Six years of attending the Toronto International Film Festival is a relatively short-period baseline for gauging expectations, but the festival team has set the bar rather high with each year surpassing the previous one, seemingly without letting the effort show. The 39th annual festival features an arrangement with the city of Toronto that allows for the closing of several blocks along King Street West, the main thoroughfare for TIFF’s premieres, creating a communal street café vibe with live music and even more red carpet access to the stars for the general public.

Of course, none of this matters without top-notch film screenings, and therein lies the rub when it comes to the pesky notion of expectations. During my brief history as a “Press & Industry” attendee, I have been privy to a steady stream of awards season titles like last year’s triumvirate of Gravity, 12 Years a Slave and Dallas Buyers Club. From the technical achievements of approximating the weightlessness of space to the unfathomable historic realities of a free man enslaved to the stunning performative transformations of an unlikely pair of actors, without a doubt, by the end of these screenings — even the P&I viewings, which tend to attract a far more jaded and cynical breed of insiders — there was a groundswell of emotion, the quiet satisfaction that comes from a singular shared experience.

And so, I find myself — a full four days into the festival — attempting to rationalize my tepid response thus far. I am past the halfway point and beginning to wonder: Are the films to blame for this sense or must I accept some degree of responsibility for my lack of enthusiasm? I felt the first twinge of engagement during the Press & Industry screening of The Theory of Everything.

In particular, I couldn’t ignore the persuasive performance of Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Hawking, the awkward grace and unfailing intellectual curiosity in his lived-in turn easily displaced the studied mannerisms and inherent dishonesty at the heart of A Beautiful Mind.

Redmayne engages without bullying us and that is what inspired a full house of film industry types to erupt in thankful applause as the credits began rolling. The narrative draws its power from the relationship between Hawking and his loving and supportive wife Jane (Felicity Jones), who devoted herself to creating and sustaining a situation which would allow Hawking to not only survive longer than expected but to push the intellectual envelope while seeking to solve the questions of time and the creation of the universe.

But is this film a transcendent experience? Redmayne dazzles, mixing mimicry with a decidedly unpretentious display of physical decay, and Jones works even harder as the central figure with no performance crutches to rely upon. It would be too easy to overlook what she does, assuming that she’s not “doing” as much, when, in fact, she’s balancing on a razor’s edge without a net. But, again, what about the film?

I have had the same concerns with several other titles. Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher provides a platform for Channing Tatum and Steve Carell to play against type, signaling in tightly coiled turns that, yes, they have slipped into their big-boy clothes and want to make sure that we are paying attention to their poses. Duly noted, fellas. Benedict Cumberbatch rubs our noses in the high-IQ gamesmanship of The Imitation Game, based on the tragic life of Alan Turing (the difficult genius who led the team that broke the German’s Enigma code in WWII), leading an A-team of British actors (Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode and Mark Strong) to certain acclaim.

Yet, in each case, the films left me with a nagging black hole that, no matter how small, would eventually expand, sucking all of the goodwill I would normally afford to the festival.

Maybe it’s not TIFF. What if, instead, this year’s festival merely missed the proverbial boat? The Grand Budapest Hotel arrived earlier in the release cycle, as did Richard Linklater’s Boyhood, the charmingly low-key experiment that was 12 years in the making, a one-of-a-kind gem of naturalism and a serendipitous degree of good fortune that may never quite come around again.

Maybe, the challenge this year is in simply appreciating the films for what they are. Forget the festival vibe and hype, and just sit back and watch the movies. That’s all that ever matters — whether attending a festival screening or an opening weekend release. Good films will still be good, no matter when or where you see them. (tt stern-enzi)