More Toronto Int. Film Festival photos every day as we anticipate the opening of the festival on September 10.
Here’s your first look at Natalie Portman in “Love and Other Impossible Pursuits.” Directed by Don Roos (“The Opposite of Sex”), the picture chronicles the life of a home-wrecker of sorts. According to TIFF, “after winning Jack (Scott Cohen) away from his wife Carolyn (Lisa Kudrow), [Portman’s character] finds herself immersed in the cross-currents of a new hybrid family. Now second wife to her former lover, she’s forced to work out new relationships with her uncooperative stepson and his acerbic mother, who is still very much in the boy’s life.” Charlie Tahan plays the precocious young boy in the middle. Sounds like an interesting premise and Kudrow is always good in Roos’ hands.
Next up is Jordan Scott’s “Cracks” which focuses on British boarding school girls in the 1930s. There’s some considerable young talent in this one too including the comely Eva Green, Juno Temple (last seen in “Year One”), Imogen Poots (who looks like a young Kate Winslet and was the pretty young teenage girl in “28 Weeks Later”) Maria Valverde and Sinead Cusack. Apparently the film is about a sultry teacher (Green), “the walking embodiment of desire,” who encourages perhaps too much free thinking and inspiration. Jordan Scott is of course the daughter of Ridley Scott and “Cracks” is her feature-length debut. Sounds like a pretty awesome little debut. Would love to see this if we can manage it.
Here’s some shots of Keanu Reeves and Robin Wright Penn in Rebecca Miller’s “The Private Lives of Pippa Lee.” Wright Penn has been earning rave reviews for her supposedly nuanced performance and NY Magazine devoted a whole page to her in their latest issue. The rest of the cast is pretty stellar too and includes Alan Arkin, Maria Bello, Mike Bender, Winona Ryder, Julianne Moore and Blake Lively as the younger version of Wright Penn’s character. We’re also fans of Miller’s underrated 2005 film, “The Ballad of Jack and Rose,” with her husband Daniel Day-Lewis that a lot of people didn’t seem to appreciate (Camilla Belle really shined in that one too) [ed. I might be in the minority on that one, but so be it].
Lastly, Here’s your first look at Lenny Kravitz alongside “Precious” star Gabourey ‘Gabby’ Sidibe, plus one of Paula Patton (who’s married to Robin Thicke who wrote the theme song for the film). Co-star Mariah Carey set to record a song for the film.