While Jacob Tierney’s The Trotsky carries a lot of clout as it heads to theaters on Friday, the comedy faces an uphill battle amid strong holdover Iron Man 2 and Ridley Scott’s Cannes opener Robin Hood.

The festival darling, which recently screened at Tribeca and premiered as a special presentation at last year’s TIFF, bows on 33 screens in cities including Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Halifax and Calgary through Alliance Films.

Generally favored by critics and named one of Canada’s Top Ten Films of 2009, Trotsky stars Montreal’s Jay Baruchel (Knocked Up, Tropic Thunder) as a high school student who believes he’s the reincarnation of the Russian revolutionary. Tierney’s father Kevin Tierney (Bon Cop, Bad Cop) produced his directorial debut.

The film is also up against E1 Entertainment’s romance drama Letters to Juliet — out on 277 screens — about an American girl (Amanda Seyfried) who finds an unanswered love letter in Verona and sets out to find the lovers referenced in the letter. Juliet opens on 2,500 screens stateside through Summit Entertainment, while Universal has Robin Hood, with Russell Crowe in the titular role, playing on 3,400 screens in North America.

Also opening on Friday:

• Mongrel Media has the biopic Mao’s Last Dancer, about Chinese star ballet dancer Cunxin Li who, as a 10-year-old boy, was plucked from his poverty-stricken village to train at Beijing’s Academy of Dance. The film, based on Cunxin’s bestselling autobiography, bows in Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver, with more cities to follow.

• Ensemble drama Mother and Child, starring Annette Bening, Naomi Watts, Kerry Washington, Jimmy Smits and Samuel L. Jackson, opens in Toronto and Montreal via TVA Films. The story, which debuted at TIFF, centers on adoption and follows three women’s choices regarding their children.