The second day of the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) was filled with particularly emotional premieres, with the cast of The Last Showgirl, including Pamela Anderson and Jamie Lee Curtis being brought to tears at the film’s premiere. Additionally, Jennifer Lopez was seen crying after the screening of Unstoppable.
Another Canadian talent, Sandra Oh, was at the premiere for the sci-fi, live action and animated feature Can I Get a Witness? Oh is the inaugural Tribute Awards Honorary Chair at the festival.
‘Unstoppable’
While headlines have been circulating about Lopez’s divorce from Ben Affleck, things took an emotional and heartfelt turn in Toronto during the premiere of her film Unstoppable.
Also starring Jharrel Jerome, Bobby Cannavale, Michael Peña and Don Cheadle, the film tells the story of Anthony Robles (Jharrel), a wrestler born without a right leg, who grew up in a volatile household, but became a champion in his sport.
The Toronto audience gave the film a standing ovation, with Lopez seen in the crowd getting emotional as she hugged Robles, who was in attendance for the world premiere, along with his mother Judy.
“When I read the script I felt like so many women, including myself, could relate to the struggles that she had gone through in her life,” Lopez said. “The story, being a Latino story, being so inspiring, it was just something that just grabbed me.
“Just talking to [Judy] I realized that we are almost the same person, in a weird way, even though we are so different and we had such different lives. That at the core and the heart of who we were, at first we were moms and beyond that we had similar struggles.”
Unstoppable is a particularly inspiring sports drama. While it may seem like a formula you’ve seen before in other stories, this film and Jharrel’s execution of Robles’ story are so impactful you want to really lean into the resiliency of this person. Lopez brings her best to the role, adding such emotional depth to the story that your heart breaks watching her fight out of an abusive relationship with Cannavale’s character, while supporting her family.
‘The Last Showgirl’
The Last Showgirl has quickly become one of the most must-see film from TIFF, starring Pamela Anderson, Dave Bautista, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kiernan Shipka, Brenda Song and Billie Lourd. Maybe it’s time for Anderson to get an Oscar.
Anderson plays Shelly, a Las Vegas performer whose show, Le Razzle Dazzle, is closing its door after more than 30 years. Shelley now has to face the reality of what her life will look like as a woman in her 50s, which is very different from the younger showgirls she performs with.
“I think I’ve been getting ready my whole life for this role,” Anderson told the crowd at The Princess of Wales Theatre. “It’s the first time I’ve ever read a good script.”
“There’s this Nanci Griffith song ‘It’s a Hard Life Wherever You Go,’ it’s a hard life for people, it’s a really hard life for people and in Vegas it’s a really hard life,” Curtis said through tears at the film’s premiere. “And I just think that poignancy of the storytelling of every single person’s story, though Kate’s [Gersten] words and Gia’s direction, and the beautiful camera work, it’s exquisite to see.”
“It’s a movie about dreams and going after your dreams. But of course, the dreams become a really harsh f—king reality, and for women it’s a really harsh reality that men don’t have as much.”
‘We Live in Time’
Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield star in We Live in Time, directed by John Crowley and written by Nick Payne.
The film is an emotional journey though a romance, told in a non-linear fashion, from a couple’s first meeting in an unexpected car accident, to the birth of their daughter and ultimately Almut’s (Pugh) unfortunate ovarian cancer diagnosis.
While the story is certainly heartbreaking, there’s such a strong charm to Pugh and Garfield together, with a natural wit and sarcasm that helps cut through the emotional stakes of this story, making it feel like a particularly three-dimensional story.
“So many of our memories of the way that we connected and how we built this chemistry was through the total enjoyment of falling deeper and deeper into it every day,” Pugh said during the film’s world premiere. “I wouldn’t have been able to do any of the stuff without the safety that this man had for me and held me, and allowed me to be.”
“Neither of us would be here without John’s space that he gave us and he provided for us. It’s so amazing being in this space with all of you because it was such a pleasure shooting this movie. It was a true, true pleasure.”
‘Can I Get A Witness?’
Canadian legend Sandra Oh was in Toronto for the premiere of Can I Get A Witness? from filmmaker Ann Marie Fleming.
The Canadian sci-fi film blends live-action and animated elements, telling a story set in the near future centres around the sacrifices people have to make to live on Earth.