- Demand for Japanese content booms post 'Shogun'
- As India's Bollywood shifts, stars and snappers click
- Mystery drones won't interfere with Santa's work: US tracker
- Djokovic eyes more Slam glory as Swiatek returns under doping cloud
- Australia's in-form Head confirmed fit for Boxing Day Test
- Brazilian midfielder Oscar returns to Sao Paulo
- 'Wemby' and 'Ant-Man' to make NBA Christmas debuts
- US agency focused on foreign disinformation shuts down
- On Christmas Eve, Pope Francis launches holy Jubilee year
- 'Like a dream': AFP photographer's return to Syria
- Chiefs seek top seed in holiday test for playoff-bound NFL teams
- Panamanians protest 'public enemy' Trump's canal threat
- Cyclone death toll in Mayotte rises to 39
- Ecuador vice president says Noboa seeking her 'banishment'
- Leicester boss Van Nistelrooy aware of 'bigger picture' as Liverpool await
- Syria authorities say armed groups have agreed to disband
- Maresca expects Man City to be in title hunt as he downplays Chelsea's chancs
- Man Utd boss Amorim vows to stay on course despite Rashford row
- South Africa opt for all-pace attack against Pakistan
- Guardiola adamant Man City slump not all about Haaland
- Global stocks mostly higher in thin pre-Christmas trade
- Bethlehem marks sombre Christmas under shadow of war
- NASA probe makes closest ever pass by the Sun
- 11 killed in blast at Turkey explosives plant
- Indonesia considers parole for ex-terror chiefs: official
- Global stocks mostly rise in thin pre-Christmas trade
- Postecoglou says Spurs 'need to reinforce' in transfer window
- Le Pen says days of new French govt numbered
- Global stocks mostly rise after US tech rally
- Villa boss Emery set for 'very difficult' clash with Newcastle
- Investors swoop in to save German flying taxi startup
- How Finnish youth learn to spot disinformation
- South Korean opposition postpones decision to impeach acting president
- 12 killed in blast at Turkey explosives plant
- Panama leaders past and present reject Trump's threat of Canal takeover
- Hong Kong police issue fresh bounties for activists overseas
- Saving the mysterious African manatee at Cameroon hotspot
- India consider second spinner for Boxing Day Test
- London wall illuminates Covid's enduring pain at Christmas
- Poyet appointed manager at South Korea's Jeonbuk
- South Korea's opposition vows to impeach acting president
- The tsunami detection buoys safeguarding lives in Thailand
- Teen Konstas to open for Australia in Boxing Day India Test
- Asian stocks mostly up after US tech rally
- US panel could not reach consensus on US-Japan steel deal: Nippon
- The real-life violence that inspired South Korea's 'Squid Game'
- Blogs to Bluesky: social media shifts responses after 2004 tsunami
- Tennis power couple de Minaur and Boulter get engaged
- Supermaxi yachts eye record in gruelling Sydney-Hobart race
- Hawaii's Kilauea volcano erupts, spewing columns of lava
Amy Adams gets real about motherhood in 'Nightbitch'
As far as movie taglines go, this one is epic: "Motherhood is a bitch." In director Marielle Heller's latest feature, it is both literal and figurative.
"Nightbitch," which premiered at the Toronto film festival late Saturday, stars Amy Adams as Mother, an artist who becomes a harried stay-at-home mom caring for a boisterous toddler while her husband travels often for business.
As she becomes increasingly isolated and overwhelmed, Mother starts hearing things in the night and sprouting unusual hair patches. Is she... turning into an actual dog?
Based on the 2021 novel by Rachel Yoder of the same name, "Nightbitch" explores different facets of motherhood -- the wonder and joy, but also the darkness and exhaustion -- using equal doses of comedy, drama and magical realism.
The film is sure to strike a chord with millions of women who have had to make tough choices about parenting, careers and marriage -- only to sometimes be left disappointed and resentful.
"We're not very comfortable talking about female rage," Heller said in a Q&A after the screening.
"It felt really good to kind of take this invisible experience that a lot of us have gone through and make it more visible."
Heller is a veteran of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), the largest in North America, which provides a showcase for Oscar bait movies, feel-good crowd pleasers, independent fare and timely documentaries.
This movie belongs to the 50-year-old Adams, a six-time Oscar nominee who digs her teeth into the role -- pun intended -- and may well be in next year's awards conversation for her gritty, no-holds-barred performance.
She fearlessly delivers inner monologues about the frustrations and mind-numbing monotony of being a mother, seethes as other kids scream during library story hour and paws at the ground on one of her nocturnal outings.
For Adams, parenthood is "a shared experience and yet it isn't shared. So it's such a gift to get to be a part of sharing that with you all," she said at the Q&A.
Scoot McNairy, who plays Mother's husband, offered his biggest takeaway from the experience: "Don't mansplain motherhood."
- Paradise lost -
Also making its world premiere in Toronto on Saturday was Oscar-winning director Ron Howard's "Eden," a survival thriller set in the Galapagos islands after World War I.
The film, starring Jude Law and Sydney Sweeney, is based on a true story of a small group of Europeans who sought a new life, away from society's horrors and constraints.
Law plays Friedrich Ritter, who escapes to the island of Floreana with his partner Dora (Vanessa Kirby) to enjoy the solitude and write a manifesto.
But his letters, picked up by local boats, are published on the Continent, and others follow his lead to the island.
A young German couple (Sweeney and Daniel Bruehl) arrive, followed by self-described baroness Eloise (Ana de Armas), who has an entourage and dreams of building a high-end hotel.
Though the weather and the terrain prove challenging, the biggest hurdles to overcome stem from within the community itself.
"This is what these people lived through and I just found it fascinating, and I found it utterly human, and surprisingly relatable to human existence today, with all of its foibles, all its quirks," Howard said in a Q&A session after the premiere.
Sweeney said it was "every actor's dream" to work with the 70-year-old filmmaker, who won Oscars for best picture and director for 2001's "A Beautiful Mind."
Law said he relished the opportunity to work with an ensemble cast, noting: "They don't come along very often."
The festival runs through September 15.
Y.Nakamura--AMWN