The Toronto Film Festival features no shortage of award-hopefuls, and some of them will leave here being exposed as well-meaning but simply not good enough. Such is the case with 55 Steps, a real-life drama about a landmark California case from the 1980s that sought to improve the rights of psychiatric patients. Helena Bonham Carter plays Eleanor, who knows that the medication she's being forced to take is only making her worse, and Hilary Swank and Jeffrey Tambor play the lawyers fighting for her in court. 55 Steps is a film dripping with worthiness, which is rarely enough. My review is up at Screen International.
