Main Street Films
It shouldn’t be difficult to see a movie that’s been made, is available, has received almost unanimous praise and involves popular movie stars, including Cate Blanchett and Rose Byrne onscreen and Mia Wasikowska behind the camera. The Turning probably just feels like it’s taking forever to come out, but even though the first trailer debuted in 2013, it’s merely been taking the long road through the international film festival scene. It hasn’t been sitting on a shelf or anything like that. Now this beautiful-looking Australian production is about to open in the UK and Ireland next month, and a slightly new trailer is online, mostly different in its positive pull quotes – because there’s enough favor for substitutions.
What about a US release? Main Street Films are set to distribute the anthology film sometime this year, though it’s surely a difficult venture since the thing is three hours long in its original version. The British and Irish release is cut down to 107 minutes and only features 10 of the 17 short films produced for the initial collection, almost the entire lot being adaptations of stories by Tim Winton (one is an animated take on a T.S. Eliot poem that prefaces Winton’s book). And previously, an Australian cut for TV was brought down to 90 minutes and eight shorts. However, the Main Street Films site lists all 17 titles, and I hope that means that when the movie does make a return to the States (it played the Seattle International Film Festival, complete), it will be the full version.
I truly believe that the three women I name above can do nothing wrong these days, so much that their involvement alone can get me excited about upcoming movies like Spy, Cinderella and Crimson Peak. With Wasikowska, though, her talents for writing and directing are not proven, this being her debut in both roles. Byrne, meanwhile, reminds me just in this trailer of how wonderful she is in dramatic roles, in addition to the brilliant comedic performances we’ve been getting from her of late, and it’s not just because of the cited review blurb.
And I also truly believe that you can’t go too wrong with an anthology film. They’re like any shorts program, only more united for a certain reason (such as shared author) and can be trusted to include at least a few worthwhile parts. With a whopping 17 shorts here, there must be even more than a few good ones. One might rather they pare down the number by only going with the good ones, yet it’s hardly ever an objective certainty which parts of an anthology film are most deserving of being kept in. The complete cut allows us to see all and make up our mind.
The Turning also stars Hugo Weaving, Miranda Otto, Richard Roxburgh and many more. The other directors include Oscar nominee Anthony Lucas (The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello), actor David Wenham (300: Rise of an Empire) and Justin Kurzel, helmer of the upcoming Assassin’s Creed. It hits theaters across the pond on February 6th. Watch the new trailer below.