Toronto film festival: riotous lead performance holds together third movie from actor turned film-maker, about a housewife who joins a local musical

Jesse Eisenberg’s last two directorial efforts – the prickly comedy When You Finish Saving the World and the slightly softer A Real Pain – are small films rooted in the real world. They have their little idiosyncrasies, their bits of cinematic flair, but they keep their feet grounded in the here and now. For his third film, Eisenberg has said goodbye to all that (or most of that) and run headlong at the surreal and the absurd, borrowing from Charlie Kaufman and other oddballs to tell a small story in a big way.

The Debut is about a repressed housewife, Mona (Julianne Moore), who decides to audition for a role in a community theater production of a musical called Nosy Neighbors, one of those gassy Manhattan trifles that were so ubiquitous on Broadway a half century ago. Mona’s kids are about to fly the nest, and her husband barely seems to notice her when she’s standing right next to him. So why not have a little creative adventure?

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