Cory Monteith film to be screened at Toronto Film Festival

One of Cory Monteith’s unseen final films will receive its moment in the sun at the Toronto International Film Festival next month.

Organisers announced Wednesday that All the Wrong Reasons, a Canadian drama Monteith shot last year during breaks from Glee, will have its world premiere at the festival.

Gia Milani’s debut feature follows a group of four people who are struggling with their own demons and with connections to a department store. Monteith plays a manager trying to help his wife (Karine Vanasse) cope with post-traumatic stress disorder after she suffers a loss.

“My film would not have been made without him,” Milani wrote of Monteith in an e-mail shortly after the actor’s death July 13. “I am so grateful to Cory that he took it on. I was surprised he did. It is a film that has a dark subject matter, and his character is far from the loveable Finn Hudson,” she said, referring to Monteith’s upbeat character on Glee. She added: “I was impressed with Cory’s ability to embody my flawed character, and I am fiercely proud of Cory’s performance.”

The Canadian actor was working on Glee and Reasons simultaneously last summer, spending weekends in Los Angeles and returning Monday mornings to Milani’s set in Nova Scotia. “He never missed a beat. I am sure he was tired, but didn’t show it,” Milani wrote in the e-mail. The filmmaker said that after completing the movie in June, she had screened it for Monteith in LA.

Milani added in a statement Wednesday that “while we are still reeling from the loss of Cory far too soon, we are very happy that we can present this film to the world at the Toronto Festival and show audiences what an incredible dramatic performance he delivers in it. The film offers a glimpse of him I don’t think people have had a chance to see before.”

The movie, which does not yet have a US distributor, was part of a group of Canadian premieres, organisers announced Wednesday. Among the other titles are the Daniel Radcliffe’s romantic dramedy The F Word, directed by Michael Dowse; veteran director Bruce McDonald’s The Husband; and Enemy, Denis Villeneuve’s second film with Jake Gyllenhaal at Toronto (after Prisoners).

Monteith, who battled with addiction, was found dead in a Vancouver hotel last month at age 31. He also completed another film, McCanick, in which he plays a street hustler also coping with addiction issues.

— Los Angeles Times