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Anyone looking for evidence of economic recovery at the annual InStyle magazine/Hollywood Foreign Press party at the Windsor Arms on Tuesday night must have come away disappointed. Magazines have been hit a lot more immediately than movies by the economic downturn, and signs of cutbacks were everywhere.

Gone were the lavish food stations, replaced by a modest buffet of prosciutto and sushi, and an odd table covered with jars of candy. (You know things are bad when they're plying guests with cheap sweets.) And gone were the decadent goodie bags, which had been such a coveted staple that guests were issued little tickets to make sure they didn't take home more than one. This year's bag didn't even say InStyle; it was a simple Sephora shopping bag containing one bottle of body wash and one small package of lip glosses. (I know, cry me a river, but these are signs.)

Director Rebecca Miller (left) and actress Robin Wright Penn, in a va-va-voom short black dress, arrive at the InStyle Party Sept. 16.

People may have been celebrating the sale of Tom Ford's directorial debut, A Single Man , to the Weinstein company for $1-million (U.S.), but it was the first big sale at TIFF, and $1-million is a whole lot less than the $30-million paid for Little Miss Sunshine at Sundance a few years ago. Plus, supporting Tom Ford is a no-brainer: The former Gucci head is a media magnet, and his film stars Colin Firth, who in addition to being extremely dishy is also a master line-deliverer. “It's not the film of a stylist,” Firth told me. “It's the film of a man with something to confess.” (Harvey Weinstein, you have your tag line.)

Firth has a second film at TIFF, Dorian Gray , which has been less well received – partly because it gets melodramatic, but mainly (for me, anyway) because Firth's face is obscured behind a forest of facial hair.

“The hair was really mine,” he said. “Well, mostly mine. I had to keep it for two months, but it was more my wife suffering it than I. Shaving it was a great day. And even better, because I age in the film, was scraping off the prosthetic wrinkles. Though there are one or two that didn't come off.”

Firth was just one of many Brits at this bash – in fact, the place was so lousy with them, I wondered who was back there minding England. There was Sarah Ferguson in one banquette (later, I watched as she and Firth met for the first time), sporting lots of cleavage, with her famous red hair down around her shoulders, talking about her new role: a producer on the closing-night gala film The Young Victoria , which stars Emily Blunt. “I've been wanting to make this film for 15 years,” the erstwhile Duchess of York told me. “I've written two books about the young Victoria, and it's a such a beautiful love story, this teenage girl falling in love. And I fell in love with a great prince, so I know.”

Clive Owen was wandering around with George MacKay, the 17-year-old actor who plays his son in The Boys Are Back , in which a family reunites after a death. “I'd never seen the film with an audience before and I was so glad to hear them laugh,” Owen said. Later, he secluded himself in a banquette, and politely avoided eye contact with a weird army of scantily clad fembots who appeared out of nowhere and spent half an hour displaying themselves by his velvet rope.

The Brit having the most fun was Bill Nighy, making the rounds in a suit and large black-rimmed glasses, languidly chatting to all and sundry. Despite being a familiar face in England, Nighy, 59, had been largely unknown to North American audiences until a few years ago. “Well, it would have to have been Love, Actually , wouldn't it?” he said, referring to his breakthrough role as an aging rock star. “I knew if that movie did well, I would, too. Though people still don't know how to pronounce my name.” He grinned. “It rhymes with sigh.”

Nighy certainly made up for lost time: In the past five years, he's been in projects high ( The Constant Gardener ) and low ( Underworld: Evolution ), turned his face into a squid for two Pirates of the Caribbean movies and starred on Broadway with Julianne Moore in David Hare's play The Vertical Hour . “I love David Hare, I've done five plays with him,” Nighy said. “I was having dinner at his house the other night and I realized, I don't want David Hare to die, ever. Or at any rate, I hope I go first.”

Nighy's next film with his Love, Actually writer-director, Richard Curtis, is called Pirate Radio ; it's due here this fall, though it already opened in Britain (and is available on Air Canada flights) as The Boat that Rocked . It's the true story of a bunch of renegades who beamed pop music from a boat anchored off the coast of England in the 1960s, and “it was tremendous fun,” Nighy said, “being on the water for five weeks during a lovely summer, working with Philip Seymour Hoffman, who is sort of edible. And every now and then it would turn into an Elvis movie, because we'd do a scene that required us to dance all day.” I have seen this film, and Nighy can dance.

There were a few non-Brits in attendance. Patricia Clarkson, the Cairo Time star whose poster adorns bus shelters all over Toronto, admitted she hated velvet ropes. “I'm always afraid they won't let me in,” she said, laughing huskily. “Even here tonight, I got out of the car and said, ‘Oh, um, I'm Patricia Clarkson.' They said, “Yes, we know who you are.'” If you don't know her – from, among other things, Six Feet Under;Good Night, and Good Luck;Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Whatever Works – you should. Based on my unofficial survey, she was one of the most beloved interviewees at TIFF this year.

Robin Wright Penn and Rebecca Miller, star and writer-director, respectively, of The Private Lives of Pippa Lee , opted to stay out of the main room and huddle together in the darker side bar. At their press conference earlier that day, Wright Penn had said she hated wearing her character's conservative clothes and “ugly Ferragamo shoes.” What were the little strappy numbers she was wearing tonight? “Jimmy Choo's, baby,” she said. Also at the presser, Wright Penn had said that she'd never play a stripper again. “But I'd play a stripper for you,” she said to Miller. “A stripper and a hooker.”

“Aww,” Miller replied.

Lastly, there was Nicolas Cage, star of Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans , but if you wanted to see him, you had to peer over the phalanx of well-marbled musclemen guarding his banquette. True to form for parties at this TIFF, it was all over much earlier than usual. The parties are smaller, less ornate, more businesslike. Rome may be burning, but no one is fiddling around, not this year. By 11:30 p.m., the music had gone up, the riff-raff had started to come in, and the stars were pouring out in a steady stream. “Nick, we're leaving in five,” his handler informed him. I beat him out the door.