Banderas & Birthisle in TIFF's Up Against It IVF Comedy — SkimNews
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- Up Against It, directed by Trudie Styler, world premiered at the Toronto Film Festival as part of the Gala Presentations slate, with a 2-hour-2-minute running time.
- Antonio Banderas and Eva Birthisle play Alvaro and Saffron, divorced co-parents whose daughter Rose (Eden Hamilton) is diagnosed with leukemia and offered only one viable treatment: conceive an IVF savior sibling together.
- Forest Whitaker plays the doctor delivering the radical medical recommendation, while Richard E. Grant appears in a brief supporting role as a family friend that the reviewer notes seems almost throwaway.
- The plot twists the divorce genre by adding each ex's current partner—Arinzé Kene as Saffron's new boyfriend and Úrsula Corberó as Alvaro's new love—both of whom are blindsided by the demand for renewed intimacy.
- The original screenplay by Chloe King and Camille Griffin is described as akin to a twisted "Parent Trap" meets 1984's "Irreconcilable Differences," with Deadline calling it a "smart and sophisticated" take on family collapse.
- Producers are Styler alongside Celine Rattray and Piers Tempest; sales are handled by CAA domestically and Beta Cinema internationally.
Why it matters: Styler's film stages a rarely seen medical-ethical premise—a divorced couple ordered to reproduce together under a life-or-death deadline—giving Banderas and Birthisle a combustible reunion vehicle. Festival audiences are split: Deadline's review hails it as 'smart and sophisticated,' while IndieWire's competing TIFF take calls the same film 'uneven,' making this one of the more polarized Gala titles of the edition.
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