Glenn Close totally rules in Bjorn Runge‘s The Wife, which just ended at Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall. The film is strong and precisely written and well-carved, and Close carries it along with costar Jonathan Pryce on a 60-40 basis.

She brilliantly re-defines the familiar role of the discreet, classy, long-under-valued wife & partner of an ostensibly great man.

Exquisite poise, rich feeling, heart full of soul & regret, eyes of spirit and chrome steel. Close’s emoting in The Wife demands Oscar cred.

It’s a landmark performance with a great, angry, full-throttle climax. Close has a Best Actress nom in the bag if — IF — The Wife opens by 12.31.

Earlier today I finally saw Jim Carrey and Chris Smith‘s Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond. It’s a 95-minute doc about Carrey’s super-intense experience in portraying put-on comic Andy Kaufman for Milos Forman‘s Man on the Moon (’99). As a “making of” saga it’s a way-above-average thing, and as a slice of intimate celebrity portraiture it’s anything but run-of-the-mill.

The film achieves specialness by way of (a) a trove of heretofore-unseen backstage footage, shot by a crew Carrey hired to stay with him throughout filming, and (b) Carrey’s talking-head narration, which I found perceptive and (to my surprise) emotionally affecting.

I was hoping for a diverting backstage thing, but Jim & Andy is much more than that. 

It’s not just an essay about the craft of movie acting and the ritual of surrendering to a role, which Carrey did so completely while playing Kaufman in ’98 that he literally stopped being himself on a 24/7 basis (refusing to answer to Jim, speaking of himself in the third person). It’s also a study of the personas that we all project socially vs. the person we really are deep down. Which makes it a food-for-thought film about what social identity really boils down to, and the games that we all submit to in order to fulfill expectations and keep up appearances.

I was never not fascinated, and I loved the flavor of it.  I was especially struck by an anecdote about a certain phone conversation Carrey had with  Man on the Moon director Milos Forman, during which Carrey floated an idea about “firing” Kaufman and the super-contemptible Tony Clifton (I was never able to tolerate this alter-ego asshole) and doing imitations instead. 

I could summarize a few more highlights but I’m out of time. You’ll be better off just seeing the film and discovering them for yourself.

Mainly I felt riveted by Carrey’s commentary and Zen vibe. Sure, you can call Jim & Andy a vanity project as there are no talking heads besides the 55 year-old actor, and yet there’s something to be said for this strategy. Carrey’s relaxed, seemingly-nothing-to-hide manner of speaking (and who knows what’s real and what isn’t in terms of who he really is and what he’s chosen to pass along?) reaches out and somehow connects. His candid recollections, perceptive assessments, shoulder-shrugging charisma, seeming honesty and longish hair and gray beard, etc. — it all adds up to a package and a presentation that I trusted.

For all the media-driven perceptions about Carrey having gradually evolved over the last 10 or 15 years into something of a wiggy eccentric (Guardian critic Jordan Hoffman wrote in his review that Carrey “comes off as an asshole”), Carrey struck me as genuine and whole. There doesn’t seem (emphasis on the “s” word) to be any lying in the guy.  And the story behind his Kaufman performance is a trip.

And on that note, I have to leave for a 6:30 pm screening of The Wife at Roy Thomson Hall.

The idea in this Gilbert Gottfried doc is that you can present an agreeable, relatively mellow front with your friends, pets, neighbors and family members, and then become (i.e., revert to) a somewhat more pointed and aggressive personality when you’re “on” — performing, writing, acting or what-have-you. I am not Gottfried or vice versa, but to some extent I understand that dynamic.

Jeffrey Wells to Twitter Banshee Comintern: Please accept my humble apology for having written that a reportedly sober and recovering Devin Faraci deserved a second chance. I had read Tim League‘s letter about the former Birth.Movies.Death editor/columnist having embraced sobriety and presumably begun a healthier, less ferocious way of life. I’m not going to get into the beefs that many have had with Devin, but as one who felt cleaner, steadier and more open-hearted after embracing sobriety on 3.20.12, it seemed like a decent thing to say “okay, Faraci’s turning a corner, give him a break, allow him to become a better person.”

I’m very sorry for having said that. I should have bonded with the salivating wolves and said, “No, send him to hell….banish Faraci forever, kill his soul, exterminate his being, make him work as a cab driver or supermarket manager for the rest of his life.” I should have said that but I was too weak. I would love to possess the judgmental fibre of those fine people who’ve succeeded in changing League’s mind and persuading him to boot Faraci once and for all, but I haven’t found a way to do that yet. Help me, God….help me find the way.

Angelina Jolie‘s Evelyn Salt was trained as a child in a tough Russian Academy for lethal super-spies also…no? And then she went on to become a kind of double-agent? Red Sparrow (20th Century Fox, 3.2.18) is obviously a kind of retread. Director Francis Lawrence, the director of not one or two but three Hunger Games movies, is everyone’s idea of a hack, a journeyman, a well-paid stooge. In short, the perfect guy to helm Red Sparrow. Jennifer Lawrence looks either miserable or emotionally shut down or a combination of the two. I can’t wait to suffer through this thing.

“Drafted against her will to become a ‘Sparrow,’ a trained seductress in the service of Russian intelligence, Dominika is assigned to operate against Nathaniel Nash, a first-tour CIA officer who handles the CIA’s most sensitive penetration of Russian intelligence. The two young intelligence officers, trained in their respective spy schools, collide in a charged atmosphere of tradecraft, deception, and, inevitably, a forbidden spiral of carnal attraction that threatens their careers and the security of America’s most valuable mole in Moscow.” — from Amazon summary of Jason Matthews ‘Red Sparrow’ trilogy.

The great Frank Vincent has passed on. He made dozens of films during his 40-year career, but as far as most of us are concerned he played only four roles — Salvy in Raging Bull, William “Billy Batts” Bentvena in Goodfellas, Frank Marino in Casino and Phil Leotardo in The Sopranos. White-haired, squashed-head Phil is really sleeping with the fishes now.

From Jordan Hoffman’s Guardian review: “Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond — The Story of Jim Carrey & Andy Kaufman With a Very Special, Contractually Obligated Mention of Tony Clifton is an extremely watchable movie. It isn’t nearly as deep as it thinks it is, but it is marvellously entertaining.

“For a start, we get Carrey, today, speaking to us via interrotron and looking a lot like late-period Jim Morrison. At first, his recollection of his early career is lucid, but when he starts giving rich, psychoanalytical readings of his 90s comedies, and discussing how an artist has to live ‘up here’ at all times, it’s clear that he’s gone a little off the rails. Unless he just wants us to think that…

“Jim Carrey is gone. He never existed.” Watch the exclusive interview #TIFF17 | Variety Studio presented by @att pic.twitter.com/LBLa8DoaBH

— Variety (@Variety) September 13, 2017

“The material of him on set is unbelievable. Watch him annoy the hair and makeup people with loud music, watch him crash cars on the lot and trespass into Steven Spielberg’s office. Gaze on with wonder as this pompous and very talented clown refuses to answer to the name Jim. Co-star Danny DeVito thinks it’s funny but Judd Hirsch is just not having it.

“When Kaufman’s foe, wrestler Jerry Lawler, comes to set playing himself, all hell breaks loose. Carrey refuses to break character, and it results in an injury. (Maybe — who knows if any of this is real?) Forman looks exasperated, but Carrey is the star and if this is what Carrey sees as his process, Forman will have to put up with it.

From a 9.13 USA Today interview with mother! star Javier Bardem, written by Andrea Mandell: “Darren Aronofsky is the opposite of my character [in mother!]” says Bardem. “He’s more into Jennifer [Lawrence]’s character than my character. When I met him I was like, ‘Where is this darkness coming from?’ Because he is the opposite of that. He’s nice, caring, generous, funny, very creative.

“But then I saw when he works, he doesn’t expect anything [less] than perfection. He is relentless.”

Certain contenders have fallen off the map after Telluride and the first six days of the Toronto Film Festival. Here’s how I honestly see things now via my most recent Gold Derby picks. Tell me what I’m missing or overlooking. I’ll be seeing The Wife tomorrow night so we’ll know soon enough if Glenn Close is in fact a new contender in the Best Actress race. The below boxes are as follows from the top down: Best Picture (boxes 1 & 2), Best Director (box 3), Best Actor (4), Best Actress (5), Best Supporting Actor (6) and Best Supporting Actress (7).

It was reported yesterday that that Drafthouse CEO Tim League has decided to show a little compassion and largesse to Devin Faraci, the Birth.Movies.Death editor who lost his job amid allegations of a long-ago incident of sexual assault. League said that in light of Faraci having “entered recovery” and embraced sobriety since the allegations were made, he’s offered Faraci some work — copywriting at Alamo Drafthouse and writing blurbs for the Fantastic Fest guide.

“Seeing the work that Devin has been doing to acknowledge his faults, to address his addiction, and to better himself, I thought it was important to contribute to his recovery process by helping him with some means to earn a living,’ League said.

Speaking as one who became sober on 3.20.12 and who knows a little something about the clarity of mind and sense of stability that sobriety can bring, I think it’s great that Devin has taken this path. You have to show a little love in this world, we all make mistakes, people deserve second chances, etc.

Certain voices on Twitter have voiced disagreement with League and actually called for reprisals. People like this make me want to vomit. I know that Devin has some enemies and that maybe he’s earned their enmity, but journos who call for the utter ruination of fellows in their own trade are, in my opinion, grotesque. I pray that God will bring an appropriate dose of counter-karma into their lives.

I would never, ever come within 100 feet of a guy like Wiseau. Who in their right mind would? So you have to wonder about Dave Franco‘s character…where could he possibly be coming from? How many brain cells is he bringing to the table? I missed The Disaster Artist screenings here in Toronto. A24 is distributing, opening on 12.1…no invites in the inbox.