Banderas, Styler Talk TIFF Premiere 'Up Against It' — SkimNews
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- "Up Against It" premieres Sept. 12 at TIFF, starring Antonio Banderas as Álvaro and Eva Birthistle as Saffron, estranged parents reuniting after doctors tell them their daughter Rose (Eden Hamilton) may need a sibling as a potential donor.
- Trudie Styler directed from a screenplay she workshopped for years and moved from a U.S. to U.K. setting, drawing on the nursing careers of her two sisters: "It's a calling to want to become a family member to the families who are struggling the most."
- Banderas defends the film's tonal tightrope, a dramedy about a critically ill child that doesn't collapse into fear: "You cannot get too solemn about the thing — because life is not like that. In most circumstances, humor may appear."
- Birthistle, known for the series "Bad Sisters," says her character masks terror for Rose's sake — "Saffron has no choice but to be OK" — then "goes home and sticks her face in the pillow and screams, and opens a bottle of Champagne."
- The two leads were cast close to production start, with Banderas an old friend of Styler's and Birthistle a new acquaintance; Styler walked them through character arcs and told them to improvise, calling the resulting chemistry "kismet."
- Styler has directed only one previous feature — 2017's "Freak Show" — and noted she's "not known for being a director" despite decades as a producer, leaning on that producer confidence to greenlight the project.
Why it matters: Styler's second directorial feature in nearly a decade relies on a tonal gamble: a story about a dying child whose parents must reconcile to conceive a donor — handled with humor because, as the director puts it, "life is not like that." Pairing a global star (Banderas) with a "Bad Sisters" lead (Birthistle) and letting them improvise from character arcs signals a festival premiere built on performance chemistry rather than tightly scripted beats.
Ask SkimNews
