The 2024 Telluride Film Festival kicked off August 30 and runs through September 2 in the Colorado mountains. Deadline is on the ground to watch all the key films.
Among the films appearing in the mountains for the first time anywhere are director Saturday Night, Jason Reitman’s tale of the 1975 first episode of SNL; the film version of August Wilson’s acclaimed stage play The Piano Lesson, a Washington family affair with producer Denzel, director Malcolm and star John David; Oscar winner Edward Berger’s papal thriller The Conclave; Scott Magehee and David Siegel’s heartwarming The Friend, starring Naomi Watts, Bill Murray and a scene-stealing Great Dane Bing; and MGM, Orion and Plan B’s Nickel Boys, an adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer-winning novel.
Below is a compilation of our reviews from the fest. Click on the movie’s title to read our full take.
Conclave
‘Conclave’
SXSW
Director: Edward Berger
Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Isabella Rossellini, Sergio Castellito, Carlos Diehz, Lucian Msamati, Brian F. O’Byrne
Deadline’s takeaway: A superbly crafted — in every respect — stunning dramatic achievement, this is the kind of well-regarded, praiseworthy adult drama that used to be a staple for studios but now is an increasingly rare bird.
The End
‘The End’
Felix Dickinson
NEON
Director: Joshua Oppenheimer
Cast: Tilda Swinton, Michael Shannon, George MacKay, Moses Ingram, Bronagh Gallagher, Tim McInnerny, Lennie James
Deadline’s takeaway: In some ways Oppenheimer’s seemingly bonkers idea of putting the plight of a family at the end of the world spilling their guts in increasingly depressing song makes creative sense. And yet still there is hope for humanity in this dire concept of a musical, and that is what we end up hanging on to.
The Friend
‘The Friend’
Telluride Film Festival
Directors: Scott McGehee & David Siegel
Cast: Naomi Watts, Bill Murray, Carla Gugino, Constance Wu, Noma Dumezweni, Sarah Pidgeon, Chloe Xhauflaire, Ann Dowd, Felix Solis, Tom McCarthy, Owen Teague, Josh Pais, Apollo
Deadline’s takeaway: Scott McGehee and David Siegel have crafted a wonderfully human, quintessential New York movie that makes you realize Hollywood so rarely does this kind of thing anymore. One line pops up throughout the dramedy: “What happens to the dog?” Answer: His own morose heartbreak will also break yours.
Nickel Boys
‘Nickel Boys’
Orion Pictures
Director: RaMell Ross
Cast: Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson, Aunjunue Ellis-Taylor, Daveed Diggs, Hamish Linklater, Fred Hechinger
Deadline’s takeaway: Ross takes a poetic and impressionistic swing in his first narrative feature, but watching this overlong (it’s two hours and 20 minutes — and it feels it) artistic take, I kept thinking more Terrence Malick than necessarily Colson Whitehead.
The Piano Lesson
‘The Piano Lesson’
David Lee/Netflix
Director: Malcolm Washington
Cast: Danielle Deadwyler, John David Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Skylar Aleece Smith, Ray Fisher, Corey Hawkins, Michael Potts, Erykah Badu
Deadline’s takeaway: Merging Blues tradition and African American myth with family issues that come to the surface over this period in which the play takes place, a key theme of ancestral pride and its place in contemporary family lives really comes across in this version of Wilson’s classic.
Piece by Piece
‘Piece by Piece’
Focus Features
Director: Morgan Neville
Cast: Pharrell Williams, Snoop Dogg, Gwen Stefani, Jay Z, Missy Elliott, Pusha T, Justin Timberlake, Teddy Riley
Deadline’s takeaway: Piece By Piece leaves you with hope and a whole bunch of songs you will not be able to get out of your head. Is it a documentary? A biopic? An animated movie? A musical? A character study? You bet — and more. Williams and Neville have taken it apart and put it all back together to perfection.
Saturday Night
‘Saturday Night‘
Sony
Director: Jason Reitman
Cast: Gabriel LaBelle, Rachel Sennott, Corey Michael Smith, Ella Hunt, Dylan O’Brien, Emily Fairn, Matt Wood, Lamorne Morris, Kim Matula, Finn Wolfhard, Nicholas Braun, Cooper Hoffman, Andrew Barth Feldman, Kaia Gerber, Tommy Dewey, Willem Dafoe, J.K. Simmons, Jon Batiste, Naomi McPherson
Deadline’s takeaway: One false move and this whole ambitious soufflé could have fallen, but Reitman steers this all in style creating on the great movies about show business I have ever seen — and I have seen a lot of them.
