Robin Wright Penn leads standout cast in 'Pippa Lee'

Any actress who takes on a role that was supposed to be played by the one, the only, Meryl Streep certainly has her work cut out for her. Luckily, Robin Wright Penn isn't just any actress.

The gifted, lovely and lithe actress aged up to play the woman at the centre of writer-director Rebecca Miller's The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, based on her book by the same name, when Streep's schedule meant she had to pass on the film.

It now seems impossible to imagine anyone else inhabiting the role given Penn's standout performance as a woman who seems to be going through a quiet nervous breakdown after moving into a retirement village with her much-older husband (the always-stellar Alan Arkin).

And even though Penn isn't quite Pippa's age, she understood the emotional unrest, and indeed re-awakening, women often undergo when they near that mid-century mark.

"I'm almost 44 and I think every woman, mother moreso, can relate to...men probably think, 'Oh, it's their hormones again' but I think it is an unveiling of you[rself]," mused Penn while in town talking about the film, screening at TIFF.

"You go back to a vulnerability, you go back to a purity you once were. I mean, you go through life and you service your children and you service your husband and you do that stuff out of a will and there's something beautiful about the will to do that and the will to keep the love going. What's wrong with it ? We all do it. And then you come full circle back almost, when your truth is exposed."

The truth, in the case of Pippa Lee, is a tumultuous past, including a dysfunctional relationship with her Dexedrine-addicted mother, endless sexual trysts and hefty drug binges that would make Keith Richards blush. Living in 'Wrinklebury', as her husband calls it, Pippa thought she'd left that all behind - until it comes back to haunt her.

This duality and depth was something that Miller saw in the actress, despite having initial reservations about her being too young. But once she spoke to Penn she knew she had found her Pippa.

"She has a certain quality about her. I had an instinct that she would be right and after talking to her on the phone, I just realized this woman is the right person," she said. "She's almost an actress in the tradition of Gena Rowlands, where she's a beauty that is really a character actress who changes herself in a complete way to play a part. She's so deep as an actress but I really feel like when I'm looking at her as Pippa, I feel there's a soul but it's a different soul from hers - it's like channeling. There's just something that she did [with the part] that's very special."

And she's in good company.

Maria Bello shines as Pippa's manic, druggie mother and Blake Lively - you may know her better as Serena van der Woodsen on "Gossip Girl" - embodies youthful folly and adolescent invincibility as the rebellious teenaged Pippa.

But Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder turn out to be happy surprises as the mysterious boy-next-door and needy best friend, respectively, and give unforgettable supporting performances.

As the Jesus-tattooed 35-year-old son of a retirement village resident, Reeves puts his typically wooden, anesthetized persona to good use here (what Miller calls his "alien" quality) and Ryder goes for broad laughs as the constantly weeping Sandra, Pippa's sad sack, severely self-conscious friend.

"Bless her heart. She had a really tough job," said Penn. "She was crying in every scene. She should win the Academy Award for that - it took a lot out of her."

But Ryder wasn't the only one who was put through the wringer on-screen. Penn didn't hesitate for a moment when asked what scene she found the most difficult to film.

"Having an orgasm on screen. Thank god it was short - [Pippa]'s quick."

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The Private Lives of Pippa Lee screens during the Toronto International Film Festival, running to September 19.