TIFF 2021: The Survivor Review

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.

Biopics tend to be prime candidates for aspiring prestige features looking for awards. Checking all the right boxes in the process, filmmakers attempt to relate with and connect to the sensibilities of would be award prognosticators. The more successful films ultimately, appeal to beyond those would be prognosticators, affecting wider audiences. Otherwise, those blatant attempts to aim for awards are deemed to be oscarbait. The Survivor, however, appears to be a film destined to end up somewhere in the middle of those extremes. as it will surely appeal to both sides. While it may have its heart in the right place, telling an important story, but it unfortunately suffers from trying to do too much narratively without doing any one thing well enough. That being said, its performances are certainly a high point with Ben Foster delivering one of his best performances as the titular survivor. The story just made it tougher to connect with that performance on a deeper level (the makeup work during those latter stages was questionable at best).

The Survivor tells the story of Harry Haft (Foster), a boxer and former Holocaust survivor who fought other prisoners in order to survive. Haunted by his tortured past, the fighter rode the power of his story into a series of high-profile fight to get the attention of his first love who he believed to have also survived and made her way to the United States. What Haft may have lacked in skill, he made up for in heart and determination as he consistently remained in the fight beyond what many would have thought to be possible (while the film kind of milked this in a gratuitous way). Taking place during multiple timelines, the film jumped between these periods in his life, shifting from black and white to color as it went from his time in WWII concentration camps, current day, and near the end of his life.

While that former subplot was far more interesting, both felt far too rushed to get the most out of them, seemingly focusing on the destination rather than the events that led to that destination (there was definitely more there). Though it did have its moments along those journeys, the emotional impact was never quite there. Instead of character development, the characters felt thin for the most part as the film appeared to be more interested in checking boxes to create emotion. Ultimately, the best part of The Survivor was of course Foster’s fearless lead performance as Haft. Undergoing an impressive transformation over the course of the film, he was somewhat compelling to watch as the tortured boxer, delivering plenty of emotion, but it was just a shame that the film around him was so dull.

In the end, while The Survivor is sure to connect to some audiences more than others and Foster give it his all, one can’t help but want more, or at least a more refined narrative.

 still courtesy of Elevation Pictures

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.