As the film made its debut at the 77th Venice Film Festival, the world got a first look at the movie with a 49 second clip.
In the short taster of The World to Come, we see the two leads—Katherine Waterston (Inherent Vice) and Vanessa Kirby (The Crown)—out for a walk whilst discussing previous generations of women who had built the foundations of a home in the wilderness.
The World to Come is based on the short story of the same name by Jim Shepard, with a screenplay written by Ron Hansen and Shepard. The plot centres on two neighbouring couples, against the backdrop of a patriarchal society and the harsh and unforgiving frontier landscape of USA’s east coast.
The story is set to focus on both the physical and psychological challenges of the environment and the relationships they find themselves in. Out of this, the movie spotlights the developing relationship between the characters played by Waterston and Kirby. Some commentators have compared the movie to Portrait of a Lady on Fire, presumably because of the central theme of the story: Indiewire suggests the movie “entwines the furtive eroticism of Portrait of a Lady on Fire with the kerosene ache of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.” The latter movie was also written by Ron Hansen and also starred Casey Affleck, who stars here as the husband of Waterston’s character. Christopher Abbott (Girls) completes the cast.
If the reviews coming out of the 77th Venice Film Festival are anything to go by, Norwegian director Mona Fastvold (The Sleepwalker) has done justice to the source material with The World to Come. The review by Hollywood Reporter mentions the “polish and precision of Fastvold’s directorial touch and a terrific quartet of leads.” The Guardian described the movie as a “ravishingly beautiful love story” in awarding it four stars. The Telegraph went one better and gave the “frontier love story that throbs with poetry” a full five stars. Indiewire graded the “swoon-worthy frontier romance” an A-.
The reviews are consistent in their language to describe The World to Come. Attention is placed on the use of understatement, the subtle development of the relationship between the two women and the literary feel arising from Waterston’s voiceovers. Daniel Blumberg’s score gets a special mention, as does the cinematography. The film was shot on 16mm, with Romania acting as the stand-in for the USA setting.
With the buzz around such a delicate understated movie, Sony Pictures will be hoping to build on the reception it received in Venice. With a release date not yet announced, the first-look clip is all we have to whet appetites for what Screen Daily described as a “beautifully executed and acted drama”.
Words by: Andrew Butcher
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