The TIFF Movie Review: Film #1:
R.T. Thorne’s “40 Acres“

By Ross

I wasn’t quite ready. Or prepared for this, my first film at the Toronto International Film Festival, but I couldn’t have been more thrilled with my first chosen film, 40 Acres. It’s a dystopian thriller, set in a future where the world has been decimated by famine and a disease that wiped away all animals from the landscape. The tension, immediately, fills the screen, with something that resembles a home invasion led by a dangerous-looking crew of (mostly) men, well-armed, but unprepared for what they are about to receive. The energy is clear and persistent, and we know where our hearts lie from the very beginning. It’s assuredly violent, this attack, and what it brings forth against them feels completely justified (and somehow inspiring), all before we even meet the owners of this property.

As directed expertly by R.T. Thorne, a Canadian writer, producer, and director known for the CBC Television period drama The Porter, 40 Acres flings us brilliantly inside the closed-off world of The Freemans, a close-knit family of sorts held together by a fiercely protective and hard ex-military matriarch, played to perfection by Danielle Deadwyler (MGM’s “Till“). She, and her eldest son, Emanuel, beautifully embodied by Kataem O’Connor (“11.22.63“), are descendants of a Black family of farmers who settled in Canada after the American Civil War, and now, with what feels like another type of war bearing down on them, the matriarch, Hailey Freeman, pulls this unit together like a drill sergeant, seeking total isolation as the main and most important tool against the enemy. Shoot first, and if the shot is true, there will be no need to ask questions later. Or have regret.

History haunts Hailey and her son, but in different ways and with different shifting outcomes. She tells her pack, well played by a most excellent cast made up of; the powerfully emotive Michael Greyeyes (“Blood Quantum“) as patriarch Galento; Jaeda LeBlanc (“Gen V“) as Danis Freeman; and Leenah Robinson (“Don’t Even“) as Raine; to stay vigilant and on post, guarding their 40 Acres like it’s their sovereign country as they try to survive a decimated world.

A battle brews outside with an organized and hungry militia looking to seize their property, in ways that are hard to describe by the bloody barrel full. All Freemans understand their orders, with a well-trained “yes ma’am” as their reply to Hailey, but her eldest has some other thoughts and ideas about expansion and the formation of trust with others outside as the only way to survive the world they find themselves living in and hiding from.

That clash is coming in fast, swimming in and occupying Emanuel’s mind like a cage, as he does his duty, stepping up for perimeter check and cleaning up after the winning of a well-fought battle. He, like most teenagers his age, finds rebellion within, and in this realm, he’s struggling against his family’s protective seclusion. He wants and needs exploration, especially after meeting a young woman from a nearby farm, dynamically portrayed by Milcania Diaz-Rojas (“Slip“), whose appearance rattles and de-electrifies the barriers that are keeping Emanuel trapped within his family’s fenced walls.

When other farmsteads start to go silent, including the one headed by Hailey’s friend, Augusta, played beautifully by Elizabeth Saunders (“Clarice“), the world views start to shift from within, with barriers and rules being broken, and where the consequences of these actions rattle the family’s roots somewhere in between life and a brutal death.

“In every family, the older generation tries to prepare the younger generation for the world that they know, and that world has hardship, problems, and difficulties to deal with,” Thorne says. “I wanted to project that into a dystopian world where the consequences of your decisions are life and death, where famine is widespread, and working the land, if you have it, is the most important thing.”

Written by Thorne and Glenn Taylor, with brilliantly engaging cinematography by Jeremy Benning (“Accused“), 40 Acres and its survival narrative powerfully fills the screen with tension and dread, but it is also enriched with empathetic care and familial love. Our attachment to this crew is fully formed and fleshed out, giving room for complex and murky ideals that are never black and white, even when our alliances stand true and strong.

40 Acres, we are told, is an “allegory for current political and economic issues in the age of Black Lives Matters, food insecurity, and Indigenous land rights“.  It’s forceful and elegantly made, creating dynamic wholly felt bonds that get into our blood systems and engage with our hearts. It’s tense and captivating, and it was the best of all possible ways to start out my days and nights at the Toronto International Film Festival.