This year’s TIFF saw three star-studded films that wear their inspirations on their sleeves, grasping at something often just out of reach from their screenwriter’s favorite movies. One’s teacher vs. student cynicism echoes “Election”; another feels of a piece with Ruben Ostlund’s social satires like “The Square” and “Triangle of Sadness”; while a third film could be called “Defending Your Spotless Mind.” All three will have their defenders. I’m a little more mixed on at least two of them.The best of the bunch is Jonatan Etzler’s “Bad Apples,” a dark comedy that will have PTA groups howling in relatable laughter for whatever studio picks it up. The always-good-and-often-great Saoirse Ronan plays Maria, a single teacher at a fancy private school who has a child in her class that is making life intolerable. You know the kind. The little jerk is named Danny (Eddie Waller), and he lashes out literally all the time, whether he’s drawing on his desk or throwing a sneaker into the machine at a cider mill. Of course, Maria is restrained by red tape as to what she can possibly do about it, basically just asked to deal with it and keep teaching. Etzler’s most interesting idea is to reflect how much a kid like Danny sucks up all the oxygen in the room. He takes all of her attention, which means the kids who need an actual teacher don’t have one because she’s forced to play babysitter and warden instead.One day, Maria catches Danny smashing cars with a crowbar in the parking lot, grabbing him and wrestling him to the ground. He gets injured, threatening to tell everyone that Maria attacked him. If she takes him to the hospital or home, she’ll probably lose her job. People always believe the kids, even the bad one. So what does she do? She shackles him to her basement floor. Her class thrives. Even Danny seems to accept his fate, being home-schooled by Maria. But when another kid proves to be just as (and maybe more) unsettling, Maria learns that not all apples look the same.Ronan is expectedly wonderful here, playing the immediacy of Maria’s rash decisions with the amount of realism needed to ground this crazy story. And it’s not hard to see some social commentary here about how the loudest minority opinions drown out any actual conversation and growth. How far would you go to create a better society? What should we do with the true bad apples of this world, the ones who are allowing the good ones to go rotten from lack of care?These are complex questions that Etzler flirts with more than commits to in the end. It’s obviously a script that kind of writes itself into a corner and Etzler seems to be afraid to get truly dark with the potential of his kidnapping concept. Still, this is a consistently engaging, funny film, one that should provoke conversations not just about the systemic problems in education but how they reflect everything around them. In a sense, we’re all still in elementary school, hoping our own Danny will just shut up.David Freyne’s much-buzzed A24 title “Eternity” will remind people of “Defending Your Life” and “The Good Place” in how it cleverly imagines the afterlife (and there’s more than a bit of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” influence in how Freyne uses memories to chart the course of a relationship). Despite a strong start, and one excellent performance, “Eternity” too often seems reticent to really explore its ideas about love, gliding the surface of ideas instead of diving deep into some potentially rich romantic waters. Far too long (113 minutes), it’s also content to repeat too many of its best jokes instead of telling new ones. It’s not a horrible rom-com by any stretch, but the truth is that Charlie Kaufman, Albert Brooks, and Michael Schur are tough role models to emulate.We meet Joan and Larry in old age on their way to a Gender Reveal party, noting that they’ve been together for 65 years. We also learn that Larry wasn’t Joan’s first love—that was Luke, who died in the Korean War. When Larry chokes on a pretzel, he ends up in a version of the afterlife that hasn’t appeared in any of our religious texts, followed by his cancer-stricken life partner a week later. Met by Afterlife Coordinators played by Da’Vine Joy Randolph and John Early, he discovers that he’s at a sort of train station to eternity. It’s the stop where the recently deceased, who look like they did at their happiest—so Joan is now played by Elizabeth Olsen (easily the film’s MVP) and Larry by Miles Teller—choose where to spend forever. Want to go Mountain World and frolic on ski slopes and in log cabins? How about Beach World, which is pretty self-explanatory? Maybe No Men World appeals to you? It appeals to a lot of people.Before Joan and Larry can make their choice, they discover that Luke (Callum Turner) has been waiting at this way station for 67 years for the love of his life. It’s an existential love triangle that asks if youthful passion or lifelong commitment matters more. Teller and Olsen imbue their characters with a bit of the old age cadence of their corporeal forms—some of the best bits involve just how excited Larry is to be able to do things like squat again—while Turner playfully embodies a guy who never really got to grow up. Would you go with the one that got away or the one that stuck around?“Eternity” has a clever conceit, but that’s where too much of its ambition ends. There’s a secondary high concept—archives in which people can watch key moments from their life—that I found significantly more moving than the love triangle material, asking myself what memories would be acted out in those halls in my own afterlife. But, in the end, Freyne pulls back from too many of his best ideas, choosing playfulness over the messy philosophy that could have emerged from a true consideration of what we mean when we say we’d spend eternity with someone.Another film that starts with promise but lets the air slowly leak out of its tires is the deeply frustrating “Sacrifice,” from “Athena” director Romain Gavras. Obviously inspired by Eat the Rich films like those of Ruben Ostlund, “Sacrifice” pokes fun at the hollow, performative behavior of celebrities who find a way to remind you they’re the center of the universe as they preach saving the planet. It’s a movie with a great cast and intriguing set-up that can’t figure at all what to do after its chaotic inciting incidents. It’s also a cynically shallow film that seems to suggest nothing matters, or maybe everything matters, or who cares? A film that pokes fun at shallow clickbait behavior needs to work harder than this one to not be shallow itself.Chris Evans plays Mike Tyler, a movie star who lost his shit on the red carpet recently, going on a rant that ended with a flamethrower incident. He has finally emerged from the shadows to attend an A-list climate change event in Greece, hoping the moment can shake off the bad press, but he’s also the kind of guy whose ego remains deeply fragile. He’s worried more about his hair than anything else and decides to use the gathering for one of those obnoxious celebrity speeches that use a lot of words to say nothing, just annoying everyone in earshot. The party also introduces us to a Musk-esque figure (we’re gonna see SO many of those in satires for years to come) named Braken (a sly Vincent Cassel) and his wife (Salma Hayek Pinault). Braken is developing a technology to mine energy from mollusks. Save the planet by wrecking the oceans. Seems plausible. The party also includes singer/dancers known as Mother Nature (Charli xcx) and Daughter Nature (Ambika Mod), doing a routine that feels like it may never end. Into this Met Gala-esque event drops a group of eco-terrorists led by Anya Taylor Joy. “Green Isis” takes Mike, Daughter Nature, and Braken hostage, planning to throw them into a bubbling volcano to really save the planet from destruction.The first act of “Sacrifice” isn’t bad, setting the table for a full meal of celebrity satire that is simply never served. The movie meanders its way to a disappointing ending that seems to be the product of a writer who never figured out what he wanted to say about the environment or how shallowly its used by influencers and celebrities, only that it is.