Sharp Corner

In his long-awaited second feature, Nova Scotia filmmaker Jason Buxton taps into the same vein of perverse fixation that Atom Egoyan, with The Adjuster (TIFF ’91) and Exotica (TIFF ’94), and David Cronenberg, with Crash, defined in the 1990s. But Buxton, whose Blackbird (TIFF ’12) was a devastating portrait of a teenager reaching his breaking point, has some very different ideas of what that fixation looks like.

On the night they move from the city into a sprawling suburban home, parents Josh (Ben Foster, Finestkind, TIFF ’23) and Rachel (Cobie Smulders, High School, TIFF ’22) are jolted by a car crashing into the tree on their front lawn, killing the driver and injuring his passengers. And once Josh discovers the accidents are a regular occurrence due to the design of the road, he becomes obsessed with being ready to save the next victims... to the exclusion of everything else.

Foster holds us in a state of queasy apprehension as Josh’s impulsive, sanctimonious dedication to learning CPR and policing the street start to form a pattern of privileged overconfidence — or maybe it’s deluded competence. Foster has played tightly wound characters before, but Buxton finds him a higher, unsettling gear.

Smulders brings a strength and sensibility to Rachel, along with an understated exasperation that tells us whatever’s wrong with Josh has been wrong for a very long time. Is he genuinely trying to be a good citizen, or is something darker motivating him? As Sharp Corner creeps towards its unnerving climax, that question seems less and less important. The real question is: What happens next?

NORM WILNER

Content advisory: accident trauma, mature themes, sexually suggestive scenes