Oscars to Toronto – TIME Goes There

TIME’s Richard Corliss says actors are salesmen. George Clooney has the goods and delivered two memorable performances in Toronto, only one slightly more so:

Clooney responds to this unusual freedom with the sharpest, most nuanced performance of his career. He gets inside Ryan because, as he has acknowledged, this is a portrait of a character not far from his own: a traveling man with scores of women in his past, riding high on the confidence that people will buy anything he pitches — even a savory comedy-drama with a tart aftertaste. He, and Reitman, could close the sale on Oscar night.