Our most hated cliche in all of modern film advertising is a pretty standard one amongst biopics and reboots: The big “what’s your name” reveal, in which the protagonist (and, occasionally, the antagonist) of a given film is asked that question and the soundtrack swells as they announce to the world that they are an earth-quaking figure of significance even though nobody in their right mind in that moment — in the world of the film — would give a shit or know who they are.
For good examples of this cliche from totally fictional universes, check out the “I’m James Tiberius Kirk” bit from the 2009 Star Trek or the “I am… Blofeld” moment from Spectre, but this happens all of the fucking time in biopic advertising as well. So, Focus Features dropped a trailer for the Ruth Bader Ginsburg (hereby referred to as RBG) biopic/origin story On the Basis of Sex on Monday, and we hope it manages to this trap.
Check it out:
Goddamn it! Not again!
Anyways, this looks like a perfectly fine biopic, one that has its finger to the pulse of our current political moment (and, you know, that they had the popular documentary cleaning up at the arthouse earlier this year). We don’t know if Jones is the best choice for RBG, but we will say that she is a fantastic actor and it’s kind of a shame that we don’t see more of her. We’re jealous that she gets to share screentime with Armie Hammer (drool), and we do like the attention paid to period detail, including making Justin Theroux look like John Cazale. We’ll have to see how this RBG flick turns out, but we’ve got some faith in Jones and director Mimi Leder (whose Deep Impact is a disastrously underrated movie) to make an incredible final product.
Here’s a synopsis:
“The film tells an inspiring and spirited true story that follows young lawyer Ruth Bader Ginsburg as she teams with her husband Marty to bring a groundbreaking case before the U.S. Court of Appeals and overturn a century of gender discrimination. The feature will premiere in 2018 in line with Justice Ginsburg’s 25th anniversary on the Supreme Court.”
On the Basis of Sex hits theaters on Christmas Day.
Featured image by Jonathan Wenk via Focus Features.