by Larry Richman
The World Premiere of Girlfriend took place this past week at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival. Featured in the Discovery section, the screenings were held in the Scotiabank Theatre at Richmond and John St.
This is the first full-length feature from writer/director Justin Lerner. I first met Lerner and reviewed his short film The Replacement Child at the 2008 Santa Barbara Film Festival and had been eagerly awaiting this debut. It far exceeded my expectations.
Girlfriend stars Evan Sneider (The Replacement Child), Shannon Woodward (The Haunting of Molly Hartley), Jackson Rathbone (The Twilight Saga), and Amanda Plummer (Pulp Fiction). It's hard to watch at times but is one of those films that deserves the label "important." This movie about (and starring) a young man with Down's Syndrome has some scenes which may make audiences uncomfortable but, to me, that's one of the definitions of true art -- it moves you, makes you happy, sad, angry -- it affects you emotionally on a deeply personal level.
Writer/director/producer Justin Lerner was joined onstage by Evan Sneider (Evan), Jackson Rathbone (Russ, co-producer, composer), Jerad Anderson (Kenny, producer, composer), Shannon Woodward (Candy), and Quyen Tran (cinematographer) for a Q&A following the Monday, September 13 screening. The celebration continued well into Tuesday morning as I headed to Brant House for a spectacular afterparty with the cast and crew, including the members of the band 100 Monkeys -- Rathbone, Anderson, M. Lawrence Abrams, Ben Johnson, and Ben Graupner -- who wrote the original music featured in the film. The group played a public concert at the club following the party.
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