paramount Pictures/PPI Executive producers Steven Rales, Helen Estabrook Cinematography Jas Shelton Editor Jay Deuby Production designer Chris Spellman Music Michael Andrews Main cast Jason Segel, Ed Helms, Judy Greer, Susan Sarandon, Rae Dawn Chong, Steve Zissis


Jeff, Who Lives At Home REVIEWED BY MARK ADAMS


The Duplass brothers make a quirkily delightful leap into the almost-mainstream with Jeff, Who Lives At Home, a charm- ingly oddball gem of a movie that is funny, tender and ulti- mately moving as it takes a fresh look at family and relationships. With a strong cast including Jason Segel, Ed Helms and Susan Sarandon, Paramount will be hoping this quirky little number could be a slow-burner, especially if critical support comes its way. Jay and Mark Duplass have long been mumblecore darlings


through their micro-budget movies The Puffy Chair (2005) and Baghead (2008), and their most recent film, Cyrus (2010) star- ring Jonah Hill, gained good reviews. But they have gone up a gear with Jeff, Who Lives At Home and bring out the very best in their top-notch cast. The impressive Segel carries just the right amount of bum-


bling slacker charm to the role of Jeff, a directionless 30-year- old whose favourite film — and source of inspiration in his life — is M Night Shyamalan’s Signs, and who happily lives in the basement of his mother’s house, smoking a little weed and waiting for his destiny to arrive. When one day the name ‘Kevin’ keeps cropping up in a televi-


sion advert, a random phone call and on the back of someone’s basketball top, Jeff thinks he has found a ‘sign’. Ignoring a request from his mother (Sarandon) to run an errand, he decides to follow where ‘Kevin’ takes him. This leads him to his brother Pat (Hangover star Ed Helms),


whose marriage to wife Linda (the sublime Judy Greer) is in disarray — Pat ignores her and is more interested in the Porsche he has bought that they cannot afford. When they see her with another man, the brothers head off in pursuit — leading to a stream of funny moments — eventually confronting her in a hotel room where Pat finally comes to realise his true feelings for her. While all this is going on, their mother (Sarandon, in her


most charming performance for a while, blessedly not playing a wacky grandmother this time round) is amazed to find an unknown admirer at her office is subtly romancing her. All of the strands tie together in a majestically moving


moment as Linda, the two brothers and their mother all find themselves heading across the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway to New Orleans, and in a moment of drama Jeff finds his destiny. It is a scene that will bring a tear to the eye and is the perfect end to an enchantingly quirky and funny film.


September 12, 2011 Screen International at the Toronto Film Festival 11 n


Can-Ger-Pol. 2011. 145mins Director Agnieszka Holland Production companies Schmidtz Katze Filmkollektiv, Zebra Film Studio, The Film Works International sales Beta Cinema, www.betacinema. com Executive producers Wojciech Danowski, David F Shamoon, Carl Woebken, Christoph Fisser, Anna Maria Zündel Producers Steffen Reuter, Patrick Knippel, Marc- Daniel Dichant, Leander Carell, Juliusz Machulski, Paul Stephens, Eric Jordan Screenplay David F Shamoon, based on the book In The Sewers Of Lvov by Robert Marshall Cinematography Jolanta Dylewska Production designer Erwin Prib Editor Michal Czarnecki Music Antoni Komasa- Lazarkiewicz Main cast Robert Wieckiewicz, Benno Fürmann, Agnieszka Grochowska, Maria Schrader, Herbert Knaup, Kinga Preis, Krzysztof Skonieczny


In Darkness REVIEWED BY MIKE GOODRIDGE


Agnieszka Holland returns to the Second World War for the first time since Europa, Europa in 1990 with In Darkness, her best film since then. A 145-minute epic set largely in the darkness and dirt of a sewer, it is the gripping true story of a Polish sewer worker in Lvov who keeps a group of Jews hidden in the under- ground tunnels, under the noses of the occupying Nazi forces. Solid, well made and extremely well-shot, it is a return to form of sorts for Holland, whose English-language work has never matched the strength of her European films. Sony Pictures Classics picked up US rights to In Darkness at


Berlin this year, indicating its confidence in the film as a solid arthouse performer and possible awards candidate. Betafilm pre-sold it in other territories and should close many more after the world premiere here as a Special Presentation in Toronto. Wonderfully expressive Polish actor Robert Wieckiewicz


plays Leopold Socha, the sewer worker whom we first meet bur- gling a house with his pal Szczepek (Skonieczny). It is early 1944 and the Nazis are starting their liquidation of the Lvov ghetto, randomly murdering Jews and carting off thousands to death camps. The opportunistic Socha and Szczepek come across some of


the ghetto inhabitants breaking through into the sewer and agree to hide them in the labyrinthine tunnels for 500 zlotys a day. Socha demands that the group be whittled down further to 12 people and places them in a secluded space off one of the tunnels. The group includes wealthy Pawel Chiger and his wife and


two children but its unofficial leader is Mundek Margulies (Für- mann), a hustler with a gun who harbours deep suspicions about Socha’s motives. As the months wear on, Socha’s motives indeed become


purer, and as the German war effort begins its decline, he becomes passionate about protecting “my Jews” as he calls them from numerous threats of discovery that could bring catastrophe not just to them but to his own family. Holland does a terrific job of recreating the murky sewers, in


both design and lighting, skilfully sustaining the drama even as it takes place in gloom. You can sense the stink and grime of the sewers, as the Jewish escapees battle rats, hunger, in-fighting and madness during their 14-month ordeal.


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