On Friday September 12th, I attended my first ever gala at the Toronto International Film Festival (at Roy Thomson Hall). In my prior years attending screenings at TIFF, I have never attended a gala. Festival goers pay a significant premium over the regular single ticket price for a gala ticket and pass /coupon holders are generally unable to redeem their tickets for gala screenings. Despite this "exclusivity" factor, I came away from the experience neither impressed by the movie ("
The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond") nor the gala experience.
The problem with the gala milieu is that it is really more about the "red carpet' glam factor than the love of film. It was obvious that many of those in attendance at the screening were corporate guests who did not pay for their own ticket. In fact, whole sections of the theatre were reserved for VIPs (in contrast to most of the other venues where seating is assigned strictly on a "first come, first choice" basis). At RTH there are two lines... one for VIP ticket holders (who are given earlier admission and escorted to better seats) and another for general admission ticket holders. We arrived almost a full hour before the scheduled 7:30 screening time and joined the general admission queue. Our tickets were marked "balcony" but about 20 minutes after our arrival a volunteer working her way along the queue from front to back invited us to exchange our balconies for seats on the orchestra level and we agreed to the swap.
When we were finally allowed to enter (about 20 minutes after VIPs were first admitted) we were confined to a small section under the balcony overhang at the back of the orchestra level; however we were fortunate enough to be positioned exactly in the middle of a row at centre screen (the rows are very long with very few aisles and are skimpy on leg room, which poses a nuisance in excusing and re-admitting other film goers to the row while waiting the start of the film).
The director of the film (Jodie Markell, known primarily as an actress, most recently for playing a role in the HBO series Big Love) was introduced by Piers Handling (the first time I had seen him this year) at the beginning of the film and, in turn, introduced the members of her cast in attendance (including Ellen Burstyn), who also strode out into the spotlight. Apparently, unlike at other venues, there are no post screening Q&As at galas (perhaps because of tight theatre turn-round time constraints), however the cast was seated at the front of the upper balcony and did stand to acknowledge the crowd's applause at the end (or so it seemed, seated as we were (under the balcony overhang) we did not actually witness this first hand). In any case, the projection and sound was high quality (despite the fact that the venue was designed for live symphony concerts and not film exhibition.)
The movie is based on a screenplay by acclaimed playwright Tennessee Williams. It is set in the state of Tennessee during the roaring 20s (but was filmed on location in Louisiana). The plot concerned the rocky party season courtship of a wealthy heiress, Fisher Willow (Bryce Dallas Howard), just returned from her overseas studies, and her attractive but impoverished farmhand suitor Jimmy Dobyne (Chris Evans), the son of a boozer father and insane mother. Evans is morally upright while the Howard is the object of derision among her debutante social peers owing to her outspoken manner and wealth. She is likewise reviled among the working class by association with her father, a notorious plantation owner, blamed for a recent calamity that took several local workers' lives.
Most of the plot unfolds on the occasion of a party at the home of Fisher's cousin. Fisher attends the party accompanied by Jimmy but discovers upon arrival that she is missing one of her valuable borrowed teardrop diamond ear-rings. While at the party she encounters the similarly strong-willed Miss Addie (Ellen Burstyn)-- bedridden, opium addicted, confined to a sickroom and harbouring a death wish. Meanwhile Jimmy, upset with Fisher for implying that he may stolen her missing diamond, flirts with a local shop girl of his prior acquaintance.
While the cinematography, costume, art design and set decoration all capture the period well, the characters are rather one-dimensional and the acting is not especially inspired. Evans fares better than Howard, but Burstyn's Miss Addie is a bit too large, while Ann Margret's Great Aunt cameo role is altogether too brief. Unfortunately the plot advances at a pace several times slower than a Southern drawl. It is hard to imagine this independent movie attracting wide distribution (outside of the art house circuit) or accumulating box office grosses sufficient to earn back its financiers investment. I also don't expect it to be especially critically well-received.
The lesson: Sometimes even writing geniuses pen lesser works that pale relative to their broader body of work; this is certainly the case with this material. There is good reason why this screenplay languished unproduced for so long. Ultimately, Markell would have been better advised to let this screenplay continue to gather dust.
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