The Julia Set

Just let you guys know all the synopses that we have pulled for these films are directly from the TIFF website.

So, the Julia set.

For Julia, mathematics has always come naturally, but growing up, she learned to downplay her abilities to draw attention away from her high-need sibling and perhaps not disrupt the expectations of others.

Before long, though, her intellectual talents are recognized by a teaching assistant, Pascal, who recruits her into an elite group of student prodigies training for a highly prestigious undergraduate mathematics competition, the Putnam Exam.

And for reference, when you're assigned to the carpet, they give you a spot on the carpet.

Exactly.

And for the Julia set, I believe we were like number 33 out of 40 something.

So like we're towards the end.

hmm.

All right, and the last film that we're going to be talking about is a little film called The Julia Set, which is a story about a young up-and-coming mathematician who is trying to study to become a super elite mathematician, I guess.

I don't know the better way to describe it.

But basically, she's... finds her way into a program that is sort of, um, leading up to a special magical test, um, that has some sort of competitive element to it.

But I think it is surprisingly solid.

And I am like...

I'm a defender of the Julia set.

I think there is room for this kind of coming-of-age story tackling a subject matter that I feel like... movies typically wouldn't, especially movies about girls or black women in particular.

Whoa.

And then some people, I was gonna say called us out, not in a bad way, they were just like, "Oh, I'm kinda disappointed you guys didn't talk about, uh, the Julia set," because we were talking about spooky season.

Yes.

So we did a lot of, like, predictions about Lola's movie, and then we talked about Clashing Through the Snow.

But then we got all this Tiff content.

Lots of Tiff content.

So we have thoughts on the Tiff content, and we're gonna talk about the Julia set, but more specifically there's been new news with the Julia set.

It's probably, like, two and a half weeks old now, but we haven't talked about it, so we're gonna talk about it.

Yeah.

The last movie I wanted to mention on my list was the Julia set, which I know you didn't have a chance to see, but I really enjoyed this movie.

And this was one that I also think... did not necessarily get good reviews across the board.

i think a lot of people seem to be disappointed with the writing and the storytelling from people i talked to and reviews i read, but this movie really worked for me.

chase infinity is just fantastic in every single thing she's in and she doesn't even have that long of a filmography yet at this point in her career, but she is just so captivating and i don't really know how to explain it like i'm trying to think across different genres that she's been in and like a constant thing with her performances but she is just so intriguing as a performer to watch she has so much like grit and passion with all the characters she portrays on the screen that you can't help but but want to root for her and kind of want the best for her in some cases and this one in the julia set included uh christopher briney is also in this film he portrays a ta at the university that him and chase's character both attend and they end up forming a relationship while both studying for the putnam exam which is a renowned very difficult math exam and And Christopher Briney plays this very, very hateable character, which you don't necessarily expect going into it.

And he takes a very sharp turn for the worst.

There was a very big sense of camaraderie in my screening that to the point where people were like yelling at him.

Okay, so what is one, Ben, that you went in and you lined up and you went, it's on your list of all these dozens of movies you wanted to see, and you're sitting there and you're going, oh, no, this is not one of the key persons.

I was disappointed by a movie called The Julia Set starring Chase Infinity.

This is going to be coming out in theaters a little later on this fall.

Chase Infinity was fantastic in last year's Best Picture winner, One Battle After Another.

I'm Larry Mantel.

It's the final weekend of the 51st annual Toronto International Film Festival, one of the greatest of North America.

So many films have premieres here.

Often it's a preview of those that'll be in the top Oscar contention.

Joining us from Toronto to talk about what they've seen and some of their favorites, Amy Nicholson, Los Angeles Times film critic and host of the podcast Unspooled, and Maureen Lee Linker, LAist film critic and freelance critic and journalist.

Let's start with I Play Rocky.

Amy, what do you think of this film? And just give us a little bit of a thumbnail of it.

Yeah, well, this is the latest film by Peter Farrelly, who film nerds might remember, won the People's Choice Award at TIFF back in 2018 for Green Book.

I wanted to see a couple of films launching in Toronto.

So I saw the Julia set, which was this film with Chase Infinity, who broke out in one battle after another.

And it's kind of got a Goodwill hunting vibe mixed a little with Pygmalion, Jason Isaacs in it, Gillian Anderson.

And I thought that was effectively made.