Do you wonder what actor Crispin Glover is up to these days? He was in a new movie at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival and not many people noticed! Read on.
The TIFF Lowdown: Crispin Glover brings his best to Tallulah H Schwab’s delightfully Kafkaesque tale of a travelling magician who finds himself in a hotel full of unusual guests — with no way out.
Even though the title character of Mr. K lacks a full surname, it’s easy to imagine what it could be. Inventive and surreal, this second feature by Amsterdam-based director Tallulah H Schwab playfully evokes Franz Kafka’s tales of hapless characters finding themselves in increasingly strange, bewildering, and sinister circumstances. And, as is the case in those literary counterparts, the predicament unfolding on screen serves as a potent allegory about conditions facing people living in less outlandish scenarios.
The ordeal for Mr. K’s misfortunate protagonist — a travelling magician played by Crispin Glover in one of the richest performances in his long and continually surprising career — begins when he checks into a once-stately hotel. The following morning, Mr. K is understandably confused by his inability to find the exit. Then again, the magician doesn’t have much time to search for it due to the demands imposed on him by the hotel’s other inhabitants, a colourful gallery that includes a rather intimidating troupe of musicians, a bustling crew of kitchen workers, and a very classy elderly guest played by the great Fionnula Flanagan.
Reaction: Of course, to film buffs the main draw to MR. K is the presence of Crispin Glover, who has been doing many smaller film roles over the years and has been somewhat cast from popular movies after his controversy over being cast in BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II. But getting past that, MR. K is a somewhat bizarre but enormously likeable movie that is like a nightmare scenario that is taken to weird, Luis Bunuel like heights. (Although this idea and movie, I was more reminded of Owen Wilson in MIDNIGHT IN PARIS when he pitches this idea to Bunuel and he asks “Why can’t he leave the room?”)
The movie is very well directed and visual by Talluah H Schwab and also helped by German cinematographer Frank Griebe, who is mostly known in film circles as Tom Tykwer’s usual director of photography. I liked the idea here even though it’s very slow in areas and takes a while to get going, but MR. K is successful with a very good lead performance by Mr. Glover and a cast of weird and colourful supporting characters even more odd than him. Also of interesting note is that all screenings were presented with captions by intention of the director even though it was all in English, something of which I am seeing more and more of these days in movies. MR. K does not have a North American distributor as of yet, but I do see it getting a small theatrical release sometime in 2025.
