Eight TIFF flicks with fierce female leads

Arrival

Director: Dennis Villeneuve Our eye is on: Amy Adams Amy Adams plays a linguistics expert recruited by the military to communicate with aliens. She spends most of her screen time dismantling syntax and grammar, yet still somehow finds a way to shine.

Free Fire

Director: Ben Wheatley Our eye is on: Brie Larson Larson won an Oscar for being held in a room. Turns out she does just as well when she’s trapped in a Mexican standoff in an abandoned warehouse. As the lone woman in a no-holds-barred gunfight, Larson proves that anything the guys can do, she can do better.

The Handmaiden

Director: Park Chan-Wook Our eye is on: Kim Tae-Ri Kim Tae-Ri’s first big-screen role has a visceral depth that only the legendary Park Chan-Wook can evoke. Her character, a petty thief turned lady’s maid, straddles the line between loyalty and self-preservation as her respect for her mistress slowly turns to passionate love.

re(ASSIGNMENT)

Director: Walter Hill Our eye is on: Michelle Rodriguez The veteran tough girl takes on the gender binaries in her most convoluted role yet: a male killer forced to undergo gender-reassignment surgery. Rodriguez’s every move on screen is consumed by the vengeance she seeks on the doctor who performed the operation.

Brimstone

Director: Martin Koolhoven Our eye is on: Dakota Fanning In this tale about frontier fervour gone awry, Dakota Fanning plays a midwife trying to save both herself and her family from a pseudo-religious persecution.

Catfight

Director: Onur Tukel Our eye is on: Sandra Oh The light-hearted black comedy stars Sandra Oh as one of two old friends who reconnect and realize that neither is quite what the other remembers. Bonus: the film features a bloody battle in a stairwell that reveals physical comedy chops we didn’t know Oh had.

The Arbitration

Director: Niki Akinmolayan Our eye is on: Somkele Iyamah-Idhalama, a TIFF Rising Star This courtroom drama captures a disturbing, age-old tradition: men who dismiss sexual assault allegations as lies from spurned ex-lovers. Somkele Iyamah-Idhalama delivers a grounded, multi-faceted performance as a demonized woman on the hunt for justice.

Prevenge

Director (and Writer): Alice Lowe Our eye is on: Alice Lowe Doing triple duty in this film doesn’t stop Lowe from delivering a wonderfully quirky performance as an expectant mother whose baby seems to be encouraging her to commit murder.