Eric Lavallée

I'm not sure if it built into the buzz for wanting to see the title, but when Sony Pictures Classics picked up domestic rights to Joseph Cedar's Footnote hours before the early press screening to a film about a bitter father-son rivalry tagged with academic jealousy my thoughts were this could be a contender.

Following 2006's Pardonnez-moi and 2009's The Actress' Ball, in her third outing as a filmmaker, Maïwenn goes for the socially-minded type of a film packaged as a ensemble comedy with her misspelled titled Polisse.

The only film in the Main Competition to have premiered outside the festival, back on its home turf it, Nanni Moretti's Habemus Papam received mixed reviews. The remaining question was, would international critics warm up to the hypothetical proposition: what if the Pope (formidably played by Michel Piccoli) wasn't apt for the job and what if a shrink (a watered down performance by Moretti) were asked to help solve the situation? The soul-searching tale about a man unwilling to take the lead in one domain of his life, but going full throttle in a whole new direction whimpered into this festival as the duelling tones might have turned off some and it comes packaged lacking Moretti's usually biting and satirical criticism. The panel's grades reflect this. Click on the image below.

In a departure film of sorts for the director who gave us I’m Going To Explode and Drama/Mex, Gerardo Naranjo makes the zone/border that separates California from Mexico come across as Afghanistan. Not sure how close he sticks to the original biographical aspects of a heroine that essentially becomes a trafficked, bargaining chip in a messy war between the feds and drug gangs near and around Tijuana. With an EZ Pass ease, Miss Bala sprawls every which way, meaning points A to point B are totally unpredictable and the camera tracks actress Stephanie Sigman as if she were a parcel.

Not sure if the film's title accurately denotes the life choices of our central character here in The Slut, but we get a sense that our heroine is the type that would do things out of necessity and who would do things that are necessary. In due course we come to understand that she is indispensable to others.