Garcy found a couple more reviews out of TIFF for Love and Other Impossible Pursuits. The review earlier was a flat out pan but these two are more mixed-positive, with Natalie’s performance getting the plaudits.
First up is a 3 star review from Indiewire:
In this new film from Don Roos (THE OPPOSITE OF SEX, HAPPY ENDINGS), the stunning Natalie Portman gives a complex and mature performance as “the other woman,” a shunned stepmother who’s dealing with all kinds of problems—from the horrible loss of her baby at the age of 3 days to the strained relationship with her husband’s 8-year-old son to the boy’s bitch of a biological mother (a shrill Lisa Kudrow). There are some nice moments here and Portman plays a rich character, but this is too melodramatic and weepie for my tastes.
And some very kind words from Hollywood and Fine:
An emotionally challenging story about the tug-of-war of blended families among the well-to-do on New York’s Upper East and West Sides. It’s a movie I’m still processing, one that deals with heavy-duty emotional pain having to do with divorce, remarriage, infidelity and the death of a baby. It’s hard to say how this one will be received – but if it’s a hit, it will be because people connect to Natalie Portman’s daring performance as an understandably abrasive second wife, the first one where I truly believed her as an adult, a woman, as opposed to a prodigious post-adolescent.