Going into TIFF, it is relatively easy to say the heavy favorite for the People’s Choice Award and the Oscar spotlight that comes with it is “Rental Family.” As a TIFF world premiere that promises family and found family-related tear-jerking, a redemption story headlined by Oscar winner Brendan Fraser, and the guidance of Oscar season mastermind Searchlight Pictures, it was hard to see any significant challenge to its likely TIFF supremacy. That is, until the Telluride Film Festival unveiled what may be the real tearjerker of the season in Chloe Zhao and Focus Features’ “Hamnet.”
As such, at the very least, it is now easy to see TIFF as a two-film race between two emotionally charged, heartstring-tugging movies in “Rental Family” and “Hamnet” – and it might not be the last time these films compete for the same demographic all season.
If “Rental Family” does win TIFF, it will have to be placed in the upper echelon of Oscar frontrunners, which so far includes three other movies in “Sinners,” “Sentimental Value,” and now “Hamnet.” Among those four movies, a simple divide can be made between two extremely different brands of contenders. “Sinners” and “Sentimental Value” have already been embraced and championed by the online community, new-school kinds of pundits and fans, and are the types of movies that never used to win Best Picture before, but now have a better chance. In contrast, “Hamnet” and likely “Rental Family” seem more like the type of films that always used to win Best Picture before – one a dramatic, historical tearjerker about loss and the power of art, and the other a broader kind of comedic/dramatic tearjerker about finding oneself through family and bridging cultural divides.
“Rental Family” could be the next “Green Book” or “CODA,” in using these old-school tricks to pluck at older and more sentiment-driven voters’ heartstrings, as much as some detractors might groan at it. But “Hamnet” could also pluck at their emotions in the same way, albeit in a more artsy and more trauma-based fashion, like so many winners from decades past. But which way of drawing out tears and emotional catharsis from audiences and voters will work best, and which one will best challenge the likes of “Sinners” and “Sentimental Value” in the months ahead?
The first major test will be at TIFF, which has always gravitated towards broadly moving films like “The Life of Chuck,” “The Fabelmans,” “Belfast,” “Jojo Rabbit,” and “Green Book.” Toronto audiences also seem to prefer films that are world premieres at TIFF, which would favor “Rental Family” more than a Telluride holdover like “Hamnet.” The last time a non-TIFF world premiere won the People’s Choice Award was in 2021, when “Belfast” did so, albeit after Telluride had stolen that film’s world premiere from TIFF at the last minute.
“Rental Family” is among several films that will have a splashy first screening on Saturday, September 6th, before it has five more scheduled screenings after that. “Hamnet” will have its TIFF premiere the following afternoon, on Sunday, September 7th, before four additional screenings are planned. They may not have the most overall screenings at TIFF, but they have just enough to show that they will be among the most visible and high-profile films throughout the festival.
On one level, it might be ridiculous to suggest “Rental Family” and “Hamnet” would be that close competitively. For one thing, “Hamnet” opened in Telluride with a Metacritic score of 95 and a Rotten Tomatoes average rating of 9.0, while even those who believe in “Rental Family” couldn’t possibly think it would match those numbers. If anything, “Rental Family” is the kind of film whose highest ceiling may be the mid-to-high 70s on MetaCritic and a mid-to-high 7.0 average on Rotten Tomatoes, which on paper would still be nowhere near something like “Hamnet.” But at TIFF, even scores well below that have never dissuaded their audiences.
“Jojo Rabbit” won TIFF and eventually the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar with a 58 on MetaCritic, “Green Book” won TIFF and eventually Best Picture with the lowest reviews for any Best Picture winner of this era, and “The Life of Chuck” only started in the low 60s before winning last year and then getting moved out of the 2024 season altogether. As such, if “Rental Family” starts in the 60s on MetaCritic or lower, beating something with near-perfect scores like “Hamnet” would only continue a TIFF tradition – and perhaps also an Oscar tradition.
Still, even then, TIFF would only be the first battle of a season-long war for hearts, minds, and tears. After all, “The Life of Chuck” beat out two presumed Best Picture frontrunners, “Anora” and “Emilia Pérez,” last season, before “Anora” swept the Oscars and “Emilia Pérez” co-led the race until the final month. And when “Belfast” beat out “The Power of the Dog” at TIFF in 2021, it was the latter that overtook it and seemed set for a Best Picture win before “CODA” caught up to it at the end. For that matter, “Jojo Rabbit” and its low review scores actually beat out “Parasite” in 2019 before the latter won much more at the Oscars. However, on the other end of the spectrum, when “Green Book” first defeated the presumed Best Picture frontrunner, “Roma,” at TIFF in 2018, it turned out to be a sign of things to come.
Nonetheless, those examples were clashes of very different films, which “Rental Family” and “Hamnet” would also appear to be. However, both “Rental Family” and “Hamnet” seem designed to evoke strong emotions in viewers first and foremost, albeit for somewhat different means and purposes. But with both having such an emphasis on tears and emotional moments, will they ultimately cancel each other out while something else pulls ahead in Best Picture, or will one become the definitive tearjerker of the season and the primary challenger to something very different like “Sinners,” or to a more understated family drama like “Sentimental Value?”
In that context, TIFF could be more revealing than usual, by showing its preference for this first official battle between “Rental Family” and “Hamnet.” Or it could sidestep both of them by picking a different stirring drama like “Sentimental Value” or “The Smashing Machine,” something further off base like “Frankenstein” or “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery,” one of NEON’s other festival hits like “It Was Just An Accident,” or something no one sees coming right now. And for all we know, “Rental Family” could totally underperform and fall off the charts completely, like “After the Hunt” did at Venice and what many assumed “Jay Kelly” did at Venice before its Telluride rally – leaving “Hamnet” free and clear as the most emotional story of the season, whether it wins TIFF or not.
Given the past review scores of winners like “Jojo Rabbit” and “The Life of Chuck,” it would have to take a total bombing for “Rental Family” to be counted out before TIFF winners are announced on September 14th. If it then manages to beat the likes of “Hamnet” and “Sentimental Value” anyway, it would certainly make it the early favorite as the “villain” of the season, if not the full-on Best Picture favorite yet. But would that give it the power to go all the way, like “Green Book,” or stall out with maybe just one major collective Oscar win, like “Jojo Rabbit” or “Belfast,” or get shut out at the Oscars altogether, like “The Fabelmans?”
“Hamnet” is already being talked about as a major win-competitive threat for Best Picture, Director, Actress, Supporting Actor, and Adapted Screenplay, and that seemingly won’t change regardless of TIFF results. Given that “Rental Family” could only potentially contend for added wins in Best Actor, Supporting Actor, and Original Screenplay on its best day, that would seem to make it far more limited. But given how “Green Book” and “CODA” won with similarly slim win packages, it may not take as much for “Rental Family” to do the same – just like it might not need to do that much to win TIFF either.
“Hamnet” is already the first major breakout premiere of fall festival season, yet by this time next week, “Rental Family” could be the second. That would put the two on a collision course not only at TIFF, but at every other major awards show as they fight to be the most potent tearjerker of Oscar season, and to be the most potent traditional Oscar-bait contender of the season. Will the winner of that battle also win the bigger battle ahead against either “Sinners” or “Sentimental Value,” or are we really in a brand-new world where wringing tears out of old school voters isn’t enough to win Best Picture on its own anymore?
Either “Rental Family,” “Hamnet,” or both will be the season’s big test case for that question, and their first, but perhaps not last, showdown for audiences’ tear ducts looms this weekend in Toronto.
What do you think will win the People’s Choice Award at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival? Right now, we suspect “Rental Family” and “Hamnet” are near the top but what do you think? Please let us know in the comments section below and on Next Best Picture’s X account and check out the team’s latest Oscar predictions here.
