At the Cannes Film Festival this week, members of the press will get a special screening of “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints,” the Sundance smash that stars Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara as a husband and wife with a criminal history (he’s an escaped convict, she’s his former partner-in-crime, together they have a child that was born while he was locked up). And to accompany this special screening, there’s a brand new clip that’s hit the web, courtesy of Entertainment Weekly.
The scene (the opening of the movie) is brief but beautiful and involves a heated conversation between Mara and Affleck that, even if you’ve never been locked up for criminal activity, you can probably relate to. It’s apparent, from just a minute of footage, why this film, with its sunlit naturalism, was receiving comparisons to the early works of Terrence Malick (particularly “Badlands“).
“Ain’t Them Bodies Saints,” which is just about the hardest title to say this side of “The Rural Juror,” also stars Ben Foster, Rami Malek, Keith Carradine, and Nate Parker. Something tells us that after the special Cannes screening the buzz is going to keep on building. Writer/director David Lowery is officially the next big thing, too, having recently scored the former David Fincher project “Torso” (about Elliot Ness’ post-Untouchables period hunting down a serial killer) and a high profile gig for Disney updating “Pete’s Dragon.”
IFC will release “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints” on August 16th.