TIFF 2011: Sarah Palin: You Betcha!, God Bless America and Killer Joe

There were several films at this year's TIFF that really captured something of the zeitgeist. One was a documentary, two were black comedies, and all three are not likely to become mainstream hits in the short term, simply because they tell the truth about the times we live in. I'll start with Nick Broomfield's Sarah Palin: You Betcha!, mostly because it had the best title of the festival and I never tire of repeating it. Anyone familiar with Broomfield's work to date will know what to expect from this film: as per usual, Broomfield tries to go through the official channels to interview a celebrity, and then, on failing, he gets there in his own bumbling fashion. In this case the subject is the Alaskan Republican politician who ran for vice-presidency in the 2008 elections, making history in the short term as the first female to do so. In the long term, however, Palin became more famous for her hunting skills, dysfunctional family and pathetic grasp of history, geography and syntax.

Like many docs these days, Broomfield's film relies a lot on the shocking grain of blown-up video library footage (which will doubtless look better on TV). Add this to the handheld camera of his usual style and the first half hour or so of this film doesn't really seem to be going anywhere at all. I don't remember the exact tipping point, though, but midway through there comes a moment when the director starts to reveal an impressive agenda. This isn't really a film about Palin the woman at all but a film about Palin the media phenomenon; Broomfield soon understands that Palin will never talk to him, not because she's scared but simply because she doesn't need to. Broomfield, in the film's vernacular, is not “a Palinbot” and therefore not open to her cheerful stupidity, which is brazenly marketed to her supporters as a kind of lower middle-class street smarts. I won't spoil the “Attica!” moment, but just when you think the film has nowhere to go, Broomfield literally rises to the occasion. Unlike any of his other films, this really is a film with a specific aim, and it sidesteps tabloid tattle to address the fundamental scariness of Palin's logic and that of her insane Tea Party followers. It's like the beer garden scene in Cabaret, with Broomfield in Michael York's shoes asking us, “Do you really think you can control them?” Seeing this, I'm not so sure we can.
The film that made me laugh more than anything I've seen this whole year was Bobcat Goldthwait's God Bless America (pictured). I'm a big Bobcat fan/apologist, and, though it's somewhat flawed (more on that later), this is his most fully realised film since Shakes The Clown. It stars Joel Murray – an actor who I'd never heard of but whose CV is brilliant, including Mad Men, two Hatchet films and The Cable Guy – and this could be the film that brings an unexpected bloom to his already prolific career. He plays Frank, a schlubby office worker who is laid off from work at pretty much the same time he discovers he has a brain tumour. Modern life is getting him down. His next-door neighbours and workmates are cretins, the TV pimps energy drinks and shitty reality shows, and his own, estranged pre-teen daughter – a pampered, nasty little princess – hates him. So in a fit of pique, Frank decided to vent his spleen: he gets his gun, steals the neighbour's car and goes postal.
Produced by Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly's Darko Entertainment, God Bless America is the very definition of a cult film. It's strong, both in violence and language, and it will NOT appeal to everyone. Goldthwait, though, has a unique voice in black comedy, in that he has a rare ability to juggle extreme situations with very human drama. Here, that function is fulfilled by Tara Lynne Barr as Roxy, who becomes Frank's teenage accomplice on the road. Roxy thinks they're the new Bonnie and Clyde, but the truth is closer to Paper Moon, with a side dish of Natural Born Killers. Some debits are that the film is a bit over-talky in places, and the look of the film isn't always especially special. But when it's working, God Bless America really pushes all the right buttons, like an acidic, R-rated companion piece (or prequel) to Mike Judge's underrated Idiocracy (2006).
The third of these films is William Friedkin's Killer Joe, a follow-up of sorts to his 2006 film Bug, in that it's also written by playwright Tracy Letts. I didn't see Bug, and I don't recall why, but I'll certainly seek it out now after this pitch-black, definition-of-edgy movie. The stage roots show, but there's a delicious dark humour here that makes up for some of its shortfalls. In essence, it's about a white-trash-Flintstones-like family, and what the film lacks in scope – it's a Fargo thing, with a band of even more stupid conspirators – it makes up for with character and performances. The nominal lead is Emile Hirsch as Chris, a smalltown drug dealer who finds himself in debt to the local Mr Big, so, to raise the cash, he decides to have his mother murdered for the insurance money, hiring the services of cop and part-time assassin Joe (Matthew McConaughey) and cajoling his fucked-up family – estranged father Ansel (Thomas Haden Church), stepmom Sharla (Gina Gershon) and little sister Dottie (Juno Temple) – into the deal. In Toronto I overheard the film being favourably compared to Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, which slightly overstates the case, even if the film does share a certain claustrophobic sensibility and a similarly wonderful concept of bad taste. But the clincher for me was Britain's Juno Temple as the deranged but somehow innocent Dottie; while all this grimy trailer-park horror is unfolding around her, Dottie's berserk golly-gee attitude keeps the film grounded.

I didn't love Killer Joe, partly because I was exhausted, but it's definitely fun, and I think I'll return to it because, like the original stage play, it's a film about characters and morality rather than story (even Friedkin copped to some weird plot holes at the post-screening Q&A I attended). And that in itself is important, since that's a perfect reflection of the times we live in. Personality as threat: that's what we're up against.