TIFF Experience: Tickets & Rush Lines

The saga of I and my companion actually getting to see Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein spans almost a consecutive twenty-seven hours.

Tickets were impossible to get for Wake Up Dead Man and Frankenstein for any regular TIFF member (and even for several of the higher-ranking ones, if rumors are to be believed), and/or anyone with less than $400 a ticket to burn, for quite some time.

(I would know just how impossible it was for a regular member to snag these tickets: I spent four hours in ticket queue lines while on the worst road trip of my life only to be in a triple-digit place in the online queue, and several similar experiences that entire week were had after waking up absurdly early in my cheap motel room, all to come out of it empty-handed.)

That died down a bit eventually, with later screenings at normal prices (or at least significantly less inflated ones), but those tickets were still fairly competitive and we both had our hearts set on the premiere screenings, so we picked up rush passes instead—significantly cheaper than even a single ticket to either premiere, unless you somehow got very lucky. While Wake Up Dead Man was my friend's most hyped film, I was decidedly more excited for Frankenstein.

Rush, for context, is different from standard admission: in theory, it's used to fill empty seats. 

(In practice there's often large sections of empty seating anyway, paired with upset and disappointed people outside. Supposedly this is done to avoid disturbing audience members, but when entire rows or sections are empty it's difficult to reconcile the stated purpose with the lived experience.)

A Rush pass allows unlimited access to Rush, so if you get in you don't have to pay the ticket price: just scan the pass you already paid for.

(A Rush pass this year was $80. Regular screening Rush was $29, premium Rush apparently started at $43.)

On the first day of our tale, we arrived around noon for the rush line for the premiere of Frankenstein at 6 PM.

We were the 50th and 51st in line, and didn't even get close to getting in.

So we made a plan: knowing the next screening was at 11:30 AM the next day, and that an unofficial line would almost certainly begin around 6 or 7 AM (well before either festival or venue staff began to arrive), we camped out in the Entertainment District overnight.

We found a place to charge our dead-and-dying phones and rested a while, made our way to a restaurant to kill some time (shoutout to the Bombay; a fantastic Indian place not far from the festival that was open until 6 AM!), and then found our primary spot: a 24-hour A&W (well, technically 23; they kicked us out at 6 for cleaning).

This was our chosen place for two reasons: it was inside with places to sit (since we're both physically disabled, and I was getting cold outside), and had a good view of the venue's eventual Rush line.

It was around 7 AM that the line formally began, with me sitting at a nearby Starbucks while my friend joined with the line for a bit and explained our situation.

I wasn't there, but I was told they were sympathetic to our experience, and given that we were in fact counted as first and second in line when staff did eventually show (after 10 AM) I'm inclined to believe that was in fact the truth.

We were lucky in that they did, in fact, allow Rush into this screening (not always guaranteed), and as the first two in line we made it in easily.

Rush sometimes doesn't get in until up to twenty minutes into the screening, but we managed to get in before the actual start of the film. I'm pretty sure I missed the first couple minutes anyway, but not enough to be missing anything important.

It's highly talked up among festival-goers, particularly for the atmosphere of Rush lines, but as disabled individuals that's an experience we largely missed out on. There are lobby passes to allow sitting in the lobby rather than standing in lines for over an hour, but this keeps you separate from everyone else; there aren't many chances to strike up conversation when it's just you.

(Additionally, these extremely long lines forming hours before any formal start time is itself inaccessible; the fact is that you're forced to camp out regardless of physical ability, especially for an earlier screening, because no one will be tracking the numbers until much later. We were placed at a disadvantage that most people in line presumably did not have.)

In the end, I didn't exactly hate my experience with the Rush pass, but I don't think I'd do it again. 

Which may well be my opinion on TIFF in general, unless I somehow come into enough money to actually justify the expense of a curated ticket package or something similar.

Film Review: Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein (2025)

Like so many before me, and so many who will no doubt follow after, I spent most of my youth (and my teenage years in particular) depressed.

For me it was this slow, quiet, all-consuming sense of despair. A sadness that I couldn't shake, even on the best and happiest days of my life.

Knowing that it wouldn’t matter. That it wouldn’t last.

I knew in my heart, in my soul, that I wouldn't live to see the future. It was a vague, nebulous concept: something that only existed in theory, for other people. 

Over the years, I learned to carry the weight of it better. Eventually, I found a strength not everyone does, and I forged that despair into anger. Rage against a world that had failed me time and again.

One day, after years and years of this, the metaphorical clouds parted. At last, I could see the sun without straining for it.

It was a slow realization, a cool autumn breeze passing by, and somehow—over a stretch of time that suddenly seemed limitless and infinite—I realized that I wanted to live.

And at the same time, I realized that I didn't know how.

Suddenly, the world was unfamiliar. Beautiful and new and terrifying. It had moved on without me and left me behind, and all I could do was try and fail to catch up.

I came to understand, eventually, that it still wasn't made for someone like me.

I say all of this to explain, in a way that I hope is easily understandable, why Guillermo del Toro's take on Frankenstein resonates so strongly with me.

If pressed, I might describe it as a meditation on life, death, and what it means to be a person.

As told here, del Toro's vision is a story in three parts: the origin of Victor Frankenstein and that of the Creature, each from their own perspectives, and the story that unfolds between them at last.

The framing device sees Victor Frankenstein rescued from near-death by a ship's captain as the crew fends off a monster, telling the story of how he came to be in this frozen wasteland in the first place.

Victor Frankenstein, as portrayed by Oscar Isaac (and Christian Convery for his childhood counterpart), is an outcast who feels close to his mother due to their shared disposition (before her tragic death) and estranged from his father, who is interested in him less as a son and more as a project; something to be molded into his father's vision for him.

The loss of his mother sparks a lifelong obsession with the concept of conquering death, which leads to the creation of the Creature—who remains technically nameless for the duration of the film.

(The prevailing wisdom, as far as I can understand discussions of the novel, is that his name should likely be Adam. For me, the conclusion of this film seems to indicate something else.)

From his early innocence and curiosity to the way the world twists him into something wicked and dangerous, molding him into a monster by refusing to consider that he may be anything else, the Creature is perfectly portrayed by Jacob Elordi.

Given his tendency to sympathize with perceived monsters, Frankenstein is perhaps the single most perfect fit for del Toro's style of storytelling.

In the end, his approach takes a sympathetic view of man and monster. There are shades of both to be found in each, and he emphasizes this fact at every opportunity.

Victor is single-minded to the point of obsession, seeming not to care for the people around him or the life he creates, oblivious or uncaring of the discomfort and fear that precedes him—yet he was once a child himself, and he has remained painfully human throughout his life.

Meanwhile, the Creature kills indiscriminately in the course of his hunt for Victor, allowing himself to become a monster after failing to be considered as anything else. Despite that, it would seem apparent that the most important thing he has been is a friend; bonding first with Victor's future sister in law, Elizabeth, and later with an elderly farmer. 

The moment that will, I think, haunt me for the rest of my life comes as the film approaches its end: not a confrontation between man and monster, but reconciliation between father and son.

The Creature has seemingly achieved true immortality, overcoming death as Victor intended, and as such he has been cursed with the inability to ever truly find peace. He may never be laid to rest.

What, then, is someone who can never really die meant to do?

"While you are alive, what recourse do you have but to live?"

I still feel out of step with the world, like it somehow passed me by while I was sleeping. I still don't know what it will take before I can truly feel like myself.

In the end, I am alive.

What recourse do I have but to live?

TIFF Experience: The Toronto International Film Festival

The Toronto International Film Festival celebrated its fiftieth anniversary this year, which made me realize that I've never actually attended it, despite the fact that I've heard it's one of very few film festivals that's actually open to the public. 

I attended a single free screening last year, on a random mid-week afternoon, but this year I had suggested attending the festival itself for real with one of my closest friends—specifically because I knew two films that they were very interested in watching were extremely likely to premiere here.

Our entire itinerary was based around those two films: Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (which did it fact get its World Premiere at TIFF, as both of its predecessors once did), and Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein (which had its North American Premiere status stripped last-minute by a surprise screening at Telluride a week or so before).

We saw several other movies, and skipped a lot of things that interested us, but the entire experience was based around getting to see both of those—and we actually succeeded in doing so, despite a few close calls!

I've been slowly working on reviews and commentary on my experiences at the festival, but I've also been very busy with life in general, so these are starting to come out now as the movies they're about are actually releasing.

The films that we saw, and that you can expect to hopefully see reviews or discussion of on here, are as follows:

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (World Premiere screening!)

Exit 8 (I didn't actually watch this one, but I was there for most of it. I won't be attempting to review it myself, but I did ask if the friend I attended with would do so.)

Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein (Second TIFF screening)

Scarlet

Dust Bunny

New Year's Rev

Little Amélie or the Character of Rain