“The Light Between Oceans”
After building a low key but fervent following with Ryan Gosling-starrers “Blue Valentine”and “Place Beyond the Pines,” director Derek Cianfrance adapts M.L. Stedman’s novel about a lighthouse keeper and his wife who find and then raise an abandoned baby. From the trailer, it looks to be a film of sweeping melodrama amid high gales. “We were at what felt like one of the windiest places in the world,” Cianfrance told EW, “in the middle of this pure, rugged, primal landscape.” Bonafide attractive people Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander star as the couple raising the discarded child, before Rachel Weisz shows up as a woman who takes the wind out of the sails of their newly formed family. “The Light Between the Oceans” finished filming over two years ago, which might give some cause for skepticism, but Cianfrance says he’s confident enough to let the film speak for itself, and with Adam Arkapaw as DP, it’s sure to look fantastic.
“Nocturnal Animals”
“A Single Man” didn’t simply boast possibly Colin Firth’s strongest performance to date —it also introduced us in fine style to Tom Ford as not just a renowned fashion designer but a talented filmmaker, who perhaps unsurprisingly has an eye for beautifully composed shots. It’s been seven years since his directorial debut, and so he’s following up with a film that looks every bit the equal of his debut in terms of glamor, but with a more ambitious remit. “Nocturnal Animals” delivers a stacked cast: Isla Fisher, Michael Shannon and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, plus the on-a-roll Jake Gyllenhaal and Amy Adams (who alongside Natalie Portman has two high-profile films in Venice: this and “Arrival”). Based on the 1993 novel by Austin Wright (“Tony and Susan”) the film centers on an art gallery owner (Adams) who is haunted by her ex-husband’s (Gyllenhaal) novel, a violent thriller. A diversion from the more sweepingly romantic “A Single Man,” this will hopefully give Ford a chance to showcase his creative range.
“One More Time With Feeling”
With “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” having gained traction after a slow start to now be considered one of the very best films of the 21st century, and with “Killing Them Softly,” a stylish if far from equally well-loved film, director Andrew Dominik is back. This time, he returns with a documentary which looks at the making of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds’ new album Skeleton Tree, so it’s a reunion of sorts for the director and songwriter, who last teamed up for ‘Jesse James’ on which Cave and Warren Ellis provided a score we recently named the best of the century so far. This is the second documentary to focus on Cave’s creative efforts in the last few years, following the playful, meditative “20,000 Days on Earth” —this one covers a period of intense personal tragedy for Cave following the death of his teenage son.
“Planetarium”
Credit where it’s due: Rebecca Zlotowski knows how to cast her films. In 2010, she made her directorial debut with an up-and-coming Lea Seydoux in “Belle Épine,” and then paired up Seydoux with Tahar Rahim in her 2013 feature “Grand Central.” And if North American viewers haven’t paid much attention to Zlotowski before (her films never received proper distribution in the U.S.), that’s all about to change with “Planetarium.” Set in 1930s Paris, it stars Natalie Portman (who, with this and “Jackie,” is about to have a massive Venice) and Lily-Rose Depp as spiritualist sisters on the last leg of their world tour who get involved with a French film producer’s new project. The supernatural elements, combined with what sounds like the potential for another dark, “Black Swan”-esque role for Portman, is more than enough to make us eager to see how Zlotowski’s biggest project to date will turn out.
“Prevenge”
When Ben Wheatley premiered his blacker-than-black comedy “Sightseers” in 2012, it announced the arrival of a major talent in the form of star/co-writer Alice Lowe. While Lowe has kept herself busy over the years through small roles in TV and film, she hasn’t had a proper leading role or feature writing credit since. 4 years later, Lowe is back with a vengeance as the writer, director and star of “Prevenge,” a pregnancy comedy/horror film inspired (very loosely) by her own experience as an expectant mother. Pitched by Lowe as a female “Taxi Driver” and described as a “post-feminist revenge film,” it follows a pregnant woman whose fetus compels her to start killing people. With a premise like that and a strong, singular comedic mind like Lowe’s at the helm (she shot the film while seven and a half months pregnant), we’re itching to see whether or not her directorial debut will deliver, and have our fingers firmly crossed that it will.