Toronto International Film Festival shines spotlight on ‘Wild Robot,’ ‘Saturday Night’

TORONTO — The last time a major animated film played the annual Toronto International Film Festival came just a year ago when 90-year-old master Hiyao Miyazaki’s gorgeously framed “The Boy and the Heron” opened TIFF 48.

Of course, despite complaints that the moving Japanese fable unfolded rather slowly in a two-hour running time — and I do recall a youngster sitting a few seats away from me in the balcony of the sold-out Princess of Wales Theater dozing through most of it — the really big payoff for that film arrived about six months later when it ran away with the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

Well, here comes another one. “The Wild Robot” did not open this year’s TIFF, but writer/director Chris Sanders’ fabulous-looking adventure did wow an ever-embracing audience on Sept. 8 at the huge Roy Thomson Hall, which likely could not find anything boring about the mostly kind, gentl, and often humorous telling, based on Peter Brown’s same-name best-seller.

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Ironically, a different young girl, this one again a few seats down, also in the balcony, not only sat transfixed for the entire and, admittedly, fast-moving 1:43, but leaned from the edge of her seat the whole time. Certainly, though, not so ironically, three other animated films written and directed by Sanders have been Oscar nominees: “Lilo & Stitch,” “The Croods” and “How to Train a Dragon.” Hmmm.

Still, both before and after Sunday’s world-premiere screening, Sanders did nothing but praise Uiniveral Animation Studios’ leadership, his film crew and just about everybody else involved during the film’s at least seven-years in the making.

“It was one delicate step at a time,” Sanders said at one point. “Just so many people came together to this.”

After the film, TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey briefly interviewed Sanders and a group that included actors Lupita Nyong-o (the voice of Roz Robot), Catherine O’Hara (Pinktail, a hilarious opossum mother of seven) and Mark Hamill (a big bear named Thorn).

Nyong-o, who won her own supporting actress Academy Award in Best Picture winner “12 Years a Slave,” itself a TIFF world premiere in 2012, said she and Sanders “workshopped the heck out of her (various possible) voices.”

“We finally settled on programmed optimism,” she added with a laugh. “Or maybe just a robotic version of empathy.”

Hamill, asked how he got involved in another sci-fi project, first started answering in a deep-voiced bear tone that sounded nothing like THE Luke Skywalker, but the bit brought down the house, anyway.

“Really, I simply read the book,” he said. “It was just amazing, and so is this movie, with the same winning story.:

The always busy O’Hara, currently returning from the original as a pivotal co-star in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” said her “Robot” acceptance came just as easily as Hamil’s.

“Chris just showed me these beautiful drawings, and I said, ‘I am a possum mother please’.”

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While the usual diverse assortment of movies helped open the first weekend of this crowded 11-day festival, another seriously pleasant surprise became “Saturday Night,” from Toronto homeboy and director/co-writer Jason Reitman. (If you don’t know, Jason’s family, headed by dad and filmmaker Ivan Reitman, donated the land on which the five-story TIFF Lightbox has been situated for 14 years.)

Jason Reitman’s “Saturday Night,” his sixth film to play TIFF, quickly becomes a truly fast and funny depiction of how former Canadian comic Lorne Michaels overcame an assortment of wild and crazy situations in the hour or so before the first “Saturday Night (now) Live,” the legendary TV sketch show he created, put such an odd mix of talent on the air.

Names such as J.K. Simmons, Willem Dafoe, Nicholas Braun, Matthew Rhys and maybe Gabriel Byrne (now playing Michaels after nailing the young Steven Spielberg in “The Fabelmans”) dot the enormous cast. However, it says here that more than a few of the still mostly unknown actors portraying those first seven “Not Ready for Primetime Players” — and even the featured writers — could become as well-known as quickly as those small-screen originals did.

By the way, yours truly grabbed an opportunity to attend a Press and Industry screening of the film two days ago, but “Saturday Night” won’t have its first of three TIFF public showings until the afternoon of Sept. 11.

Among many folks walking TIFF red carpets on Sept. 9: Karla Sofia Gascon, Selena Gomez and Zoe Saldana — three-fourths of the Cannes “Best Actress” ensemble from the same film festival’s Jury Award-winning “Emilia Perez” — with co-star Edgar Ramirez and director Jacques Audiard; “Megalopolis” director Francis Ford Coppola with players Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito and Nathalie Emmanuel; and Cate Blanchett, with her trio of “Rumours” directors, Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson.

Blanchett, also here for Alfonso Cuaron’s seven-part miniseries, “Disclaimer” (due on AppleTV+ in October), enjoyed a big evening on Sept. 8, too, as one of TIFF’s 11 “Tribute Awards” winners for 2024. She received the Share Her Journey Groundbreaker Award.

Other winners: Amy Adams (“Nightbitch”) and Jharrel Jerome (“Unstoppable”), Tribute Performer Awards; Anjelina Jolie (director of “Without Blood”), Tribute Award in Impact Media; Mike Leigh (“Hard Times”), Ebert Director Award; Durga Chew-Bose (“Bonjour Tristesse”), Emerging Talent Award; David Cronenberg (“The Shrouds”), Norman Jewison Career Achievement Award; Clement Ducol & Camille (composer duo for “Emilia Perez”), Variety Artisan Award; and Zhao Tao (“Caught by the Tides”), Special Tribute Award.

By now, there should much more on their “Tributes” at tiff.net. You also may visit that site for information on any title listed above, then return here in a few days for continuing coverage from the Toronto fest, which runs until Sept. 15.

John M. Urbancich reviewed films and wrote related features and celebrity profiles at Cleveland’s Sun Newspapers from 1983 to 2018. He has been an accredited journalist at the Toronto International Film Festival for more than three decades. Look for his ratings on recent releases at JMUvies.com.

Originally Published: September 9, 2024 at 9:44 a.m.