The Toronto Film Festival kicked off September 5 with a multi-move opening night that included David Gordon Green’s family comedy Nutcrackers starring Ben Stiller. It kicked off a slate of world premieres and buzzy movies across 11 days for the 49th edition of one of North America’s biggest film festivals.
Other key titles making their debuts in Toronto include The Luckiest Man in America starring Paul Walter Hauser, the Amy Adams-starring Nightbitch, theatre guru Marianne Elliott’s The Salt Path, DreamWorks Animation’s The Wild Robot and Mike Flanagan’s The Life of Chuck.
Documentaries set to make a splash include Elton John: Never Too Late and Paul Anka: His Way.
Click below to read Deadline’s reviews from the ground in Toronto and keep checking back as we add more. The festival wraps September 15.
The Assessment ‘The Assessment’
Section: Special Presentations
Director: Fleur Fortune
Cast: Alicia Vikander, Elizabeth Olsen,...
Other key titles making their debuts in Toronto include The Luckiest Man in America starring Paul Walter Hauser, the Amy Adams-starring Nightbitch, theatre guru Marianne Elliott’s The Salt Path, DreamWorks Animation’s The Wild Robot and Mike Flanagan’s The Life of Chuck.
Documentaries set to make a splash include Elton John: Never Too Late and Paul Anka: His Way.
Click below to read Deadline’s reviews from the ground in Toronto and keep checking back as we add more. The festival wraps September 15.
The Assessment ‘The Assessment’
Section: Special Presentations
Director: Fleur Fortune
Cast: Alicia Vikander, Elizabeth Olsen,...
- 9/9/2024
- by Pete Hammond, Damon Wise and Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
It shouldn’t be hard for “Hard Truths” to get some Oscar love, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be.
British actress Marianne Jean-Baptiste delivers an emotionally charged performance in Mike Leigh’s powerful drama. She portrays a woman on the verge of mental collapse, navigating her life with a volatile mix of vulnerability and rage. Whether interacting with a furniture store clerk, her sister, or her husband and child, Jean-Baptiste commands the screen for nearly every one of the film’s 97 minutes, taking the audience on a turbulent emotional ride. But that can be a lot for moviegoers to handle. Hopefully, the searing nature of the performance won’t prevent voters from nominating her for best lead actress at this year’s Academy Awards.
In order for that to happen, Bleecker Street, the film’s distributor, will need strong word-of-mouth to keep the drama Jean-Baptiste and “Hard Truths” in the awards conversation.
British actress Marianne Jean-Baptiste delivers an emotionally charged performance in Mike Leigh’s powerful drama. She portrays a woman on the verge of mental collapse, navigating her life with a volatile mix of vulnerability and rage. Whether interacting with a furniture store clerk, her sister, or her husband and child, Jean-Baptiste commands the screen for nearly every one of the film’s 97 minutes, taking the audience on a turbulent emotional ride. But that can be a lot for moviegoers to handle. Hopefully, the searing nature of the performance won’t prevent voters from nominating her for best lead actress at this year’s Academy Awards.
In order for that to happen, Bleecker Street, the film’s distributor, will need strong word-of-mouth to keep the drama Jean-Baptiste and “Hard Truths” in the awards conversation.
- 9/7/2024
- by Clayton Davis
- Variety Film + TV
Marianne Jean-Baptiste says that she’s playing “the ultimate Karen” in Mike Leigh’s new film Hard Truths. The character’s name is, actually, Pansy. The horticulturalists at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, just outside of London, describe the Pansy flower as a symbol for “humanism.”
That’s not a description Jean-Baptiste would recognize in the Pansy she plays in the movie.
She smiles as she relates how the character she and Leigh created after intense discussion and rehearsal “as a combination of five different women, all of whom had the milk of human kindness removed from them.”
That’s a perfect summation of Pansy, a fastidious woman, who keeps the North London house she shares with her plumber husband Curtley (David Webber) and Moses (Tuwaine Barrett) as their unmotivated son, spotlessly clean.
She’s particularly fixated on polishing her leather couch.
Her family, including her sister Chantel, played by Michele Austin,...
That’s not a description Jean-Baptiste would recognize in the Pansy she plays in the movie.
She smiles as she relates how the character she and Leigh created after intense discussion and rehearsal “as a combination of five different women, all of whom had the milk of human kindness removed from them.”
That’s a perfect summation of Pansy, a fastidious woman, who keeps the North London house she shares with her plumber husband Curtley (David Webber) and Moses (Tuwaine Barrett) as their unmotivated son, spotlessly clean.
She’s particularly fixated on polishing her leather couch.
Her family, including her sister Chantel, played by Michele Austin,...
- 9/7/2024
- by Baz Bamigboye
- Deadline Film + TV
Mike Leigh is nothing if not an expert at conceiving (in conjunction with talented actors) a certain kind of larger-than-life character. Well, larger-than-life within the context of a realist drama. Think of Johnny in Naked, the revolting and terminally ranting man, or Poppy in Happy-Go-Lucky, a young woman perpetually optimistic to the point of threatening her own safety. They are not necessarily the people you meet every day, but they articulate the very real worlds that Leigh creates, often as forms of social criticism.
Hard Truths introduces the newest character in this canon: Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptise). The mother figure in a working-class family that includes the stoic tradesman Curtley (David Webber) and layabout 22-year-old son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett), her life seems a nonstop series of indignities both emotional and physical. Flying off the handle with zingers at every person she can––be it her family, service workers, or doctors simply...
Hard Truths introduces the newest character in this canon: Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptise). The mother figure in a working-class family that includes the stoic tradesman Curtley (David Webber) and layabout 22-year-old son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett), her life seems a nonstop series of indignities both emotional and physical. Flying off the handle with zingers at every person she can––be it her family, service workers, or doctors simply...
- 9/7/2024
- by Ethan Vestby
- The Film Stage
Some people bring happiness and positivity into the world, uplifting the lives of all around them, and some make flowers wilt and milk curdle wherever they go. As Pansy, Marianne Jean-Baptiste embodies the latter sort in “Hard Truths,” coming away from her reunion with “Secrets & Lies” director Mike Leigh with her richest character yet — not economically speaking, of course, though we’d all be millionaires if we had a nickel for every blistering complaint that spills from Pansy’s lips.
“Hard Truths” arrives more than 50 years after Leigh’s first film, “Bleak Moments,” bookending a career of tough, tell-it-like-it-is looks at working-class British life. Frankly, that vague-sounding title seems better suited to a Criterion Collection boxed set of his work than to his latest feature. A return to intimate kitchen sink realism after the grand-scale ambition of several relatively expansive period pieces — “Topsy-Turvy,” “Vera Drake,” “Mr. Turner” and “Peterloo...
“Hard Truths” arrives more than 50 years after Leigh’s first film, “Bleak Moments,” bookending a career of tough, tell-it-like-it-is looks at working-class British life. Frankly, that vague-sounding title seems better suited to a Criterion Collection boxed set of his work than to his latest feature. A return to intimate kitchen sink realism after the grand-scale ambition of several relatively expansive period pieces — “Topsy-Turvy,” “Vera Drake,” “Mr. Turner” and “Peterloo...
- 9/7/2024
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
Right at the end credits of Hard Truths it says “any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.” I am not sure that is so true. I know many people who are just as mad at the world for various reasons as Pansy, the main character in Mike Leigh’s latest depressing look at working class day-to-day existence in Great Britain. We’ve been here in this bleak zone many times with Leigh, and in fact this is the second time the great Marianne Jean-Baptiste has worked with him, the first being her Oscar-nominated performance in his 1996 classic Secrets and Lies. She was unforgettable then, and she remains unforgettable now, albeit playing a thoroughly unlikable character in Pansy, a woman who somewhere along the way lost any sense of joy, if indeed she ever had any.
Pansy is a real pip if ever there was one. Leigh workshops his scripts,...
Pansy is a real pip if ever there was one. Leigh workshops his scripts,...
- 9/7/2024
- by Pete Hammond
- Deadline Film + TV
In the pantheon of unpleasant screen heroines, Pansy Deacon more than holds her own. Played by a ferocious Marianne Jean-Baptiste, the perpetually harried and hostile protagonist of Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths spews her venom on everyone she encounters — from family members to furniture store employees, and all manner of unlucky folks in between.
Stranding us with such a spectacularly disagreeable person for 97 minutes may seem like a cruel trick, and the movie will test the patience of viewers who prefer their main characters closer to the likable end of the spectrum. But fans of the British auteur will discern, in Leigh’s latest, his trademark generosity, alongside his willingness to show people at their wince-inducing worst. With this prickly, piercing new film, the writer-director presents an intriguing challenge, pushing the bounds of our empathy and asking us to look, really look, at someone from whom we’d surely avert...
Stranding us with such a spectacularly disagreeable person for 97 minutes may seem like a cruel trick, and the movie will test the patience of viewers who prefer their main characters closer to the likable end of the spectrum. But fans of the British auteur will discern, in Leigh’s latest, his trademark generosity, alongside his willingness to show people at their wince-inducing worst. With this prickly, piercing new film, the writer-director presents an intriguing challenge, pushing the bounds of our empathy and asking us to look, really look, at someone from whom we’d surely avert...
- 9/7/2024
- by Jon Frosch
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Director Mike Leigh vividly remembers the 1997 Academy Awards, where Marianne Jean-Baptiste was nominated for best supporting actress for her role in his best picture nominee “Secrets & Lies.”
“She should have won,” Leigh said during an interview at the Variety Studio, sponsored by J Crew and SharkNinja, during the Toronto International Film Festival.
Jean-Baptiste lost the award to Juliette Binoche, who shockingly won for her performance in “The English Patient,” which also took home the best picture Oscar. However, neither Binoche nor Jean-Baptiste were favored to win. Instead, Lauren Bacall in “The Mirror Has Two Faces” won Golden Globe and SAG prizes for her work.
“The person who won that year walked backstage after the interviews, came straight over to Marianne and said, ‘You should have won this,’” Leigh recalled. “That has to be for the record.”
Nearly three decades later, Leigh and Jean-Baptiste are teaming up again for Leigh’s 15th feature film,...
“She should have won,” Leigh said during an interview at the Variety Studio, sponsored by J Crew and SharkNinja, during the Toronto International Film Festival.
Jean-Baptiste lost the award to Juliette Binoche, who shockingly won for her performance in “The English Patient,” which also took home the best picture Oscar. However, neither Binoche nor Jean-Baptiste were favored to win. Instead, Lauren Bacall in “The Mirror Has Two Faces” won Golden Globe and SAG prizes for her work.
“The person who won that year walked backstage after the interviews, came straight over to Marianne and said, ‘You should have won this,’” Leigh recalled. “That has to be for the record.”
Nearly three decades later, Leigh and Jean-Baptiste are teaming up again for Leigh’s 15th feature film,...
- 9/6/2024
- by Clayton Davis
- Variety Film + TV
"Why can't you enjoy life?!" "I don't know!" Bleecker Street has revealed the first official trailer for Hard Truths, the latest Mike Leigh film premiering at the 2024 Toronto Film Festival soon. It'll also screen at the New York & London Film Festivals as well, and the US release is now set for January 2025. Legendary director Mike Leigh returns to the contemporary world with a fierce, compassionate, often darkly humorous study of family and the thorny ties that bind us. An ongoing exploration of the contemporary world with a tragicomic study of human strengths and weaknesses. For the first time since their award-winning Secrets & Lies (from 1996), Leigh and Oscar-nominated actress Marianne Jean-Baptiste reunite for Hard Truths, a compassionate story about family and the thorny ties that bind us. Marianne Jean-Baptiste stars as Pansy, and Michele Austin co-stars as her sister, a single mother with a life as different from Pansy's as can be.
- 9/4/2024
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Among the most-anticipated films on the fall festival circuit is the long-awaited return from Mike Leigh with Hard Truths. Marking a reunion with Secrets & Lies star Marianne Jean-Baptiste, it’s the British filmmaker’s first contemporary work in nearly fifteen years. Ahead of a TIFF world premiere this Friday, followed by a stop at NYFF and one-week qualifying run on December 6th, then nationwide release on January 10th from Bleecker Street, the first trailer and poster have arrived.
Here’s the synopsis: “Legendary filmmaker Mike Leigh returns to the contemporary world with a fierce, compassionate, and often darkly humorous study of family and the thorny ties that bind us. Reunited with Leigh for the first time since multiple Oscar-nominated Secrets & Lies, the astonishing Marianne Jean-Baptiste plays Pansy, a woman wracked by fear, tormented by afflictions, and prone to raging tirades against her husband, son, and anyone who looks her way.
Here’s the synopsis: “Legendary filmmaker Mike Leigh returns to the contemporary world with a fierce, compassionate, and often darkly humorous study of family and the thorny ties that bind us. Reunited with Leigh for the first time since multiple Oscar-nominated Secrets & Lies, the astonishing Marianne Jean-Baptiste plays Pansy, a woman wracked by fear, tormented by afflictions, and prone to raging tirades against her husband, son, and anyone who looks her way.
- 9/4/2024
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
At long last, we now have at least one festival premiere set for one of our most-anticipated films of the year. Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Serpent’s Path, a remake of his superb, bad-vibes 1998 thriller that stars Damien Bonnard, Mathieu Amalric, Ko Shibasaki, and Drive My Car‘s Hidetoshi Nishijima, is now set for a premiere as part of San Sebastián Film Festival’s Official Selection.
Taking place September 20-28, the lineup also features the latest from Edward Berger, Gia Coppola, Costa-Gavras, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Mike Leigh, Diego Lerman, Joshua Oppenheimer, and François Ozon. While we could see Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Serpent’s Path pop up at other fall fests, it’s exciting to know it’s finally seeing the light of day.
Check out the full lineup below.
Bound In Heaven
Xin Huo (China)
Country(ies) of production: China
Cast: Ni Ni, You Zhou
This film narrates the poignant tale of a...
Taking place September 20-28, the lineup also features the latest from Edward Berger, Gia Coppola, Costa-Gavras, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Mike Leigh, Diego Lerman, Joshua Oppenheimer, and François Ozon. While we could see Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Serpent’s Path pop up at other fall fests, it’s exciting to know it’s finally seeing the light of day.
Check out the full lineup below.
Bound In Heaven
Xin Huo (China)
Country(ies) of production: China
Cast: Ni Ni, You Zhou
This film narrates the poignant tale of a...
- 7/30/2024
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
The San Sebastián Film Festival has revealed a bumper Official Selection for its latest edition, which will unfold from September 20 — 28.
The festival, which is celebrating its 72nd edition, will screen new films from established filmmakers such as Edward Berger, Gia Coppola, Costa-Gavras, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Mike Leigh, Diego Lerman, Joshua Oppenheimer, and François Ozon alongside works from new filmmakers including Laura Carreira and Xin Huo.
Coppola’s The Last Showgirl heads to San Sebastián following a debut in Toronto. The film stars Pamela Anderson, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Dave Bautista. The film’s plot follows a seasoned showgirl who must plan for her future when her show closes after a 30-year run. Also heading to Spain from The Six is Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths, starring Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Michele Austin. The British-Spanish production is said to portray the everyday life of a London family, addressing such issues as family relations,...
The festival, which is celebrating its 72nd edition, will screen new films from established filmmakers such as Edward Berger, Gia Coppola, Costa-Gavras, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Mike Leigh, Diego Lerman, Joshua Oppenheimer, and François Ozon alongside works from new filmmakers including Laura Carreira and Xin Huo.
Coppola’s The Last Showgirl heads to San Sebastián following a debut in Toronto. The film stars Pamela Anderson, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Dave Bautista. The film’s plot follows a seasoned showgirl who must plan for her future when her show closes after a 30-year run. Also heading to Spain from The Six is Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths, starring Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Michele Austin. The British-Spanish production is said to portray the everyday life of a London family, addressing such issues as family relations,...
- 7/30/2024
- by Zac Ntim
- Deadline Film + TV
Sharon Horgan & Michael Sheen To Lead Jack Thorne’s ‘Best Interests’
Sharon Horgan and Michael Sheen are to lead the Jack Thorne-scripted BBC One drama Best Interests. The duo will play married couple Nicci and Andrew who have two daughters: Katie (Alison Oliver) and Marnie (Niamh Moriarty). Marnie has a life-threatening condition and doctors believe it is in her best interests to be allowed to die, but her loving family disagree. Thus begins a fight that will take them through every stage of a legal process, as they struggle to contemplate this huge decision. Additional cast include Noma Dumezweni, Chizzy Akudolu, Des McAleer, Mat Fraser, Gary Beadle, Jack Morris, Pippa Haywood, Shane Zaza, Lucian Msamati and Lisa McGrillis. Thorne said: “Best Interests cases are both compelling and revealing. Our country has a very troubled relationship with disability and these cases put a spotlight on that. But our drama is first...
Sharon Horgan and Michael Sheen are to lead the Jack Thorne-scripted BBC One drama Best Interests. The duo will play married couple Nicci and Andrew who have two daughters: Katie (Alison Oliver) and Marnie (Niamh Moriarty). Marnie has a life-threatening condition and doctors believe it is in her best interests to be allowed to die, but her loving family disagree. Thus begins a fight that will take them through every stage of a legal process, as they struggle to contemplate this huge decision. Additional cast include Noma Dumezweni, Chizzy Akudolu, Des McAleer, Mat Fraser, Gary Beadle, Jack Morris, Pippa Haywood, Shane Zaza, Lucian Msamati and Lisa McGrillis. Thorne said: “Best Interests cases are both compelling and revealing. Our country has a very troubled relationship with disability and these cases put a spotlight on that. But our drama is first...
- 3/16/2022
- by Nancy Tartaglione and Max Goldbart
- Deadline Film + TV
One of the bright lights of this year’s awards season, BAFTA best actress nominee Bukky Bakray of the film “Rocks” will star in forthcoming BBC One and Netflix drama “You Don’t Know Me.”
Produced by Snowed-In Production and co-produced with Netflix, the show has now begun filming in Birmingham. The project is an adaptation of Imran Mahmood’s bestselling novel, and is written by “The Crown” and “Judy” writer Tom Edge.
Directed by Sarmad Masud, the four-part drama turns on a young man named Hero (Samuel Adewunmi) who, with overwhelming evidence against him, stands accused of murder. At his trial, Hero tells an extraordinary story about the woman he loves, and how he risked everything to save her. Hero swears he is innocent, but can we believe him?
Bakray plays Bless, Hero’s younger sister, who is a guiding force for her older brother and believes fiercely in his innocence.
Produced by Snowed-In Production and co-produced with Netflix, the show has now begun filming in Birmingham. The project is an adaptation of Imran Mahmood’s bestselling novel, and is written by “The Crown” and “Judy” writer Tom Edge.
Directed by Sarmad Masud, the four-part drama turns on a young man named Hero (Samuel Adewunmi) who, with overwhelming evidence against him, stands accused of murder. At his trial, Hero tells an extraordinary story about the woman he loves, and how he risked everything to save her. Hero swears he is innocent, but can we believe him?
Bakray plays Bless, Hero’s younger sister, who is a guiding force for her older brother and believes fiercely in his innocence.
- 3/18/2021
- by Manori Ravindran
- Variety Film + TV
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