August 26, 2017 |
Whilst we might not be in attendance ourselves, doesn’t mean we can’t get a little bit excited about this year’s Venice Film Festival (the 74th). We love a movie. And Venice typically has the most exciting of talent, in front and behind the camera (and some good frocks, too). And, whilst it may be the oldest film festival this year it’s moving with the times – the festival featuring a virtual reality category. Modern! Here’s what we’re excited for.
Mother!
This is the biggie. Jennifer Lawrence stays in Darren Aronofsky’s (him of Black Swan, Requiem for a Dream AND her current boyf) latest – Mother! alongside Javier Barden. Playing a couple – they see their relationship tested when their idyllic country life is upended by the arrival of two mysterious guests, played by Michelle Pfeiffer and Ed Harris. Has Ed Harris every played anything other than the baddy? We doubt it. Given that it’s Aronofsky – you know you’ll have to hang on to your hats, something the trailer all but confirms.
Suburbicon
Dark comedy written by the Coen brothers and directed by Mr. Clooney – just give it the Oscar already. It’s the summer of ’59 and Matt Damon plays the mild mannered, father and husband just looking to get by on his own little plot of idyllic suburbia. Then his wife gets killed and it all goes a bit tits up, with said upward facing tits arriving in the form of a bearded Oscar Isaac and his band of cronies. It’s gonna be big.
Downsizing
Precious little info on this one – but we can tell you that Matt Damon, Kristen Wiig, Alec Baldwin, Christoph Waltz and Neil Patrick Harris star in a film about a couple who decide their lives would be better off if they were shrunk down to two inches. I mean, we’ve heard of trying new things in the bedroom to try and rekindle a dyeing flame of a relationship, but this seems slightly excessive. And things don’t exactly go to plan either, but we’ll leave that for you to discover…
Victoria & Abdul
A nice royal Brit blockbuster. Dame Judi plays Queen Victoria in this film adaptation of Shrabani Basu’s original novel, a tale of love and friendship between Queen Vic and her Indian servant, Abdul Karim. Alongside Ms. Dench, who’s very good at playing queens, will star alongside Michael Gambon, Eddie Izzard and, in his last ever film performance, Tim Piggot-Smith. Thespians, darling!
Woodshock
Rodarte have made a film. Need we really say more? Probably not, but we’re going to anyway because we’re such big fans of the Mulleavy sisters. Long-time muse Kirsten Dunst is spiralling in the wake of profound loss, and, by the looks of the trailer, turns to that old, odourous shoulder to cry on – sweet, sweet Mary Jane. Expect lots of lovely dresses and reefa throughout.
The Insult
You know those tiny family spats that erupt into something much bigger because you’ve both been holding so much back that’s previously gone unsaid? Yeah, them ones. At the risk of trivialising an incredibly complex situation, we feel this film is a bit like that. Toni, a Lebanese Christian and Yasser, a Palestinian refugee, lock horns over the legality of a pipe. Yes, a pipe. But the pipe is, of course, a metaphor for the far greater issues that face the two men and their respective cultures. Expect an intellectual stretching.
Human Flow
What do you get when you combine one of the world’s most renowned contemporary artists with a subject matter as evocative and urgent as the worlds migrant crisis? This, Human Flow. Even the trailers giving us goosebumps. Said Chinese artist and humanitarian activist is the near-legendary Ai Weiwei, who has teamed up with up with Amazon for his debut feature film that documents the lives and desperate journeys of migrants in 23 different countries. It’s bound to make for heavy watching, but it’s too important to be missed.
