Thankfully, after a sleepy day on the Croisette, Cannes bounced back with a pair of starry premieres that brought major talent to the red carpet and sparked much debate.
Kristen Stewart’s Directorial Debut Splashes Down
One of the buzziest movies going into the festival was “The Chronology of Water,” the feature directorial debut of Kristen Stewart. The movie, based on the memoir of the same name by Lidia Yuknavitch (played in the movie by Imogen Poots), follows Yuknavitch as a promising career gets derailed by drugs and alcohol. She eventually comes out of it, becoming an impressive writer and collaborator of Ken Kesey’s on his novel “Caverns” (in the movie, the author is played by Jim Belushi, which is oddly perfect).
Stewart (who also co-wrote the screenplay) and Poots hit the red carpet, causing a sensation, with “The Chronology of Water” playing in the Un Certain Regard section of the festival. Before the festival began, Stewart had joked that she had barely finished the movie on time and had anticipated a potential big flop – the kind of Cannes debut that prompts boos, walkouts and general discomfort.
But that didn’t happen with “The Chronology of Water,” with most reviewers finding the movie a deeply felt debut. Our reviewer called the film, which was produced by Ridley Scott and his Scott Free production shingle, “Visually haunting, with disquieting snapshots of pain, abuse and addiction giving way to something approaching tentative tranquility, it’s a film that establishes Stewart as an exciting new filmmaker who we can only hope to see more of.” Critic Chase Hutchinson continued: “Her slow-burn treatment of the source material contends with how pain is a living, breathing history everyone carries with them. It’s not something that can be ignored, and not all poisons have easy antidotes.” Count us in.
“Eddington” Arrives
Not to be outdone, there was also a splashy premiere for Ari Aster’s latest provocation “Eddington,” which saw stars like Pedro Pascal, Joaquin Phoenix, Austin Butler, Clifton Collins and Emma Stone attend with assorted other big names like Angelina Jolie (!) and Natalie Portman.
“Eddington” is Aster’s follow-up to his divisive “Beau Is Afraid,” which also starred Phoenix, and is being described as a drama, western, thriller and searing look at the stress fractures that formed all around the country during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Maybe those stress fractures were always there, but the pandemic cracked them open.) It’s set in a fictional New Mexico town, where a sheriff (Phoenix) is at odds with a mayor (Pascal). Considering this is an Aster movie, we’re sure it descends into madness – and violence.
Disturbing, profound, and, of course, very long (although probably not as long as you were imagining, at a comparatively svelte 145 minutes), “Eddington” is in the main competition at Cannes, which means that, if it strikes a chord with the jury members, it could take home the Palme d’Or. Reactions are varying wildly on social media, with some calling it the definitive work of art about the pandemic, while others dismissing it as messy and shallow. Our critic, Ben Croll, noted the film’s second half works better than its first.
We’ll all get to visit “Eddington” soon enough, with A24 releasing the movie on July 18. Ready to hit the road?
Bono in Black-and-White
Would it even be Cannes without a highly anticipated musical documentary? This year’s entry, “Bono: Stories of Surrender,” a biographical piece that interprets the U2 leader’s live show from a few years ago, showed up on the Croisette and dazzled our reviewer. The feature, which was directed by the always wonderful Australian auteur Andrew Dominik, played on Friday night and went over very well. “It’s bombastic, extravagant and melodramatic at times – but I don’t use those words as pejoratives, because in the hands of Bono and Dominik, it’s also pretty glorious, a mashup of Bono’s life and U2’s music that refuses to be contained by the usual boundaries of an author’s tour or a one-man show,” our critic, Steve Pond, swooned.
At least you won’t have to wait long to judge for yourself, since it’ll be on Apple TV+ on May 30.
Oscar’s Diversity Rule, Discussed
Cannes debuts oftentimes have an eye towards the big prize – the Academy Awards. And TheWrap talked to Dr. Stacy Smith, founder of the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, at the festival, about the Academy’s new inclusion initiatives.
“That’s not criteria. It’s calling your buddies and saying, ‘What do you think should work?’ That’s not inclusion, and that isn’t the work of inclusion,” Smith told TheWrap founder and CEO Sharon Waxman at Friday’s launch of TheWrap’s Cannes Conversations in partnership with Brand Innovators. “You can’t expect that to succeed at all when everybody’s already met the criteria.”
She argues that the new initiative hasn’t actually changed hiring practices. “I don’t know if any of the experts in the United States have actually been consulted on how to increase inclusion,” she said. “Everybody has programs. Everybody does what they think will work,” Smith said.
