Last year, film fans were enraptured with Yorgos Lanthimos’ “The Favourite” and its tale of an unknown love triangle involving Queen Anne and two women. This year, if you’re looking for your next hilarious story of a famous woman and her hidden love affair, then perhaps “Wild Nights with Emily” is for you.
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As seen in the trailer, “Wild Nights with Emily” follows the story of the famous poet Emily Dickinson and her intense relationship with her childhood friend-turned-sister-in-law Susan. Much like “The Favourite,” ‘Wild Nights’ mixes a brutal sense of humor and shines a light on an era that necessarily didn’t accept the idea that women could be madly in love. Based on the private letters of Dickinson, ‘Wild Nights’ aims to show the world a new side of the poet, with some hilarious moments peppered in.
The film stars Molly Shannon, Amy Seimetz, Susan Ziegler, and Brett Gelman.
“Wild Nights with Emily” hits theaters on April 12.
Here’s the synopsis:
In the late 1880s Emily Dickinson is writing prolifically, baking gingerbread, and enjoying a passionate, lifelong affair with her friend and sister-in-law Susan…yes this is the iconic American poet, popularly thought to have been a reclusive spinster. Beloved comic Molly Shannon leads in this humorous yet bold reappraisal of Dickinson, informed by her private letters. While seeking publication of some of the 1,775 poems written during her lifetime, Emily (Shannon) finds herself facing a troupe of male literary gatekeepers too confused by her genius to take her work seriously. Instead her work attracts the attention of an ambitious woman editor, who also sees Emily as a convenient cover for her own role in buttoned-up Amherst’s most bizarre love triangle. A timely critique of how women’s history is rewritten, WILD NIGHTS WITH EMILY remains vibrant, irreverent and tender–a perhaps closer depiction of Emily Dickinson’s real life than anything seen before.