Toronto Stories (2008) User Reviews

2 out of 4 ain't bad

[CrowTRobert · 6/10 · 4 August 2009]

This movie represents a good effort but fails to deliver the quintessential "Toronto snapshot" it really should have.

The first segment, "Shoelaces", touches on a pair of bullied & abused kids (themes not exactly exclusive to the city of Toronto) and strangely on the notion of a bizarre creature living underground.

The second segment, "The Brazilian" is the stand-out short, featuring Sook-Yin Lee (she wrote it, after all) and indie actor Tygh Runyan. Nothing echoes the vibe of Toronto better than the story of 2 awkward, emotionally-stilted eccentrics looking for love but unable to break down the emotional walls between them. Quirky and just a bit sardonic, this story is as Torontonian as Queen West.

Stories 3 and 4 tumble in the wake of "The Brazilian", focusing on a hostage situation from an escaped convict who can't accept his ex-girlfriend not wanting anything to do with him, and a drug addict homeless man (Gil Bellows) desperately striving to save a lost child to make up for the loss of his own child.

These latter stories are too dark, too gritty and would feel more at home in an anthology series about New York City or LA. They don't capture the spirit of Toronto, they don't sound like the people when the characters speak. They don't inspire interest.

Two out of four isn't bad, but if there's a sequel, the producers should take a broader look across the GTA.

An Interesting concept with vastly different levels of film quality and style

[Robert_duder · 7/10 · 20 June 2014]

I am not from Toronto but I frequent there regularly. In fact, Toronto is my getaway. I love that city!! I fell in love with it many years ago when I spent a lot of time there. So I was eager to see this movie that focused on the city I love so much. I expected it to be an "artsy" style film and in some respects it is. The tough part about the movie is that there are individual stories, with one common link and all directed by four different directors. This is tough because some of the stories range from exceptionally good to really, really awful. It actually makes for an average film as a whole but in order to be fair to it I have to review each instalment as its own entity.

The first part is average at best. Two youngsters experience a single coming of age type day and it tries to cram an achingly predictable coming of age movie all into one 15 minute-ish short. It is truly average in every sense of the word although Samantha Weinstein is very good as the young girl and Ricardo Hoyos is decent if not a little bland as the main character of the story. Their chemistry doesn't particularly impress but it's a sub-par script with okay direction. So the film gets off to an okay start. First part 6/10

Then we take a complete crash and burn with the story of two lovers in very different spots in their personal lives and their opinions on their relationship. This is just awful with blatant and unnecessary nudity, attempts at raunchy humour that comes across as awkward and dumb and just horrendous performances from Sook-Yin Lee and Tygh Runyan. You want to talk about a total lack of chemistry. Watching these two is like torture. Lee's character is so incredibly irritating that I would have ditched her too. This story is pointless, torturous to watch and ruins the movie completely. I understand the hatred for this film based on that story alone. 2/10

It's the middle point of the film where things take a substantial and wonderful turn. The last two instalments of the film are really, really good. The third story in the movie really has very little to do with Toronto but its well acted, well written and very well directed. KC Collins leads the threesome of actors and is top notch. You actually care about his character, they establish a little bit of a background and he is very good. Carly Pope was the one aspect of this instalment I didn't care for. She comes across like a New Jersey housewife but she serves her purpose decently enough. Joris Jarsky is somewhere in between the two of them. He's good but a little manic and overacts just a little bit but it works and the three of them together make it a very interesting story. 8/10

I was pleased to have the film take a turn for the better. And then I was even more pleased to have the film end with a story that was the best of all of them and was actually everything I expected from this movie. Gil Bellows gives one of the best performances I've ever seen from him as a post-trauma homeless man who becomes obsessed with stopping a potential kidnapping. Bellows is riveting and I have never said that about him…ever. It features scenes in Union Station and the darker sides of Toronto. It is gritty, edge of your seat and brilliantly written. An absolute 8.5/10

So as you can see this film is all over the place which makes it sort of a mess. I've never seen a film I don't think that goes from being a 2 to an 8.5 Just from the laws of average the entire film I would give a 7 which isn't bad but that 7 belongs squarely in the final two stories. The story that links everything together of the young immigrant boy roaming Toronto is decent enough but mostly comes into play in the last story. The young boy played by Toka Murphy, his only credit whatsoever, does a great job without hardly ever saying a word.

Toronto Stories is a mixed bag. I think I expected to see more of Toronto and that the various directors would use the city more and make it come to life and despite a few familiar locations, it let me down in that respect. Still I didn't find it a total waste like some did but definitely hang in for the whole movie because the best is nearly the last. 7/10

Good Movie, Could of been Great

[staffanth · 7/10 · 28 August 2009]

I got into this movie because of it taking place in my hometown. There are four stories all connected by an immigrant boy who somehow arrives in toronto and just keeps running around toronto.

Things I Liked; -the fact that i could relate to the locations the story took place -acting was great, especially the hobo guy in the last one -used some key locations in toronto -it was my first "indie" film and i was really surprised

Things I Didn't Like: -the boy running around really didn't have a purpose. he wasn't looking for anything, had no goal once in toronto. the movie didn't really need him. -i wished the stories were longer. as soon as i started getting attached to the characters, the story would end. i left feeling like i wanted more. -i wished they used some GTA locations not just the centre of toronto. i would be able to relate much much more.

Overall it could of been better, but it still surprised and impressed me. 7/10

An enjoyable look at my hometown

[TheLastPersonStanding · 17 December 2008]

Very few films I've seen take place in the city of Toronto. So, when I heard about this film, and how it looked similar to "Paris, je t'aime", I immediately wanted to see it. I was not disappointed. "Toronto Stories" does a fine job at showing people's lives, without sugarcoating their stories, like the feel you might get when you walk into a Starbucks.

The four stories are all linked, in one way or another, to a young boy, who mysteriously shows up by himself at the Toronto Pearson International Airport. He also doesn't speak English, and after he's taken into custody at the airport, he manages to escape, gets on a bus, and begins to wander around the city. We're never told what he's looking for, though. It's as if he only exists to be the connection in each story. That's one of the few things I didn't like about the film, because it feels like a gimmick. However, this changes in the last story, sort of.

First, the boy randomly meets another young boy named Jacob in a park. After they spend a small part of the day together, the lost boy wanders off, again. Jacob thinks nothing of it, and spends time with his only friend Cayle, a young girl. They have a cute relationship, together, as they go back to the park, fight off a group of bullies, and discover what might be a monster living in an underground tunnel. It's not until nightfall that they meet the so-called monster. This is where the film begins to take a slight turn. Stop motion animation is used for a creepy nightmare scene. The kids' journey through the park sort of becomes a horror film, but it works. It doesn't derail too much from the style previously in the film.

Then, we get into a story about an awkward romance between a young woman and a young man, who meet in a bar. Their romance is much more awkward than in Woody Allen's "Annie Hall", and their dialogue is very funny. The guy is eccentric, with shaved pubes, and dresses in hip-hop clothes. "I'm like Polkaroo", he says. If you don't know who Polkaroo is, look it up, or better yet, wait to see the film. Despite the awkwardness in their relationship, I found it to be sweet and amusing. The lost boy also shows up, and wanders off, yet again.

This is also where the tone of the story changes, again. The last two stories are about crime, and homelessness. A home invasion scene between two ex-lovers is suspenseful, and in a dark way, kinda funny. The criminal who invades the house acts tough, but he also feels bad he's doing this. For the last story, the lost boy gets involved more in the film, like I said. He's kidnapped in Union Station (a famous Toronto landmark) by a man, who might be a pedophile. A homeless man, who plays chess with anyone passing by, sees this, and goes to find them.

So, as a fellow Torontonian, as we like to call ourselves, it was nice to look at the familiar and not so familiar locations of the city. However, the film is more than just that. It's a realistic portrayal of life. The acting is all good, and the movie is well lite. Although the tone is kind of uneven, like "Paris, je t'aime", and again, I'm not sure if I buy how the lost kid appears off and on throughout the film, these are all minor criticisms. In their own way, the characters bring the city to life. Life itself isn't always pleasant, but it's still life.

could be A LOT better

[lerocketrusse · 3/10 · 6 May 2009]

I guess this movie was trying to model after Paris Je T'aime.

But living in Toronto, I was not blown away and I feel that this movie could be done a lot better in a more realistic setting, similar to City Rats (another movie focused on London, England) - for example, there are many many places the setting could have taken place, but most of it seems to be really really local (almost too local) - if I were a tourist and had only spent a week in Toronto, I doubt I could identify anything in the movie (except the union station perhaps).

In short I think the film makers were trying too much to tell the stories in a micro-lens, but I feel that if they step back a little bit and tell the stories in a macro-lens, it would be much more realistic and inviting for people to relate to the stories.

Paris is known as the city of love - so Paris, je t'aime is a movie of 20+ mini stories about love; well, we live in Toronto, I think multi-culturalism is something that we Torontonians are proud of, I feel that not enough of multi-culturalism is portrayed here......

Over all, if this were a movie for Torontonians only, I think it did its job to help Torontonians to feel something for the city; but if the purpose of the movie is to show the the city and provide a more realistic insight into a day in the live of a Torontonian for people who are not familiar with Toronto, I think it could be done A LOT better.

Flawed

[JohnLeninist · 3/10 · 2 February 2013]

This film suffers from a general lack of focus, being stitched together from four separate stories of varying degrees of incoherence, supposedly linked by a common thread. But the common thread turns out to be nothing more than a transparent plot device, and has nothing whatever to do with any of the stories except the fourth. None of the performances are particularly good, but to be fair to the actors, this may have had as much to do with the stilted dialogue that plagued much of the script (which itself may have been the product of a largely undeveloped concept). The net result is a film in which it seems that four scripts-in-progress have been mashed together, and at least two of the stories have the earmarks of having been jammed in largely unfinished: in Shoelaces, the interplay between the boy and girl and the events they encounter is more confusing to the audience than it is to the characters themselves and the story fails to come to any sort of conclusion or even leave the audience with a coherent question. In The Brazilian, the characters' motivations are murky when not equivocal--which seems not to have been deliberate on the part of the author(s) or film maker(s). The third segment of the picture is better, but choppy and without direction. The fourth story has the most going for it, featuring the best performances of the film in the characters of the disturbed homeless chess hustler, Henry, and (albeit a comparatively small role) that of the woman who turns out to be Henry's estranged wife and mother of their lost son. Ultimately, however, as art, the project confuses more than evokes, and therefore fails. Unfortunately, the principal entertainment value, for those who live or have lived in Toronto, lies in spotting familiar locales; for the rest of the audience, it can only be the same morbid fascination that keeps us from averting our eyes at the scene of a car wreck. Not recommended.

If you want to watch a good movie about big city life, this ain't it!

[TorontoLiver · 2/10 · 6 April 2011]

Toronto Stories is not a good movie choice if you want to see a film about Canada. This film depicts Toronto in all the wrong ways, kid! This so-called movie isn't really even a movie, just a long commercial!

Toronto Stories is about the lives of four totally different people, all taking place in Toronto. But the film is just too dull and messy for any of those 4 stories to make sense! The damn dialogue is not good at all. The poor actors are talking throughout the movie, but there is nothing interesting in what they're saying. The actors themselves now, I don't think those actors are that bad, but in THIS film, they don't do a very good job. Carly Pope played the wife of an escape convict, and she played a kind of good role. There were a couple of good scenes in the movie, but unfortunately, the bad scenes outweigh the good ones, and the movie's just too boring for most people to enjoy. There are lots of other good movies that are boring but are at the same time interesting. Toronto Stories is not one of those movies.

I live in Toronto, and I hated this film! I think the movie could of been better if there was more comedy, and good comedy. This movie was also extremely unfunny. Please skip the movie Toronto Stories. This is a really terrible movie!