The Whistler Film Festival, which begins on December 2nd and run until December 6th, features a mixed bag of projects, including two recently added titles: I Smile Back with Sarah Silverman, and A Royal Night Out with Sarah Gadon, Bel Powley and Emily Watson.
Being hailed for her dramatic performance in I Smile Back, directed by Adam Salky, Silverman plays Laney Brooks, a housewife with a loving husband, a nice suburban home, and two great kids. Yet most days, after dropping the kids off at school, she embarks on a dark and self-destructive spiral of promiscuity and drug abuse that is seemingly inexplicable, but all too familiar to damaged personalities that feel a need to sabotage their own lives.
Similar rave reviews have gone out to Canadian actor Sarah Gadon (WFF14 Spotlight Honouree), who plays 19-year old Princess Elizabeth in the delightful British charmer A Royal Night Out, directed by Julian Jerrold (Brideshead Revisited, Kinky Boots), and also starring Emily Watson and Rupert Everett as the Queen and King of England. It is a matter of historical fact that Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret (then 15, and played by Diary of a Teenage Girl’s Bel Powley) were allowed out of Buckingham Palace to mingle with the British people for the first and perhaps only time on VE Day in 1945. This film imagines a respectful Cinderella-type romp through the city, in which both princesses get separated from each other, discover alcohol, boys and double-decker buses, and feel the early stirrings of romance-urges that will be thwarted by the life of public service that awaits them.
The Whistler Premiere of A Royal Night Out and Western Canadian Premiere of I Smile Back will replace the previously announced Maggie’s Plan and The Meddler. For the full film lineup, please see the WFF Film Lineup & Schedule.
Photo: Whistler Film Festival
