It is no secret that film festivals have had to rely on directors to provide the star power fueling their big premieres during the strikes, but opening night of the Toronto International Film Festival mostly failed to deliver even that.
The first audience for Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Boy and the Heron,” the festival’s official opening title, only got an introduction from Studio Ghibli VP Junichi Nishioka. Meanwhile the audience at the later screening got an extra speech from surprise guest Guillermo del Toro.
The big special presentation of the night, actress Kristin Scott Thomas’ directorial debut “North Star,” is an acquisition title, so one would think the cast would be in the clear to promote the film starring Scarlett Johanssen, Sienna Miller, Emily Beecham, and Thomas herself, but instead producer Finola Dwyer flew solo to introduce the movie, saying “Kristin, Scarlett, Sienna, and Emily would have loved to have been up here tonight with me presenting the film, but they stand firm with their SAG colleagues and friends.” It all gives credence to the theory that not everyone given the allowance to make public appearances on behalf of their project is actually interested in following through. Strike solidarity takes many forms.
Ultimately, the biggest stars of the night may have just been comedians Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson, alongside Emmy-nominated actor Bowen Yang, premiering A24’s “Dicks: The Musical,” which kicked off TIFF’s Midnight Madness slate. After a musical preamble from programmer and Midnight Madness host Peter Kuplowsky, the trio shared they had only gotten a SAG waiver the day before the screening.
Just to emphasize the arc Sharp and Jackson have had from being fixtures on the alternative New York City scene to co-writing and starring in A24’s feature-length musical, the latter said, “This movie started as a two-person show that we would do in the basement of a grocery store in New York City.” Though director Larry Charles (“Borat”) could not make it to TIFF, the stars shared a statement from him that said “I’ve had many experiences making movies. Some great, some amazing, some horrific, some really horrific, but none as joyous and as fun as the experience of making ‘Dicks.’” He added, “Welcome to the most anti-A.I., pro-human movie,” garnering cheers from the rowdy late night crowd.
Similar to last year with the premiere of “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story” being a surprise hot ticket, and eventual People’s Choice Award for Midnight Madness winner, “Dicks: The Musical” had an epically long line to get in, filling the Royal Alexandra Theatre to the brim. Little did anyone expect just how far the film they were seeing was willing to go.
No amount of context can prepare folks for the film’s final number, with a chorus that refers to God as a slur. The song that leapt from the screen out into the audience, with a flash mob of chorus members jumping out their seats to sing along, and pride balloons and penis inflatables dropping down onto attendees.
In the post-screening Q&A, Yang recalled the day everyone, including co-stars Megan Mullally and Nathan Lane, got together to perform the song on film. “There was a moment when we were shooting the final scene, when we were singing, doing take after take,” said the “Saturday Night Live” star. “Megan Mullally went over to the boys and said, ‘You guys are going to get death threats.’ And then she turned to me, and she was like, ‘We’re all going to get death threats.’” Judging from the crowd reaction to the film, which were in perpetual bursts of laughter throughout its 86 minute runtime, Sharp, Jackson, and Yang got hundreds of TIFF ticketholders to have their back, especially since they were the ones who most made this year’s opening a night to remember.
