Underdogs are a film festival's best friend especially when it's Toronto

This is read by an automated voice.Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.

See more from the L.A.Times in Google Search.

Set us as preferred TORONTO — Who could have predicted that Peter Farrelly would make the fan favorite of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival? Everyone who voted for “Green Book” eight years ago.Even at the time, “Green Book” got justly mocked as a feel-good flick that already felt out of touch, the second coming of “Driving Miss Daisy.” Yet, Farrelly loves an underdog story — directing and living them — and so, apparently, do TIFF audiences.“I Play Rocky,” his latest, tells the tale of Sylvester Stallone’s struggle to write and star in his breakthrough hit “Rocky,” a slog that starts with him as a homeless actor who can’t even get cast as Thug No.

2 and ends with him onstage at the Oscars as his passion project wins best picture.An inspirational movie about an inspirational movie, “I Play Rocky” lands almost every punch.Sausaging his muscles into tight turtlenecks, actor Anthony Ippolito plays Stallone as an earnest, charming caricature.

“I know I don’t look like Einstein,” the lovable lug grumbles to producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff (P.J.

Byrne and Toby Kebbell).But even though Stallone’s first wife (AnnaSophia Robb) is pregnant and he’s just pawned his dog for $40, he’s not selling them his “Rocky” script unless he gets to play the hero.Farrelly presents Hollywood as cluelessly beholden to the common wisdom that boxing movies with unknown leads don’t sell — until “Rocky” becomes the top money-maker of 1976.

The crowd at “I Play Rocky’s” world premiere in the Princess of Wales theater belly-laughed at every step Stallone had to hurdle to prove his instincts were right.People in the film business also chuckled in recognition as Hollywood still rarely takes shots on new faces, even after “Rocky’s” triumph 50 years ago.

Movies F...