Spy thriller “Ponies,” starring Emilia Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson, and “The Other Bennet Sister,” starring Ella Bruccoleri and Richard E. Grant, are among the drama series and TV movies competing for the Golden Nymph Award at the Monte-Carlo Television Festival, which starts Friday.
The jury is chaired by British actress Lesley Manville, who serves alongside British actor Kevin McKidd, U.S. showrunner Greg Daniels, French actress Frédérique Bel, South Korean producer Hojin Kwon, and British actress Yasmin Finney.
“Ponies,” from Universal Television, is set in Moscow in the 1970s and centers on two secretaries at the American embassy who become CIA operatives after their husbands are killed, uncovering a Cold War conspiracy behind the tragedy.
“The Other Bennet Sister,” based on Janice Hadlow’s novel of the same name, follows the adventures of Mary, the forgotten middle sister among the five Bennet women in “Pride and Prejudice.” It’s produced by Bad Wolf.
Also competing is crime drama “Gone,” starring David Morrissey as an inscrutably composed headteacher whose wife has gone missing, and Eve Myles as the detective who is investigating. It is produced by New Pictures and Observatory Pictures.
Also competing is “Gomorrah: The Origins,” from Sky Studios and Cattleya, which is set in 1977 in Naples. The show follows Pietro Savastano – a tough city kid from a poor neighborhood – who is set to enter the criminal underworld as a means of survival.
“Olivia,” from Florida Film and ZDF, tells the story of Olivia Jones, a drag icon, restaurant owner and public advocate for tolerance and diversity. The film stars Johannes Hegemann.
Crime drama “The Uniform,” from Miso Film, exposes the deadly cost of loyalty and corruption within a fractured and fiercely competitive police academy in contemporary Denmark.
Crime mystery “Jones,” from Caracol Studios, centers around a shocking murder during a luxurious family gathering in an exclusive location. A detective, endowed with the special ability to communicate with the dead, partners with Júlia, the sharp-witted victim, to solve her own murder.
“Fadia,” from Cinema Virgin, addresses the topic of femicide in the name of a misguided sense of family honor. Fadia is supposed to die at the hands of her own family, but she is rescued by neighbors, who risk everything to ensure her continued safety. But for Fadia the struggle is far from over.
Finally, TV film “Rosso Volante,” from Wonder Project and Wonder Film, follows the pursuit of an Olympic gold medal over four years in the 1960s of bobsleigh athlete Eugenio Monti.
Dana Carvey is no stranger to meeting the men he has lampooned on “SNL” and in his stand-up act, but so far, he’s just missed running into Joe Biden. It turns out the 46th president is a frequent visitor to Carvey’s hometown in the Santa Ynez Valley.
“Hunter Biden lives around the corner, so he’s up here all the time,” Carvey says. “There’s this little market up here, and they said you just missed Joe Biden. He opened the freezer door and he went, ‘Where’s the pay phone?’ which was shocking to me. I’m joking, I’m joking.”
Carvey has made a living zeroing in on the tics and quirks of famous men like Biden and George H.W. Bush, a staid Washington insider who he turned into a WASP-y bebop artist (“not gonna do it, wouldn’t be prudent”) during his time on “SNL.” The late president took it in stride.
“We became friends for a long time and he would call me at home out of the blue,” Carvey says, before slipping into his familiar impression. “George Bush here. What’s going on? I’m on with Bar.’”
When he was playing Biden, Carvey’s voice was reedier than Bush, but the verbal detours were just as jarring and non-sequitur fueled (“I’m being serious. Folks, you know. By the way. The fact of the matter is”).
“I try to foster a sense that I kind of like the guy I’m doing,” Carvey says. “For Biden, I had to thread the needle and find the way to have it not be cruel, but funny.”
That wasn’t a concern for Alec Baldwin, who memorably played Donald Trump as a prune-faced, preening bully on “SNL” and who has joined Carvey on Zoom to discuss “Playing POTUS,” a new documentary about how comedians parody our nation’s leaders that debuted at the Tribeca Festival.
“Trump was somebody who I just thought we’re going to make him as two-dimensional as he deserves,” Baldwin says. “He’s not that interesting. Someone was reviewing people’s Trump impersonations, past and present, and they said that Alec Baldwin was a mean and nasty Trump, and I’m like, great, that’s what I wanted. I wanted to play Trump as just a horrible person.”
Like Carvey, Baldwin knew the man he was sending up, though their paths crossed before Trump entered politics.
“I’ve lived in New York my whole adult life and Trump was the guy with a tuxedo in the glove compartment,” Baldwin says. “He’d be on the red carpet. He’d take the photos. Then he’d leave. At events, he’d never go and sit at a table so you could talk and get to know him. He was never one of the five families of Manhattan real estate developers. They didn’t want him to hang with him, but they did business with him, because his money was green.”
“Playing POTUS” argues that making fun of presidents is a linchpin of a free society. But it’s a freedom that director Josh Greenbaum notes is under attack, citing the recent cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s late night show and the efforts to push Jimmy Kimmel off the air.
“Mocking the most powerful person in the world is a sign of a healthy democracy,” Greenbaum says. “It’s like sharks in the ocean. If the sharks are swimming around, the ecosystem is probably okay. If the sharks start disappearing, something’s wrong. Regardless of what side of the political aisle you fall on, we should all agree that impressions are one of our most important ways of speaking truth to power.”
To make his film, Greenbaum interviewed some of the greatest impressionists in the business, a group that includes Chevy Chase, who portrayed Gerald Ford as a bumbling gaffe machine; Maya Rudolph, who captured Kamala Harris’ cool aunt energy; and Will Ferrell, who thinks his portrayal of George W. Bush as a fun-loving bro may have helped tip the 2000 presidential election. In many cases, they not only channelled the core of these political figures, they helped shape popular perceptions.
“Their portrayals of them wound up taking a hold in the culture in a way that overpowered the politicians themselves,” Greenbaum says. “If I’m being honest, if I close my eyes and I picture George H.W. Bush, it’s Dana Carvey that I see. I have a blurrier picture of the first Bush president than I do of that ‘SNL’ impression.”
But figuring out the picture you want to paint requires time and study. Carvey admits it took 20 times on “SNL” to nail Bush, while Baldwin says he studied footage of Trump with the sound off to figure out how to capture his hand gestures and heavy gait.
“For me the person who came to mind was Lee J. Cobb in ‘On the Waterfront,’” Baldwin says. “Just this bully, this horrible, horrible, horrible thug.”
“He reminds me of Brando and Regis Philbin,” Carvey says, before sliding into his Trump impression. “He never runs out of the words. He’ll just keep going. He always sounds like he’s pitching a family vacation. ‘We’re going to go places like he wouldn’t believe. Many people say we can’t go, but we’re going to go anyway, because we know how to do it, and we’re gonna do it. We’re gonna go.’”
“He’s like Judy Garland — a master of breath control,” Baldwin interjects.
Trump clearly was not amused by Baldwin’s take, getting into Twitter spats with the actor and calling his impression “agony” to watch while slamming his career as “mediocre.” The blowback could be intense, but Baldwin says that comedians will also satirize the people in charge whether they’re in on the joke or not.
“In America, we’re going to mock the powers that be,” Baldwin says. “What I’ve found in show business is the only person you can’t mock is the head of the studio. It’s like with Letterman when he was taunting [former CBS chief] Les Moonves, eventually somebody made a call, and said okay, enough of that. If you make fun of the head of the studio, your career is over.”
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse called it “the moment” for the industry, saying the industry deserved “the same rules and protections as every other asset class.”
Standard Chartered projected $4 billion to $8 billion in additional inflows into U.S. spot $XRP exchange-traded funds if the bill passes. They have attracted roughly $1.4 billion since January, according to SoSoValue data.
The same discrepancy shows up on the $XRP Ledger blockchain. Payment counts, automated market making activity and tokenized real-world assets all hit records this year while the token’s price kept falling. Pilot projects kept stacking up, including one that had Ondo, JPMorgan’s Kinexys, Mastercard and Ripple settling tokenized Treasuries across the ledger in seconds.
Santiment pointed to the same split, with development activity, ledger usage and institutional products advancing as social enthusiasm faded.
The exhaustion has a history. Santiment noted that some of $XRP‘s strongest rebounds came when the crowd was at its most disinterested, with discussion volume falling and commentary overwhelmingly negative, the same setup as now.
Sentiment readings are a contrarian tool and not a timer, however. The signal indicates that the sellers who talk have mostly stopped talking. Whether that marks a turning point depends on whether the demand that years of waiting were supposed to unlock finally shows up.
One argument Bankman-Fried advanced was that the funds he misappropriated were in investments that would eventually grow.
“As the district court recognized, any contention that Bankman-Fried lacked an intent to defraud because he intended to eventually repay his customers was legally misleading and prejudicial because the wire fraud statute encompasses temporary misappropriation of money or property,” the ruling said.
The panel reiterated this argument later on: “Whether the assets purchased by Bankman-Fried appreciated in value is irrelevant as to whether he committed fraud,” the ruling said.
Bankman-Fried’s team tried to argue that FTX was a margin futures trading platform, and therefore customers should have expected that they might lose some access to their funds.
“We are unpersuaded,” the ruling said. “The fact that some FTX customers opted into margin trading, and thus temporary deprivation of their money, is beside the point. Some opted into margin trading, some did not. No one opted into having their money transferred under false pretenses to Alameda.”
The panel’s ruling similarly supported Judge Kaplan’s actions throughout the trial.
The ruling matches the reception Bankman-Fried’s team saw from the panel of judges during the hearing last November, when the three-judge panel repeatedly interrupted and questioned attorney Alexandra Shapiro, who is representing Bankman-Fried.
Banff World Media Festival-goers are used to unpredictable Canadian Rockies weather, where drizzling rain can become snow showers and then balmy sunshine over a single day due to geography and elevation.
But escalating cross-border trade and political tensions between the U.S. and Canada will see Donald Trump — who has talked about annexing his northern neighbor as the 51st U.S. state and putting tariffs on non-U.S. movies — casting a dark cloud as Banff’s 47th edition kicks off this weekend. That follows in early June the federal government in Ottawa killing regulatory plans to triple a local tax on foreign, mostly U.S. streamers to get more favorable terms on a new cross-border trade deal from the U.S. president.
Canada caving to U.S. pressure followed Motion Pictures Association reps in Canada taking aim at Canada’s Online Streaming Act, a law that forces U.S. digital giants to finance Canadian media content production, the U.S. ambassador calling for its repeal and the U.S. Trade Representative branding the legislation as “discriminatory” towards U.S. companies.
Getting foreign streamers to support local content creators so Canadians could view their own films and TV shows rather than rely on Netflix and Prime Video for popular fare may have seemed a good idea among bureaucrats and regulators in Ottawa. And it was certainly applauded by local unions and guilds, indie producers and others looking for American web giants to dig deeper in their pockets to underwrite homemade content.
The Banff World Media Festival venue in the Alberta Rocky Mountains.
Adobe Stock
But it was bad politics as Canadian prime minister Mark Carney shadowboxes with Trump while attempting to renegotiate the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) trade deal during talks he has yet to officially join. “We thought we were negotiating an infusion of capital for Cancon (Canadian content) based on streaming and viewership and taxation, and instead it has become a trade issue at a delicate time for cross-border relations,” Catherine Warren, president of Vancouver-based FanTrust, tells The Hollywood Reporter about Trump’s latest trade war plot twist.
The Canadian government, with its choices and tradeoffs made to secure a new North American free trade deal with the U.S., has now asked taxpayers to pay an extra $600 million for homegrown media content as Canada’s TV czar reconsiders how to implement an Online Streaming Act that became law in 2023, but has yet to be enacted due to an appeals court challenge by American media giants.
Marc Miller, the federal minister for Canadian identity and culture, will be in Banff for a keynote conversation on Sunday afternoon. He’s expected to face aggrieved local creatives and producers asking why his government promised to get foreign streamers to pay into Canada’s production ecosystem to protect the country’s cultural sovereignty, only to see Trump cause a perfect storm by implicating audiovisual content in North American free trade talks.
And all because Ottawa has put ensuring special access to the U.S. market for vital exports like Canadian-made automobiles, steel and aluminum over using foreign streamer dollars to support local indie content production. “We thought we had a situation where the platforms were contributing. Now we’ve got Ottawa writing a check,” Warren, who also hosts the YouTube and Optik TV talk show Truth & Consequences: Documentary in the Age of AI, added.
The Canadian content funding crisis have been a long time coming, only for the denouement to quickly unfold ahead of Banff. In June 2025, Ottawa scrapped plans to levy a tax on digital companies like Apple, Amazon and Meta after Trump made trade talk threats over what he called a “direct and blatant attack on our Country.”
Killing Canada’s separately planned tax on U.S. tech giants had implications internationally where governments have similarly considered imposing regulation and taxes on dominant foreign streamers in their markets to fund domestic film and TV industry ambitions. That leaves ongoing tensions between Canada and the U.S. over how to capture the value of Canadian-made media content, and who will control it, overshadowing the Rocky Mountains industry retreat running June 14 to 17.
Canadian producer, director and writer Uga Carlini of Vancouver-based Towerkop Creations is headed to the annual media festival to bring partners on board for her TV series and movies in development just as Canada’s cultural objectives to support homegrown content production have morphed into major cross-border trade issue. “No one likes to be told what to do with their money. Have you ever been through a divorce?” Carlini tells THR about foreign streamers facing off with Ottawa over how they should invest in Canadian film and TV production, and where.
So, while pitching in Banff a movie titled White Bear and a midlife immigrant comedy TV series The Man Manual, among other projects on her development slate, she remains determined to make unashamedly Canadian content that resonates globally by collaborating with foreign producers, including Americans. “I’m practical. Who are my best partners and who wants to go on that journey with me? Because I need to get my story told. If it means I partner with Americans, and that’s the best for my story, which will always be Canadian and will always be branded as a Canadian story, then great. Why not?” Carlini explains.
In the face of escalating political challenges, she won’t be alone among content producers and buyers in the Canadian Rockies pursuing more collaboration across borders as American and other international producers look to their own new partnerships to offset budgetary challenges. Veteran actor-turned-producer Gerald Augur has his Calgary-based production banner, 4 Directional Studios, at work on Watcher, an indigenous true crime version of 48 Hours where a 12 year-old girl is abducted from a First Nations reserve, plunging her community into crisis.
The homegrown drama stars Colm Feore (Landman)and Augur as a Woodland Cree tracker who reluctantly partners with a former city detective, played by Jason Barbeck, to search for the young girl, only to confront Canada’s cultural and historical divides. Augur said he intends to shoot Watcher partly in Alberta, but has concerns after the province’s First Nations have become embroiled in an upcoming pro-independence referendum and oil pipeline tensions.
“Now there’s people who don’t feel safe to tell stories or bring projects here (Alberta) if it has any indigenous content because of what’s happening in the political arena,” he explained. Augur added the political fallout from Albertans being asked in an Oct. 2026 vote if they want the province to stay in Canada or if a second binding referendum on separation should be held is widening political divisions at a time when Canadian stories like Watcher aim to reduce discord and foster reconciliation.
“That’s why I got involved with Watcher, because it’s promoting unity, it’s promoting how we need to check ourselves before we wreck ourselves as human beings based on how much is being shaped by the political landscape,” he insisted. Elsewhere, energy-rich Alberta, which has hosted the Banff festival for nearly five decades, has been the beneficiary of recent oil price rises amid the ongoing U.S.-Iran war.
In March 2026, the province in its latest operating budget slashed by $35 million, to $60 million, what it had set aside to draw major studios and streamers to shoot locally based on fluctuating production levels and payouts on Alberta’s Film and Television Tax Credit in recent years. But now the western Canadian province, where the popular HBO drama The Last of Us was shot during its first season, is more assured foreign movie or TV series will tap its film tax credit while shooting locally as royalties from oil exploration and drilling once again pour into its coffers.
‘The Last of Us’ shot in Alberta, Canada.
Liane Hentscher/HBO
“Alberta has already proven it can attract large-scale productions, create jobs, and deliver real economic impact. With continued government support and a growing industry, the province is well-positioned to meet rising global demand for high-quality content. That momentum will be on full display at the Banff World Media Festival,” Dylan Pearce, an Edmonton-based indie producer and board chair at the Alberta Media Production Industries Association, told THR in a statement.
That has players in rival Canadian provinces headed to Banff also with an eye to bringing Hollywood producers to their locales in a hyper-competitive global locations business. Meghan Duffy, CEO of Winnipeg-based Black Watch Entertainment, a boutique film and TV producer with credits like the Lifetime mystery thriller I Have to Kill My Neighbor, will look to convince American producers in a tough market to tap a Manitoba film tax credit that offsets up to 65 percent of production salaries with bonuses, and with no Canadian content in projects required.
She also touts Canada’s favorable exchange rate against the U.S. dollar and a province that doubles for anywhere. “We bring to the table one of the most aggressive tax credits in the world, with a very low Canadian dollar, which helps maximize low budgets by making them look larger on screen,” Duffy argued.
The Manitoba film tax credit also applies to co-productions shot in foreign locations and where a global producer is looking to close a budgetary gap on their financing and can’t do it in their home market. “We could film part of the show in Manitoba, or not. If they use my team for the production, we still get the full (Manitoba) tax credit anywhere in the world because it’s tied to me, Meghan Duffy,” she added.
For Jenn Kuzmyk, executive director of the Banff World Media Festival, putting on her event’s 47th edition will be about delegates navigating unprecedented industry disruption even as her event could potentially no longer be held in Canada if Alberta separatists get their way in the fall referendum and the province secedes.
“Of course, we are always watching with interest what happens in politics, whether it be in Alberta, federally or around the world. There’s a lot to pay attention now, in terms of trade talks and everything else,” Kuzmyk said.
Director Steven Spielberg is back at the box office with an original alien thriller, “Disclosure Day.” It has made $6.5 million at the box office in Thursday previews.
The Universal film is expected to open with $35 million at the box office this weekend and comes with a $115 million budget, plus $80 million in marketing costs. Despite Spielberg’s name and track record, it’s one of the summer’s riskier gambles to launch a twisty, conspiracy thriller that isn’t part of an existing IP or franchise. Some box office analysts predict that “Disclosure Day” would need to open with $50 million to justify its cost, and that it will need to make $300 globally to be profitable.
“Disclosure Day” stars Josh O’Connor as a cybersecurity expert who discovers proof that aliens exist and Emily Blunt as a meteorologist that has a mysterious connection to the extraterrestrials. The cast also includes Colin Firth, Colman Domingo, Eve Hewson, Wyatt Russell and more.
Spielberg’s last movie was 2022’s Oscar contender “The Fabelmans,” a semi-autobiographical family story that was nominated for best picture, director, original screenplay and more. Before that was 2021’s musical remake of “West Side Story,” but the director hasn’t had a major box office hit since “Ready Player One” in 2018. That made $607 million globally and was based on the video game-inspired book of the same name.
In recent weeks, the box office has been on a horror hot streak, with “Obsession,” “Backrooms” and “Scary Movie” all dominating the charts and becoming low-budget hits.
Asghar Farhadi’s star-studded drama “Parallel Tales” has secured a raft of international sales following its world premiere in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, underscoring strong global demand for the latest feature from the two-time Oscar-winning filmmaker.
The drama, which marks the acclaimed Iranian director’s return to a contemporary Paris setting, boasts a glamorous French cast led by Isabelle Huppert, Virginie Efira, Vincent Cassel, Pierre Niney and Adam Bessa.
“Parallel Tales” follows a group of interconnected characters whose lives become entangled through a series of revelations and shifting perspectives, in keeping with Farhadi’s signature exploration of truth, morality and human relationships.
The film was produced by Alexandre Mallet-Guy at Memento Production in France, Lucky Red in Italy and Cineart in Benelux. It’s already been released theatrically in France through Memento Distribution.
Charades has now sold “Parallel Tales” across key territories worldwide, including Canada (Mongrel Media), Latin America (Imovision), Australia and New Zealand (Palace Entertainment), South Korea (Playgram), Singapore (Shaw Organisation) and Japan (The KlockWorx), Germany and Austria (Studiocanal), Spain (Avalon), Greece (Cinobo), Portugal (Alambique), Scandinavia (Edge Entertainment), Bulgaria and the Adriatics (MCF), the CIS (Exponenta Film/MJM Group), the Baltics (Adastra), Poland (Monolith Films), Hungary (Cirko Film), Romania (Good Time Films), Ukraine (Svoe Kino), Israel (Lev Cinema), Switzerland (Frenetic Films), Turkey (Filmarti), Lebanon and the Gulf states (Front Row Entertainment), India (Impact Films), Indonesia (Falcon) and Singapore (Shaw Organisation).
“Parallel Tales” marks Farhadi’s first French-language feature since “The Past,” which won a best actress prize at Cannes for Berenice Bejo. “Parallel Tales” was Farhadi’s fifth film presented at Cannes. He made the film in exile after leaving Iran in 2022 following the death of Mahsa Amini and the ensuing protests. While his best-known films include “A Separation,” “The Salesman” and “A Hero,” Farhadi also directed “Everybody Knows” starring Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem, which opened Cannes in 2018 and played in competition.
A significant development has occurred in the case of Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the FTX exchange, which is closely followed in the cryptocurrency world, who faces charges of fraud and conspiracy. The court rejected Bankman-Fried’s appeal against the guilty verdict. This situation has raised questions about the future of FTX.
Bankman-Fried was accused of defrauding investors and users in connection with the FTX exchange crash. The court’s rejection of his appeal means that Bankman-Fried’s conviction and subsequent sentences are final.
The collapse of the FTX exchange had a major impact on the cryptocurrency market, causing significant losses for many investors. The Bankman-Fried trial once again highlighted the importance of a regulatory framework in the sector. This event serves as a reminder that cryptocurrency exchanges and their executives need to be more mindful of transparency and accountability.
The Sam Bankman-Fried case once again highlights the importance of ethical and legal standards in the cryptocurrency world. Following such events, investors are acting more cautiously and evaluating their investments more carefully. This process could be a significant turning point in the maturation of the cryptocurrency market.
Dawson’s Creek fans will enjoy a real nostalgia fest with the latest film written, directed by and starring Katie Holmes. With her former castmate Joshua Jackson as her co-star, Happy Hours proves that the two performers still have undeniable chemistry and make middle-age look damn good. Unfortunately, this romantic drama receiving its world premiere at the Tribeca Festival is one of those movies in which the characters and situations feel so contrived and inauthentic that you find yourself shaking your head in befuddlement.
The first tip-off for this film about former high-school sweethearts reuniting decades later is the onscreen quote by Alan Watts before the story begins. It’s but the first of many attempts by Holmes to show that she’s done a lot of reading. By the time we hear similar shout-outs to Neruda and Rilke it’s long become apparent that she’s also seen a lot of Woody Allen movies.
Happy Hours
The Bottom Line
Will give you a hangover.
Venue: Tribeca Festival (U.S. Narrative Spotlight) Cast: Joshua Jackson, Katie Holmes, John McGinty, Joe Tippett, Jack Martin, Johnna Dias-Watson, Donald Webber Jr., Chloë Kerwin, Constance Wu, Mary-Louise Parker Director-screenwriter: Katie Holmes
1 hour 20 minutes
The story naturally takes place in Manhattan, where everyone goes about their days in the most photogenic environs possible, from Central Park to Washington Square Park to Chinatown. Nearly every location is recognizable even for those who don’t live in the city.
Holmes plays Liz, a recently divorced photojournalist who’s no longer interested in shooting celebrities but, much to the consternation of her agent (Constance Wu), would rather photograph real people. To that end, she wanders the streets, encountering canoodling couples at every step as if the city had been infected with a love virus.
Developing one of her shots, she discovers a familiar figure in the background. It turns out to be her former love Andrew (Jackson), who we soon learn is a renowned travel writer with a new book out. Of course, Andrew is not just any travel writer, say the sort who writes about upscale Maldives Islands resorts. He’s the serious kind, one who makes proclamations on the order of “I think it’s important to have the global experience expressed through local conversation.”
In but one of many convenient coincidences peppering the storyline, Liz is asked to photograph Michael for a magazine story. Cue the awkward reunion, with Michael seeming delighted and Liz putting on a cool front. Eventually, they agree to a date over coffee, to which each brings a list of prepared questions. Because that’s what every couple does when they haven’t seen each other in a long time.
Happy Hours is also the sort of movie in which a fateful miscommunication that could easily be cleared up in a few seconds is instead dragged out for much of the running time. In this case it involves Michael’s declaration that he has someone new in his life and Liz immediately freezing him out because she thinks he’s seeing someone else. Of course, it’s not what she thinks, but rather just more proof that Michael is a certifiable catch.
Along the way, we’re shown flashbacks featuring the couple as lovestruck teenagers (Johnna Dias-Watson and Jack Martin, both looking suitably moony) bonding over their shared adoration for the music of Blondie. We also learn the reason they broke up and never communicated afterwards, which makes about as little sense as anything else in the film.
In between the hopelessly awkward scenes in which Liz and Andrew display the emotional intelligence of reality show contestants, there are attempts at comic relief involving several supporting characters. Particularly cringey are the scenes featuring Mary-Louise Parker as Liz’s randy aunt, who’s happily juggling a series of sexual partners. On the other hand, Michael’s frequent interactions with his teasing best friends Charlie (Joe Tippett) and John (John McGinty), with much of their dialogue delivered in ASL because of John’s deafness, are amusing if more than a little forced.
The two leads are such likeable, soulful performers that it’s even more disappointing that the film doesn’t feel believable for a second. Holmes had indicated that Happy Hours is the first installment in a trilogy, à la Richard Linklater’s Before films. She may want to rethink.
One Day: The Musical is headed for the West End, and theatre hotshot Jamie Muscato is in advanced talks to reprise his role as Dexter, a source close to production tells The Hollywood Reporter.
The stage adaptation of David Nicholls’ beloved 2009 novel opened at Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum Theatre in March this year, with The Great Gatsby‘s Muscato playing Dexter and Sharon Rose (Hamilton) as Emma. The success of the production has fueled rumors of a West End transfer, which the source tells THR is a go.
Prolific stage actor Muscato, fresh off his starring role as The Emcee in Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, is again being eyed for Dexter in the West End performance. The musical follows the enduring bond between Dex and Emma, from their first meeting on July 15, 1988 — St Swithin’s Day — through life-changing moments that unfold on the same date each year.
The musical is adapted for the stage by David Greig, with songs by Abner and Amanda Ramirez of Johnnyswim and additional music by Freya Catrin Smith. The production is directed by Max Webster (Life of Pi, The Importance of Being Earnest).
Muscato will next appear as The Phantom in concert performances of Love Never Dies at the London Palladium this October, with previous stage credits including leading roles in Moulin Rouge! The Musical, Heathers, and his Olivier-nominated performance in Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812. Last year, he played the titular role of Jay Gatsby at the London Coliseum production of The Great Gatsby, alongside Frances Mayli McCann, Corbin Bleu, and Amber Davies.
Nicholls’ book has sold over six million copies worldwide and been translated into over 40 different languages. Previous adaptations of One Day include the hit Netflix series with Leo Woodall and Ambika Mod, skyrocketing the pair to global fame, as well as the 2011 film with Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess, which accrued nearly $60 million at the box office.
