By DANIEL FINNEGAN

STAFF WRITER

On Sunday, Sept. 15, the festival judges announced 12 Years A Slave as the recipient of the 2013 People’s Choice Award, the highest honor at the festival. With great reviews already from the Telluride Film Festival, 12 Years a Slave is hoping to follow the mold of previous People’s Choice Award winners and garner a nomination for Best Picture. Four of the last five winners received Best Picture nominations. The King’s Speech and Slumdog Millionaire both went on to win. Although the festival’s lineup contained more obvious, crowd-pleasing choices for the award, the crowds instead voted for Steve McQueen’s callous and wrenching portrayal of a freed black man who was kidnapped and sold into slavery. Receiving nothing short of rave reviews, the film is also likely to garner nominations for its powerful performances by Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender and Lupita Nyong’o. Fassbender’s nomination will be tricky, considering the horrific and evil nature of his character and the Academy’s preference for congenial performances, though he still deserves the nomination. The film is also likely to garner a well-deserved nomination for Steve McQueen, who is quickly becoming one of the most interesting directors in the film industry.

Two films were runners-up for the People’s Choice Award as well. This year both Stephen Frears’ Philomena and Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners came close to receiving the award and have been garnering rave reviews from the festival. Philomena pairs Judi Dench with Steve Coogan in a powerful portrayal of an unmarried Irish-Catholic who sets out on a mission to find her newborn son after her community forces her to give up the boy. Dench delivers a fantastic, Oscar-worthy performance and Steve Coogan deviates from his normal, more comedic choice of roles. Prisoners is a tense thriller concerning the disappearance of two little girls and a father’s frightening quest to discover the truth behind it. Prisoners contains some of Jake Gyllenhaal and Hugh Jackman’s finest acting, allowing Jackman to dominate the screen with his physical presence.

Also premiering at Toronto was sure-fire Oscar contender Gravity and indie-darling Joe. While Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity has wowed audiences with its spectacular cinematography, visual effects and superb use of 3-D, Sandra Bullock and George Clooney’s performances have been a great surprise, impressing audiences and critics alike. Joe has also been garnering high praise for its acting, with many critics viewing it as a return to form for both lead actor Nicolas Cage and director David Gordon Green. Nicholas Cage, perhaps better known for the hilarious compilation videos of his overacting, delivers a convincing portrait of a decent, hardworking man, with a repressed violent nature. More importantly, Joe represents David Gordon Green’s return to drama, following his disappointing efforts with Your Highness and The Sitter. Hopefully, this represents a return to the independent, visually stunning films from the beginning of his career, allowing him to earn the praise as Terrence Malick’s successor.

While Toronto is known for its expansive variety of great films, there were, of course, numerous films that did not receive the positive reactions they had hoped for. August: Osage County had high hopes for the Oscar season and a star-studded cast with strong acting, including a brilliant performance by Meryl Streep (no surprise there). Critics were not impressed, however, by the theatrical filming style, melodramatic tone and surprising change in ending from its adapted material. Also not living up to its hype, The Fifth Estate has been criticized for its preachy script, muddled direction and overall lack of clarity. While Benedict Cumberbatch has received rave reviews for his magnetic performance as Julian Assange, the Wikileaks founder, the film suffers from the ongoing case against Assange and the prevalent nature of the plot.

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p dir=”ltr”>Initially begun as a 10-day film festival, the Toronto International Film Festival has grown to be considered the second most important film festival after Cannes. It provides an outlet for the best that international, Hollywood and Canadian cinema have to offer, while also acting as a springboard for numerous Oscar contenders.