Tina Kakadelis
With the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival at a close, it’s time to reflect on a few more films that were screened there. Be sure to check out Film Obsessive’s coverage of the People’s Choice Award winner Hamnet, First Runner-Up Frankenstein, and Second Runner-Up Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery. Also worth a look are the Midnight Madness People’s Choice Award First Runner-Up Obsession, FIPRESCI Prize winner Forastera, and Best Canadian Discovery Award winner Blue Heron.
To celebrate the end of the festival, News Editor Tina Kakadelis offers her final thoughts on one more group of films. Check out her thoughts on California Schemin’, A Useful Ghost, and The Sun Rises on Us All.
California Schemin’
Two guys from Dundee, Scotland, decide to pretend to be California rappers. What could go wrong? In the grand scheme of scams and cons, pretending to be American dudes isn’t the worst thing in the world, but in James McAvoy’s TIFF-world-premiering directorial debut, it proves to be quite the scandal.
Based on the true story of the rap duo, Silibil N’ Brains, a.k.a. Gavin Bain (Séamus McLean Ross) and Billy Boyd (Samuel Bottomley), California Schemin’ is a madcap, true-con saga of two guys desperate to make it in the cutthroat music industry of 2003. Everyone wanted the next Eminem, but no one wanted him to come from the heavily-accented world of Scotland. They’re laughed off the stage at an open audition when they rap with their real accents, but as soon as they drop them for California-bro-speak, they’re riding to the top of the charts. Of course, a swift rise to fame, especially one built on a hefty lie, often leads to a swift downfall as well.
The reason McAvoy wanted to make his directorial debut with California Schemin’ is clear. This is an underdog story born and raised in the place he’s from. Scottish pride radiates from every corner of the screen, and that’s what leads these friends down the path to lying. Their whole plan is to pretend to be American and then, when they’re on MTV or Top of the Pops, they’ll expose the hypocrisy of the industry. Instead of being written off as the “rapping Proclaimers,” they’ll have to be taken seriously. McAvoy came from humble beginnings in Glasgow, and, likely similarly to Gavin and Billy, thought his dreams of pursuing a creative endeavor were far off. California Schemin’ is as much of a love letter to Scotland as it is a swirling mess of a lie that continues to get worse and worse.
California Schemin’ can’t really be considered a music biopic, but it does follow a similar, familiar series of events. The rise to stardom, the inevitable fall, and the difficult reconciliation. There’s no biopic fatigue at all in California Schemin’, and that’s thanks to the palpable enthusiasm of the two leads. McLean Ross and Bottomley, as Silibil N’ Brains, are like puppy dogs with a dream they refuse to let go of. Immense joy bursts out of them with every spontaneous rap riff or pinch-me moment the friends experience. They are so easy to root for, and so is California Schemin’.
A Useful Ghost
Death comes to us all. It’s one of the only absolutes in life, although some billionaire somewhere is probably working right now to beat it. In a way, the TIFF/North-America-premiering film by Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, A Useful Ghost, cheats that inevitable ending. Part ghost story, part deconstruction of political suppression, A Useful Ghost is an ever-shifting, extraordinary work.
A family-run appliance factory is having problems with their products. It’s nothing electrical or industrial, but spiritual. After a death at the factory, spirits are possessing the appliances. It’s good news for March (Wisarut Himmarat), the son of the factory owner, because his pregnant wife, Nat (Davika Hoorne), recently died due to dust poisoning. In an attempt to be useful, Nat possesses a vacuum and is reunited with March. Together, the two have a hand in changing societal feelings around ghosts. This scenario is just the beginning of A Useful Ghost, which morphs into an exploration of grief, classism, and the history of Thailand.
At no point during A Useful Ghost can you guess where the film will go next. This sensation can be maddening in other films, where all the separate, strange threads of story never come together. A Useful Ghost is the opposite, maddeningly thrilling in the way of exciting filmmaking. Who could have fathomed that a movie where a man makes out with a vacuum cleaner also has a deeply insightful exploration of the 2010 Red Shirt protests in Thailand? The two are entirely antithetical, but Boonbunchachoke threads the needle to make them unequivocally connected.
A Useful Ghost is a film about memory and how it’s the burden of the living to remember those we loved who are no longer on this earth. It’s a painful pursuit that can stir up the sadness of grief, but the alternative is far worse. We are actively worse when we forget the ones we loved. The fact that they’re gone doesn’t mean their tangible impact on the world can be erased. A Useful Ghost moves from the small-scale story of a man and his wife to the larger feelings of those in political power who are attempting to silence the memories of people who died fighting for justice.
“My body has expired, but my love has not,” says Nat as a vacuum cleaner. She’s able to move freely as the vacuum, no need for electricity. It is love that powers her, and it is love that powers A Useful Ghost, a stunning fusion of genres that will help us discover where our future leads.
The Sun Rises on Us All
Celine Song’s Past Lives opens with the question, “Who are they to each other?” It’s a fascinating way to open a film, one that The Sun Rises on Us All does without literally asking that question. The film saw its North American premiere as part of TIFF after lead actress Xin Zhilei won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice International Film Festival.
The Sun Rises on Us All opens with Meiyun (Zhilei) at a hospital where she’s having an ultrasound done. Later, we see her in the hospital room of a man we haven’t yet been introduced to. There’s tension and familiarity there, but who are they to each other? The answer is simple and complicated. The man is Baoshu (Zhang Songwen), her ex-husband. Years ago, he took the fall for her during an accident, and they fell out of touch. It’s been seven years, and the secrets they swore they would keep are threatening to come to the surface.
The film’s title implies that there will be some source of hope for these characters. If the sun rises, there is light, and a new day allows for change. In reality, the title is more ominous, as if it’s referring to the secrets the couple has kept. The sun will rise and, in the stark daylight, these people will be forced to reckon with what they’ve done. It’s a take on the noir genre, but one that’s missing a deep foreboding undercurrent. The tension never seems to be escalating, so the audience is left with an indifferent feeling toward Baoshu, Meiyun, and her new married lover, Qifeng (Feng Shaofeng). The Sun Rises on Us All has a compelling set-up, but the execution is bogged down by a languidity that doesn’t work in its favor.
