Tennis triangles and Bhutanese comedy: VIFF Centre kicks off Best of 2024 series, Boxing Day to January 2
Challengers and The Monk and the Gun kick off holiday big-screen series
The Monk and the Gun.
Best of 2024 is at VIFF Centre from December 26 to January 2
A DROLL FABLE THAT FOLLOWS Bhutanese Monks and a fizzy story about sex and tennis kick off VIFF Centre’s popular annual ode to the best films of the year.
We’re not here to argue that Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers is the deepest cinematic outing of 2024, but it has all the fun, style, technique, and killer instinct of a good tennis match. Patrick (an impossibly charismatic Josh O’Connor) is the scruffy opposite to tightly wound fellow pro-tennis player Art (Mike Faist), but they’ve grown up best bros—until they meet fierce racket babe Tashi (Zendaya). What ensues is a back-and-forth rivalry on and off the court—ratcheted up by sexual tension and smartly crafted by the Call Me by Your Name director, who seems to be having as much of a blast as the characters. It launches the series on December 26 and 27.
That’s followed by a trip to the fairy-tale mountain kingdom of Bhutan where director Pawo Choyning Dorji sets the gentle satire The Monk and the Gun in 2006—the King has announced his plans to abdicate, allowing the people to form a democratic government and hold their first elections. (A ban on TV and the internet had been lifted less than a decade beforehand.) The fable-like story begins in Ura, set amid emerald hills, with a lama asking his attendant to bring him two guns before the full moon—the day of the elections—to “set it right”. Is a monk in one of the most peaceful places on the planet planning some form of violence? Leave your Western assumptions at home, and cue a satirical adventure that crosses paths with an American in search of antique rifles. It turns into a droll and clever look at the meaning of democracy; in one mock election where denizens are trying to understand ballots and how to vote by using colours, they choose yellow—only because it’s the colour of royalty in Bhutan. It screens December 27 and 28.
Elsewhere, Thelma is arguably the funniest comedy of the year—and probably the only Mission Impossible sendup whose protagonist is a senior who uses a mobility scooter to hit screens in 2024. There is much more to recommend, including the highly anticipated closer, All We Imagine As Light, which has been wowing audiences at festivals and which we'll review before its screenings in early January. 
Related Articles
