“They worked on a movie of the week together, ‘Fast Food High’ or something like that, 19 years earlier. While it wasn’t critical for the actors behind his lead characters to know each other, McGowan said it certainly didn’t hurt. “It was incredibly empowering to be able to have each other as a safety net and as fencing partners.”

“Our shared experiences from a young age, I think, really informed our way of being with one another and then getting to see each other as grown women, our own processes and our own way of looking at the world, our own fight,” said Pill. The movie resonates primarily because of the believability of its performances. It’s this sort of existential struggle between them as they navigate this.” “One wants to die and the other one wants to live. They both absolutely rely, love and need each other,” director McGowan said. “At the heart of this film is a relationship between two sisters. The tumultuous nature of their lives is grounded by the loss of their father, who killed himself years earlier, causing the sisters and their mother, Lottie (Mare Winningham), to leave the Mennonite community they grew up in. Yoli is a struggling writer dealing with a looming divorce and a know-it-all teenage daughter (played by Amybeth McNulty of “Anne With an E”), while Elf is an accomplished concert pianist struggling with suicidal impulses. It tells the story of the Von Riesen family, focusing primarily on the relationship between sisters Yoli (Pill) and Elf (Gadon). The movie is based on Miriam Toews’ novel of the same name. There’s only so much you can do in terms of manufacturing history.” It (the sisters’ relationship) isn’t something you can replicate with somebody that you’ve just known for two weeks,” said Pill “You can’t make that up. That said, they didn’t skip a beat when they were reunited in North Bay to shoot their new project in a little over two weeks. Pill agreed and said that while they worked tightly together on projects as teenagers, they hadn’t seen each other until their latest collaboration. “It’s so much more than just ‘I know her because I went to school with her,’” Gadon said. They followed that up by enrolling in Interact at Vaughan Road Academy (an alternative program designed for students pursuing careers in dance, music, athletics and theatre).īut, in a recent interview with the Star, Gadon said their closeness wasn’t just because of the educational institutions they both attended.

The Toronto-born thespians broke into the industry together as child actors and attended the Claude Watson School for the Arts in North York. When Alison Pill and Sarah Gadon were cast as sisters in Michael McGowan’s “All My Puny Sorrows,” it wasn’t much of a stretch.

All my puny little sorrows