While first few days of the Sundance Film Festival have seen plenty of hot titles unspool — "Stoker," "Prince Avalanche," "The East," "Don Jon's Addiction," "Before Midnight," "Ain't Them Bodies Saints" and more — there is still a lot more to come, and tonight Park City will host the World Premiere of "The Necessary Death Of Charlie Countryman" and a new image has arrived before it unspools.
Shia LaBeouf and Evan Rachel Wood lead the wild story about an American who travels abroad, falls in love with a Romanian girl, but runs afoul of her violent ex-boyfriend (played by the always gnarly Mads Mikkelsen). The film features a score from Dead Mono and Christophe Beck, music from Moby, The xx and M83, and when we chatted with director Fredrik Bond before Sundance, he shared a bit of what audiences should expect.
"It's a mashup/gangster/coming-of-age spiritual love story," he said, adding that films ranging from "The Graduate" to "Trainspotting" to "Pulp Fiction" all had an influence on the film's mix of violence, romance and drama.
There's no distributor for this one yet, but if all goes well at the screening, checkbooks and pens will shortly be flying.