Toll

Writer/director Carolina Markowicz (“Charcoal,” CIFF47) is back at the fest for the second year in a row with this provocative social thriller, in which a working-class toll booth attendant (Maeve Jenkins, “Neon Bull,” “Charcoal”) turns to a life of crime to finance her queer son’s conversion therapy program.Each morning at dawn, Suellen—a single mother in a remote Brazilian town—starts the long commute to her job as a toll booth attendant. Despite financial hardships and relationship struggles, one issue takes precedence in Suellen’s life: her son’s homosexuality. Tiquinho is a hardworking high school senior with a flair for style and performance. But when Suellen discovers he’s posting videos lip syncing to his favorite divas online, she insists he attends a new and expensive conversion therapy program. Unable to afford the cost of enrollment, she uses her attendant position to initiate a misguided carjacking scheme with the help of local thieves. Director Carolina Markowicz expertly develops her characters' relationship dynamics and interior lives through subtle glances, potent silences, and bold use of color. With a twisted and karmic sense of humor, TOLL critiques the hypocrisy of heteronormative moral superiority and the blinding nature of deep-seated prejudices. —D.O.