On the surface, the amiable Josh seems to have the perfect life: a successful wife (Cobie Smulders), a son (William Kosovic) and a new house. The problem is that fatal car crashes start happening in Josh's front yard with some regularity, and in graphic fashion, causing his thin veneer of existence to unravel. Justin Buxton's "Sharp Corner" stars Ben Foster as the nearly anonymous Josh, the human equivalent of khaki pants and a white shirt. Buxton brings the film tension, and as the likable Foster makes John increasingly obsessive, the film finds more horror-movie elements in the banality of the ordinary. Foster is busy — he was in Venice promoting John Swab's "Chasing Ivory," which was rolled out in the Horizons Extras section — and calls "Chasing Ivory" "an exploration of the import-export of fentanyl and its costs."

“Sharp Corner” will have its world premiere on September 6 at the Toronto Intl. Film Festival. Neon Intl. is handling sales.

What do you think of Josh?

Josh has been going through the motions of a man, a man who has lived his life as a modern middle-class, ethical, honorable, castrated man with no sense of depth or introspection. And when this first accident happens in their new home — at least the way Jason and I would talk about it — it’s as if Josh has just woken up and is confronted with mortality for the first time, and instead of looking inside himself and asking what it means to be a person or how we relate to other people, do we just live our lives through the optics of others? His decision is to gradually and excessively take control instead of processing and experiencing life.