The best thing I've seen so far at the Toronto International Film festival is The Wrestler, the much-anticipated fourth film from Darren Aronofsky that stars Mickey Rourke as a washed-up Hulk Hogan type looking for one last shot at glory. It won the Venice Film Festival's top prize just days before its press screening at Toronto, where every chair in the 580-seat theater had press-and-industry butt cheeks in it.

Aronofsky's first three movies, Pi, Requiem for a Dream, and The Fountain, established him as a master of visual poetry, albeit one who is sometimes baffling and obtuse. (Those are not necessarily bad qualities.) The Wrestler, on the other hand, is fairly straightforward, at least from a storytelling standpoint: Randy "The Ram" Robinson was a huge wrestling star in the 1980s; now he lives alone in a trailer and does small-scale shows on the weekends, where the has-beens and the not-yets are the only people who still treat him with respect; his body is falling apart after all the years of punishment; and he wants to have a 20th anniversary rematch with his former rival to recapture some of his youth.

The film's genius lies in its subtleties. Randy has an estranged daughter (Evan Rachel Wood, playing the usual Evan Rachel Wood role) with whom he wants to reconnect. He's in love with a stripper, Cassidy (Marisa Tomei), whose career is similar to Randy's in that both jobs require a stage name and have little use for anyone older than about 30. Randy comes to realize that despite his best efforts to do something else, the wrestling ring is really the only place he fits. Several moments in the film, particularly in the last scene, are incredibly poignant and moving.

The protagonist in the exuberant crowd-pleaser Slumdog Millionaire is looking for a different kind of fame and glory: 20 million rupees on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. (I kept thinking the punch line would be that 20 million rupees was only about fifty bucks U.S., but no.) His name is Jamal (Dev Patel), he comes from the slums of Mumbai, and his lowly background is why the game show's officials believe he must have cheated to make it as far as he did. After all, if doctors and lawyers couldn't get all the questions right, how could some uneducated urchin?

Directed by Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, Millions), Slumdog centers around Jamal's police interrogation, where flashbacks to his youth explain how he happened to know the answers to the questions. For example, he knew whose face was on the American $100 bill -- uncommon knowledge in India -- because some guilty-feeling American tourists once gave him one. This clever story structure lets us learn about Jamal's strong moral character, and it also informs us of his true motive for going on the show. It has to do with the love of a girl, of course.

Fox Searchlight and Warner Bros. have partnered to release the film later this fall, when it's sure to earn more praise as a respectable upbeat indie that connects with audiences and critics alike. Some have wondered if it will be this year's Juno, which also premiered at the Telluride Film Festival, went to Toronto the following week, and subsequently became everybody's feel-good indie favorite. (The movies don't have much else in common.) It's certainly a strong candidate for that kind of acclaim. It even ends with a Bollywood-style musical number, as I believe all movies should.

The title characters in Zack and Miri Make a Porno aren't particularly interested in fame, or even in great fortune. They just want enough money to pay the rent and get their electricity turned back on -- which, now that I think about it, is actually a severely depressing reason to make a porn film. So I guess it's best not to think about that (or anything, really) in this latest vulgar, talky comedy from Kevin Smith, who seems to be playing catch-up after having his Vulgar, Talky Comedy crown stolen by Judd Apatow.

Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks -- both Apatow alumni, which makes comparisons even more unavoidable -- star as lifelong friends and platonic roommates who decide to make a porn flick to pay off their bills. Not just any old sex tape will do, though; you can see those for free on the internet. They want to make an actual porn movie, with a lame plot and terrible acting and everything, and to that end they recruit several willing actors and actresses (including Kevin Smith mainstay Jason Mewes) to assist. But the crucial scene -- where Zack and Miri have sex with each other -- is the one that messes up everybody's emotions.

It's what messes up Smith's film, too. The laughs are plentiful, the obscene observations witty and well delivered, for two-thirds of the running time. But when Zack and Miri's feelings for each other become the focus, Zack and Miri becomes soggy and trite. Of course, real human emotions have never been Smith's strong suit (Exhibit A: Jersey Girl), so it shouldn't be too hard for fans to overlook Zack and Miri's weaknesses and just laugh at the raunchiness.

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Eric D. Snider is in Toronto for the festival. Check back later for more reports on what he's seeing.

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