Not to be outdone by a group of sentient toys, Fox Searchlight decided to drop the trailer for Lucy in the Sky, which is the feature-film debut of Legion and Fargo showrunner Noah Hawley on Tuesday. Formerly titled Pale Blue Dot before Hawley came on and decided that the entire thing would be better with a Beatles reference, the film is a fictionalized take on the sad tale of former astronaut Lisa Nowak (played here by Natalie Portman), who made headlines back in the mid-aughts for attempting to kidnap her lover’s new beau.
Here’s a trailer:
Well, that’s Noah Hawley for you! Fuckin’ with aspect ratios, playin’ with retro aesthetics, commentin’ on alienation: what else did you expect? In all seriousness, though, we’re kind of excited for this, even if we’re not the biggest fans of Hawley’s TV work. Why? Well, some constraints — like a 100-minute runtime — can be good for directors known for overindulgence, and we’re kind of excited to see what Hawley and his co-writers do with the story of Nowak, even if it’s just an inspiration for the events of the film. It’s a fascinating, weird-as-hell tale, and this Texas Monthly article does a brilliant job recounting the facts of the case if you’re so inclined to read them.
Here’s a brief official synopsis:
In ‘Lucy in the Sky,’ Natalie Portman plays astronaut Lucy Cola, who returns to Earth after a transcendent experience during a mission to space — and begins to lose touch with reality in a world that now seems too small.
Lucy in the Sky still doesn’t have a release date, and we have a weird feeling that this trailer dropped when it did because of some impending mouse-shaped danger to Fox Searchlight, perhaps to remind the new folks in charge that they’re still good for something. Still, we’re betting that this hits Cannes two months from now.