TIFF 2025 - Celebrating Fifty Years - is Here!!!

By Anne Brodie

Netflix‘ Mae Martin miniseries Wayward casts an intriguingly odd and threatening spell in a remote forest where locals navigate disappearances, murder, kidnapping and child abuse. Tall Pines is a community on edge; the series opens with a loudspeaker blaring psychological abuse on teenagers running from a local institution. Leanne’s (Toni Collette) voice booms, “you’re lying on your back crying out for your mother but she has her back to you. Her mouth is open and there is a door in her mouth” ?? Meanwhile Laura (Sarah Gadon), who is pregnant and her husband Alex (Martin who also created the show) have just moved into a seemingly idyllic vintage farmhouse in Tall Pines. Symbolic doors appear throughout the series, connected to fear, abuse and curiosity. Alex is a cop and recently confronted two teenaged girls on the run; escaping the local institution run by Collete’s sadistic Evelyn who loves the power she has as a leader in the “troubled teen industry”. Evelyn comes to the police station to report that one of her charges Rory (Charlie Daniel) escaped and is in crisis. She adds unnecessarily that his foster parents were scared of him. Rory breaks into Alex and Laura’s home one night; he fights with Alex and he’s accidently stabbed to death. Meanwhile we learn of the cruelties and psychological torture of young inmates at the Tall Pines institution which make our hair stand on end. Some idyll, eh? High on originality and darkness, the eight parter provides plenty of oddities, twists and extreme flights of fancy. Not an upper but a good creeper. TIFF Sept 11 in theatres Sept 25.