Studio Canal
Love in the time of great and terrible radiation isn’t a novel concept. Look at Marie and Pierre Curie. Or Bryan Cranston and his coworker wife in Godzilla. Now, the nuclear power from within a French plant is going to spark the beautiful power of desire within Léa Seydoux and Tahar Rahim. It’s science.
The trailer for Grand Central, a film directed by Rebecca Zlotowski (Belle Épine) and written by Zlotowski and Gaëlle Macé (Aliyah), is a study of passion over OSHA safety standards, which are there for a reason, buddy. Gary (Rahim, A Prophet) is a worker who takes up a job at a nuclear power plant in the French countryside because if Homer Simpson can do it, really then everyone else can, too. He’s quickly introduced to the inherent dangers of his new line of work through the trailer’s whirlwind montage of safety measures and visions of his new friends suiting up and stripping down in front of stern faces; without proper caution, the consequences are dire and deadly, with the threat of radiation contaminating their every pore and poisoning their bodies.
But the threat of glowing in the dark forever (and also dying a miserable death) doesn’t deter Gary from his work as a decontamination lackey – even when he’s been exposed already once on the job. The sight of Karole (Seydoux) the braless and mysterious fiancée of his supervisor, is enough to make him stick around. She’s gorgeous, carefree and doesn’t constantly wear a hazmat suit – that’s the hat trick of romance right there.
The rest of the trailer is a montage of the couple carrying out an illicit affair out in the woods, presumably somewhere near the plant, while Gary struggles to learn the meaning of the term “team player” as he has insane French cinema sex with one of the stars of Blue Is the Warmest Color. It’s surely going to be a beautiful affair to watch play out on screen – the few moments between the pair shown in the trailer certainly explain why he’s so eager to stay at his terrible job – but it also runs to risk of being too heavy-handed.
Karole, when first meeting Gary at the start of his position at the plant, initiates him into the group by seriously comparing radiation itself to love. “Fear. blurred vision. Head spinning, legs shaking…and that’s just a small dose,” she tells him. Ohhhh, I get it. Falling in love is like getting poisoned? Wait, am I being seduced?
Check out the (subtitled) trailer below:
Grand Central hits theaters in the UK July 18th, but we’re still waiting for a U.S. release date.
