Paolo Barzman’s Emotional Arithmetic arrives in theaters Friday bolstered by a strong cast, yet weakened by middling reviews that have followed the drama since it played at the close of last year’s Toronto International Film Festival.

Arithmetic stars heavyweights Susan Sarandon, Christopher Plummer, Gabriel Byrne, Max von Sydow, and Quebec star Roy Dupuis, in a story about Holocaust survivors who are reunited in Canada 40 years after the war ends.

Its early reception has been lukewarm, however. The Hollywood Reporter offered that Barzman’s sophomore picture (following 1994’s European production Time Is Money, also starring Sydow) has ‘only limited potential in art houses,’ while Toronto arts weekly Now Magazine dismissed it as ‘a second-tier Holocaust picture.’ Variety has been more optimistic, and sees some promise in the cast’s ‘generally solid performances.’

Produced by Montreal’s BBR Productions and Toronto’s Triptych Media, it bows on seven screens, in cities including Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa and Halifax through Seville Pictures. No one from Seville was available for comment on this story.

But Arithmetic is not the only release this week that has some critical cards stacked against it. Columbia’s long-on-the-shelf thriller 88 Minutes has been widely panned, getting just one-and-a-half stars and adjectives such as ‘idiotic’ and ‘incomprehensible’ from the Associated Press.

Universal, meanwhile, will bow Forgetting Sarah Marshall, looking for the latest from comedy writer/producer Judd Apatow to reverse the downward trend of his recent flops Drillbit Taylor and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and play to the higher numbers of his Knocked Up and Superbad.

Early word on Marshall is highly positive (85% on Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer), suggesting his luck has turned around. Unlike many comedies, reviews of Apatow films tend to line up with the box-office receipts.

Maple Pictures, meanwhile, is hoping the first-ever onscreen pairing of martial arts stars Jackie Chan and Jet Li will translate to box-office success when The Forbidden Kingdom opens wide on 270 screens. The actioner follows an American teenager transported back in time to ancient China. Lionsgate is releasing the film on 3,000 screens in the U.S. amid predictions that it will play well with its core audience.

Also this week, KinoSmith Films bows the U.K. thriller London to Brighton at Toronto’s Carlton theater.

Coming up on DVD Tuesday is the drama Continental, un film sans fusil, which will be available across Canada on April 22 through Christal Films. The Jutra award-winning film, from first-time helmer Stéphane Lafleur, follows four people affected by one man’s disappearance.