Chris Rock Returns to Directing with 'Misty Green' at TIFF

Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Chris Rock debuts his fourth directorial feature "Misty Green" at TIFF — his first time behind the camera since 2014's "Top Five" — with A24 taking the film into the awards-season corridor
- Rosalind Eleazar (who plays MI5 agent Louisa Guy on Apple TV's "Slow Horses") stars as an Emmy-winning actress in career tailspin, hunting for her second act years after her breakthrough
- "Misty Green" co-stars Adam Driver, Daniel Kaluuya, Anna Kendrick, Topher Grace, and Rock himself; TIFF says the film "brilliantly satirizes the bigotry and hustle at the heart of Hollywood"
- The plot finds Eleazar's character "radioactive" to agents after an on-set altercation with another cast member, weaving through drug use, sex, escape attempts, and auditions
- A24 is loading its awards-season pipeline alongside "Misty Green," with August's Bourdain-inspired "Tony," the Robert Pattinson-led "To Catch a Predator" dramatization "Primetime," Jesse Eisenberg's "The Debut," and Jordan Firstman's Cannes hit "Club Kid"
Why it matters: Rock's decade-long directing hiatus ending with a meta-Hollywood satire gives A24 another awards-season contender, while Eleazar's breakout turn on Apple TV's "Slow Horses" positions her as the film's draw — and Rock surrounds himself with five Oscar-caliber co-stars (Driver, Kaluuya, Kendrick, Grace, himself) to sell the satire.
