GONZO GIRL (TIFF 2023) – Review by Leslie Combemale

As a directorial debut, Patricia Arquette could have done a lot worse than Gonzo Girl. Based on the book about the experiences of Cheryl Della Pietra’s as Hunter S. Thompson’s assistant in the mid-nineties, Arquette was the perfect age to understand the challenges of a women in the business world of the time. Arquette shows a facility with interesting shots and choosing below-the-line artists who will give life to a film’s vision, and choosing performers who will click, and make the best of their lines. She’ll do well in the future with a better script. She already knows how to bring out the best out of good actors working together.

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WEEK IN WOMEN: Patricia Arquette’s GONZO GIRL opens TIFF’s Discovery program – Brandy McDonnell reports

Gonzo Girl, Oscar-winning actor Patricia Arquette’s directorial debut, will be the opening film of the Discovery program of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. Four-time Oscar nominee Willem Dafoe and Camila Morrone star in Arquette’s Gonzo Girl, which is based on Cheryl Della Pietra’s semi-autobiographical novel chronicling her time as Hunter S. Thompson’s personal assistant.

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MICKEY AND THE BEAR – Review by Diane Carson

The teenage years of high school pose ample challenges for just about anyone anywhere. For eighteen-year-old high school senior Mickey Peck, in small town Anaconda, Montana, life is immeasurably complicated by her widowed father Hank, a possessive Iraq Marine vet with PTSD. Caught in emotional warfare, she struggles to fight her way out of a dead-end situation.

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MICKEY AND THE BEAR – Review by Carol Cling

There are times when this coming-of-age drama — about an often-overwhelmed teen struggling to deal with her father, a troubled Iraq War veteran — plays like an inadvertent variation on 2018’s powerful Leave No Trace. Yet this feature debut from writer-director Annabelle Attanasio, fresh from the festival circuit, overcomes a somewhat derivative storyline to forge its own strong identity.

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