This Friday before Labor Day weekend brings us the trailer and poster for “Office” heartthrob John Krasinski’s directorial debut, an adaptation of the late David Foster Wallace’s “Brief Interviews with Hideous Men.” The cast features (as some of the hideous men) Bobby Cannavale, Will Forte, Timothy Hutton, Krasinski himself, Dominic Cooper, Chis Messina, Max Minghella, Benjamin Gibbard (from Death Cab For Cutie, we guess he eventually made the final cut of the film) among others. A poster was also released today — basically the same treatment as the book cover, and thus in line with the faithfulness of Krasinski to Wallace’s book, as described by Film School Rejects as an element that might work against the film’s accessibility to the average moviegoer.
“Hideous Men” centers around a doctoral candidate, played by Julianne Nicholson, who, in the wake of a breakup, conducts a series of interviews with various men for her dissertation on the role of the modern man in the post-feminist era. The female character was a device created by Krasinski in order to tie the series of short stories together, one that was apparently given its blessing by Wallace himself before his death.
The film was picked up in July by IFC (way past its Sundance debut), and reviews have been mixed… Film School Rejects gave it an A, despite their misgivings towards its accessibility, and Cinematical calls it an “aimless, pretentious mess.” Ouch. This trailer doesn’t really give much up in terms of the plot or storyline, exactly what might be lacking in this project. Despite the interesting look into the male psyche, this might just be a property that doesn’t translate to film, though we salute Krasinski’s efforts.