One of the odd things about TIFF – relative to Calgary’s film fest, at least – is that press and industry folk are relegated to a separate section of the fest. So, although I’m surrounded by people whose lives revolve around film, I haven’t had the same experience as, say, South by Southwest in Austin, where it feels like everyone in the city has a single purpose for the course of the festival. I’ll have to make it a point to check out a few public screenings and see if the energy level is any different. Industry folks tend to be a bit jaded, so I’d imagine that the public screenings are a bit more enthusiastic.

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE (dir. Danny Boyle)

Boyle’s gained a reputation for starting strong and finishing with bizarre twists that don’t suit his films at all. Sunshine, his sci-fi flick last year, morphed from an intense psychological thriller to a cheesy monster movie in the third act, and 28 Days Later had its superbly human hero transform into an inhuman super-soldier by the movie’s end. Slumdog Millionaire offers no such problems. The story of a lower-caste Indian boy who wins a fortune on that country’s version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire follows more in the footsteps of Millions, Boyle’s tale of a young boy who finds a duffel bag full of cash and gets tangled up with the mob. Boyle excels at getting dramatic, non-cloying performances from his child actors, and the Dickens-via-England storyline contains some genuinely heart-breaking moments. The film requires some suspension of belief (not only do all the Millionaire questions relate to anecdotes from the contestant’s life, they relate in chronological order), but once you accept the premise the rest falls into place.

A FILM WITH ME IN IT (dir. Ian Fitzgibbon)

Before the movie started, I overheard a gentleman complaining that “They’re gone – the U.K. rights are bloody gone.” Take that as a sign that there’s some buzz around this one. Mark Doherty stars as an out-of-luck actor who, thanks to a rapid series of unfortunate accidents, has every reason to worry he might be suspected of a triple-homicide. Sean of the Dead’s Dylan Moran is his friend, a washed-up screenwriter, who tries to help him out of the bloody mess. It’s a pitch-black comedy, as dark as the awful Christian Slater vehicle Very Bad Things, although without the high camp and mean-spiritedness, but Fitzgibbon maintains a wonderfully dry atmosphere throughout. Though the main characters are universally mopey, the sheer ridiculousness of their circumstances and the wonderfully understated performances make it work. It does run into some trouble, though, particularly with the sub-plot about Doherty and Moran writing a movie. The premise works fine without such self-aware meta-humour, and would have done well to excise it. After all, how many films about filmmakers do we need?

THE DUCHESS (dir. Saul Dibb)

Speaking of unnecessary… haven’t we had enough films about how terrible the marriages of wealthy 18^th century aristocrats were? Regardless of how well done they are, it seems pointless to reiterate that rules of manners and decorum, as well as primitive ideas about the worth of women, created an unequal society. Keira Knightly is perfectly cast as the Duchess of Devonshire, a woman who is loved by everyone in the realm, except, of course, her husband. Ralph Fiennes is the Duke, who shows no interest in his lovely wife from moment one, except inasmuch as she can provide him an heir. Their personalities clash, scandals arise, affairs ensue, but try as it might, the film simply doesn’t say anything new. The fashion-conscious Duchess will likely earn a costume design Oscar (at times it feels like that’s the sole reason the film exists), and may even earn another actress nod for Knightly, who does admirably well as the woman done wrong. Still, it’d be nice to see a fresh take on this well-worn genre.