Enter Ad Astra, writer-director James Gray’s new space adventure about an astronaut (Pitt) traveling into the unknown to track down his missing father, played by Tommy Lee Jones. There seem to be shades of Interstellar, Gravity, and maybe a little First Man (seriously, remember First Man??) in play here, which isn’t a bad thing.
Really, Ad Astra needn’t be some massive hit. It just needs to be good enough and liked enough for Pitt’s name to stay hanging in the air in whatever airy rooms Academy voters gather in over the next four or so months. Though there is also a distinct chance the movie will actually be great in its own right, given that Gray’s last feature was the underseen opus The Lost City of Z, a different kind of exploration story (one that was originally supposed to star Pitt) that was breathtaking in its detail and rich emotional clarity. I hope Ad Astra is the same, regardless of Pitt’s awards future.
Streep Does Soderbergh
An interesting thing about Meryl Streep’s new-millennium career is that, while she’s done a lot of good work, she hasn’t worked with a lot of top-tier directors. Competent directors, sure. Interesting ones, yes. But few who might be held as among the greats of their age. (Nancy Meyers, Nora Ephron, and Jonathan Demme spring immediately to mind as the few she’s worked with in films since Adaptation.) So it will be interesting to see how she contends with one of the more idiosyncratic A-list directors of our era, Steven Soderbergh.
The two have paired up—along with Gary Oldman, Sharon Stone, David Schwimmer, Matthias Schoenaerts, Jeffrey Wright, Antonio Banderas, Will Forte, and others—for The Laundromat, a sort of whistleblower drama about the Panama Papers, which revealed many of the secret financial dealings keeping the super-wealthy super wealthy. It’s unclear just what Streep’s role will be in the film, but it will be fun watching her move around in one of Soderbergh’s laid-back, naturalistic worlds. Between this and Big Little Lies season two (directed by another contemporary master, Andrea Arnold), Streep is trying new things as she enters another decade of life. Which is always great to see from an actor, but especially when they themselves are the Greatest.
King Timothée
Before young Timothée Chalamet, gangly crush object of 2017 thanks to Call Me by Your Name and Lady Bird, breaks hearts anew in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women adaptation (due later this winter after skipping all major festivals), he’s going to try his hand at, oh, ruling England. That’s what he’ll be up to in The King, Netflix’s third big Venice entry. (They’ve also got Marriage Story and The Laundromat.) Directed by Animal Kingdom auteur David Michôd, The King is said to be an adaptation of some of Shakespeare’s Henry history plays, with Chalamet as young Prince Hal on his way to becoming one of the most famous kings in British history. That’s a meaty role for Chalamet, who’s enjoyed no shortage of challenging stuff in his short career.
Not all that stuff has hit though. Chalamet’s big entry into last year’s awards hunt, the addiction drama Beautiful Boy, didn’t quite connect—neither with critics nor with ticket-buyers. The King could potentially, then, be something of a course correction, putting Chalamet’s trajectory back in its steep upward direction. Though there may be some reason for concern: Michôd’s work has been spotty since Animal Kingdom, and last year’s Netflix foray into British Isles historical drama—David MacKenzie’s Outlaw King—didn’t fare very well. Chalamet will have Little Women to buoy him should The King not go as hoped—but if he can assert himself as the forceful center of a sweeping historical epic like this? That kicks open a lot of new doors.
I realize I’m a heel for focusing a Venice Film Festival preview on all this big Oscar-y stuff. But such are the realities of the season, I’m afraid. That said, there are also some other, perhaps smaller, films I’ve got my eye on that I’ll eagerly ride a gondola to go see. (Is that how it works in Venice? I’ll soon find out!)
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