Yesterday saw the first look at Natalie Portman in Jackie, the American debut by Oscar-nominated Chilean director, Pablo Larrain. While that film has Oscar bait written all over it, the same could be said for Larrain's dark religious drama, The Club. The film won the prestigious Silver Bear at Berlin, and seems poised for Golden Globes and Oscars, as well.
With the film now headed stateside the first U.S. trailer has been released. Starring Alfredo Castro, Antonia Zegers, Jaime Vadell, Alejandro Goic, Alejandro Sieveking, Antonia Zegers, Roberto Farias, and Marcel Alonso, the story centers on exiled priests in a remote town who are trying to atone for past sins, only to be faced with fresh temptations when an outsider arrives. Here's the synopsis:
In a secluded house in a small seaside town live four unrelated men and the woman who tends to the house and their needs. All former priests, they have been sent to this quiet exile to purge the sins of their pasts, the separation from their communities the worst form of punishment by the Church. They keep to a strict daily schedule devoid of all temptation and spontaneity, each moment a deliberate effort to atone for their wrongdoings.
Their fragile stability is disrupted by the arrival of an emissary from the Vatican who seeks to understand the effects of their isolation, and a newly disgraced housemate. Both bring with them the outside world from which the men have long been removed, and the secrets they had thought deeply buried. The Club is acclaimed director Pablo Larraín’s taut, blackly comic commentary on individual responsibility, organized religion and the combustible combination of the two.
Larrain has seen two films earn Oscar nominations in the Best Foreign Language category, Tony Manero and No, and he seems poised for another. The Club opens February 5th 2016.
