The fest, which opened on July 18th this year and runs through August 4th, is a treasure trove of the year’s most out-of-the-way genre works. Japanese and Korean thrillers aplenty, French and Canadian (and French-Canadian) indies runneth over, and you’ll see more future Shudder Originals than you can shake a Psycho Goreman at. But the primary appeal for me has been steeping myself in the festival’s culture — an ugly American, taking his first brave steps across the national line to the relatively comfortable climes of French Canada. Sure, there are all the little nuances that set Quebec apart: the French language dominance, all the tres-continentale casual outdoor smoking. But there are the little festival traditions too: knowing audience members meow before every screening, or cheer when a wacky, decades-old commercial for Shin Ramen plays at the top.
But I also have a job to do, so here I am, breaking down the many, many films I’m catching at the festival during my weeklong stay here (and, surely, several days after I’ve returned stateside). And before we can get into all the scrappy little indies and international pictures Fantasia has to offer, it’s worth looking into some of the bigger-ticket items that have studded this first week.
Fantasia’s opening night picture was a deceptively sweet one, albeit with a pedigree that makes it perfect for the fest: Ant Timpson’s “Bookworm,” a surprisingly gentle and wry family adventure that borrows some of its thematic DNA from Timpson’s previous work, “Come to Daddy,” cleans up the gore, and replaces it with a heaping helping of Taika Waititi-an whimsy. Like “Daddy,” it’s another fragmented tale of fathers and children navigating a crisis, but this time with the roles reversed: this time, it’s a precocious eleven-year-old know-it-all named Mildred (bright-eyed newcomer Nell Fisher, “Evil Dead Rise”), guiding her absentee, failed-magician father, Strawn Wise (frequent Timpson collaborator Elijah Wood) through the wilderness to capture footage of a fabled black panther. They need the reward money to help out Mildred’s mother, who’s lapsed into a coma — which is the reason Strawn, who sired Mildred at a one-night stand and has never met her before, has finally dropped into her life with nary a clue how to parent.
It’s a delight to see Wood trudging through the same mystical plains he did decades prior with the “Lord of the Rings” films, this time in a much smaller, more intimate tale of failed fathers forced to grow up simply to keep up with their children. The vibe of “Bookworm” is decidedly ’70s, from the hazy filmic look to the psychedelic folk tracks that permeate nearly every other scene. There’s more than a bit of “Hunt for the Wilderpeople” in its deadpan drollness, which Wood takes to nicely with his signature cluelessness. He and Fisher are fantastic foils, Fisher’s outspoken, encyclopedic knowledge throwing the barely-blustering Strawn for a loop in scene after scene. Then, when they actually face danger, whether it’s a mysterious backpacking couple (Michael Smiley and Morgana O’Reilly) with sinister intentions or the elements themselves, it’s often Strawn’s cowardice and anxiety that get them most in trouble. As a showcase for the two actors, “Bookworm” serves as a lovely, if occasionally repetitive, tale of estranged family connecting for the first time through crisis.