The bright laptop screen was flashing in front of Gordon Lee.
For the last half an hour, he was typing and deleting words, unsure of what to do. He was obviously trying to write a review for [30 days of Happiness] despite his unwillingness to do it.
But he had no choice.
Vanity Magazine had especially asked him to write a review of every movie that he was going to the screening for. Their next issue was going to be all about the Toronto film festival.
On top of it, the other critics and reporters that had been to the screening had already posted their reviews, praising the movie a lot. So, there was pressure on him to finish the review.
Just the humiliation he had felt during the press conference was stopping him from doing a review. Aiden's expression was still vivid in his mind as he was insulting him.
If the movie was bad, Gordon would have already written a full review on it, roasting the hell out of everyone involved with it, especially Aiden. But the reality was quite the opposite.
The movie wasn't bad at all. In fact, it was a refreshing change in the world of cliche rom coms.
Gordon as a veteran reporter and critic was clearly able to see that but the words didn't come out in praise from his mouth.
Even if it was a good movie, his ego won't let him write something good about him.
That's why he was in turmoil.
"What should I do? Should I just praise the movie while ignoring Aiden or I just say that he brought down the movie a lot…"
He muttered, holding his head in frustration.
[My heart's a radio… It sings for you, so listen close…]
It was at that moment that his phone suddenly rang. He picked it up and saw that it was a call from an unknown number. He picked it, wondering who it was and a rough voice came from the other side.
"Hello, is this Gordon Lee from Vanity Magazine?"
"Yes, who are you?"
"I'm Aaron's Hart agent. I wanted to talk about something important with you if you are free."
Gordon raised his eyebrow in wonder when he heard that. Why was Aaron Hart's agent calling him? He didn't have any interview scheduled with him but he still listened, interested in what the agent was going to say.
"Yes, yes, I'm free."
"Well, we have heard that you are reviewing the movies in the Toronto film festival for the next issue of Vanity Magazine and we have a request. More like an offer for you…"
***
After the initial press screening and the audience screening, [30 days of Happiness] really became famous all over the Toronto film festival. Even people who would randomly come to watch a movie or two in the festival would hear about it and try to get inside the screening of the rom com.
But they would realise that it was all booked. The show was housefull. Even the next show was like that.
Undoubtedly, [30 days of Happiness] was really spreading among the audience.
One of the reasons behind it was that it was a light hearted movie that was guaranteed to give a good experience.
Compared to more heavily themed movies like [Dark] and [Blood Valentine], Canadian audiences like it much better.
After all, art movies are more famous in Europe, not in Canada.
That's why, despite only getting 3-4 screenings every day thanks to being an independent movie, the craze of it spreaded all over the festival in just a few days.
Compared to it, [Blood Valentine] was getting 9-10 screenings everyday. That was the advantage of an accomplished director and big actors being attached to a project. The management of the festival had naturally given them more screens.
Even they didn't imagine that [30 days of Happiness] was going to do this good.
"I'm so tired."
Aiden sighed, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. Raising his head, he saw Wade sitting in front of him who was looking at him with an expression of sympathy.
"We can't do anything. I'm getting constant calls for interviews one after another. Hollywood Weekly, US Weekly, Canada Tomorrow, Movie Frenzy… every major magazine and media outlet wants an interview of you. It's better to do them as this is the time to increase your popularity. Every critic mentioned you in their review, calling you the highlight, so all the attention is on you."
"Yeah, but a lot of them are also because of how important music was to the movie. As I did it, it attracted more attention."
"That's just lucky for us. I originally never thought the movie would be received like this, so it's a golden chance for you to evolve from a golden worm to a butterfly."
Aiden chuckled hearing that. For some reason god only knew, Wade loved comparing him to a worm. He was almost treating it as a joke now.
"Can't you get over that worm thing?"
"Why?"
"Because it's weird."
"It's funny." Wade chuckled then shook his head. "Anyway, at first, I was excited for this movie because I thought it would add nicely in your filmography as an independent movie. Success of it at the box office is something that can't be predicted, so I was just hoping for it to have good critical acclaim but I think we should change our plans a bit now."
The original plan that Wade had made was making [30 days of Happiness] a good addition in Aiden's filmography. As the budget of it was pretty low and the soundtrack had already became a hit, the movie was not going to lose money.
With success at Toronto, it would be easy to sell it for a good price to an ott platform even if it don't work on the box office.
"Are you thinking of going for the awards?"
Aiden asked, trying to guess what was going on in Wade's mind and the burly agent nodded.
"Yeah, I heard the reviews and the way people are talking about [30 days of Happiness]. Omar is even trying to talk to the management of the festival to give us more shows. Going by it, we might have a really good chance at the People's Choice Awards."
"That won't be easy. Considering it's pretty much the ticket to Oscars and you do know what goes on behind the scenes of Oscars."
Though the Oscars was called the most prestigious award in the movie industry with everyone wanting to get their hands on it, it was a known fact that the Oscar jury was not the most righteous when it comes to selecting movies for nominations and awards.
All of them have their own biases and because of that, if you want to win best picture, making a good movie isn't enough. You also need to have connections with the jury.
"I'm not saying that [30 days of Happiness] would win an Oscar. It's a good movie but it's not on the level to get the prestigious award, especially with no connections. Still, getting the People's Choice Award is doable."
Wade explained his point of view. The People's Choice Award was an award that didn't have a jury and to select the winner, an audience balloting happens every year.
This award was one of the reasons Toronto has grown out from the shadow of other festivals.
"Yeah, I know that. In the past, even independent movies have won the award but we are competing with [Blood Valentine]. That movie has a lot of audience and critic approval." Aiden said, then suddenly thought of something. "Though, I'm pretty sure they will be pretty panicked at the moment."
"What do you mean?" Wade raised an eyebrow.
"I mean, [Blood Valentine] was already touted as the winner even before the festival began, so it must be a shock to them that [30 days of Happiness] is doing so well. Especially Aaron Hart, I really wonder how he's taking it."
***
Smash!
The sound of something breaking came out as Aaron Hart looked at the pieces of his phone on the ground.
Next to him, his agent was slowly getting away from him, knowing that his violent tendencies were coming back.
It was never a good thing to stay close to Aaron when he was like that.
His agent had already gotten a few bad experiences.
"That fucking nobody."
The reason Aaron was so agitated was because he was going through the online reviews of other movies at the festival and saw a lot of positive reviews for [30 days of Happiness]. When he asked his agent, he told him how he had come off as a surprise.
When he had asked about the actor, his agent had told him about Aiden and Aaron instantly remembered who he was.
He still recalled how Aiden had overshadowed him in that one scene in [Shadows of War].
After that, he always hated him.
"Aaron, calm down. You can't break your phone every time you get angry."
His agent calmly said, trying to get Aaron to relax but he just turned towards him and asked.
"Is that movie a threat to us?"
"Ah, no. I don't think so. It's doing good but there's no powerful person backing it. It's pretty much an independent movie and only got lucky. I'm already trying to halt its momentum, so it won't become a rock on our path."
His agent explained. Knowing that this award was very important for Aaron, he was already moving to make sure everything went well.
"What did you do?"
"Just check the reviews of Gordon Lee, a critic from Vanity Magazine and a few other well known critics. We contacted them and…"
As his agent narrated his plan, Aaron Hart started calming down.
