The last few months have been pretty rough for Nicole Kidman. Her most recent film, Grace of Monaco, was once eyed as a potential Oscar contender but ended up with an unceremonious debut on Lifetime. The Berlin International Film Festival also saw the premiere of Werner Herzog's long-awaited epic, Queen of the Desert, in which she plays historian, novelist, and adventurer Gertrude Bell, opposite James Franco and Robert Pattinson. The reviews were less than stellar, and as the first international trailer arrives there is still no firm release date.
Kidman plays Bell, a political heavyweight who made her presence felt in the Middle East of the 1920s, helping to shape its place in the world. Pattinson plays T.E. Lawrence, yes "Lawrence of Arabia" himself, while Franco is Bell's lover Henry Cadogan. What should be a sweeping desert epic doesn't look to have that kind of scope based on this footage, and certainly that has been a chief criticism of the film since it debuted.
There are rumblings we'll get a limited release some time in September, but we'll just have to wait and see. Check out the trailer and full synopsis below.
The film tells the story of Gertrude Bell (1868-1926) who, as historian, novelist and member of the British secret service, played a decisive role around 1920 in setting the course for the new political order in the Middle East. As an educated young woman, for whom no suitable husband can be found in England, she journeys to Tehran. After a tragic love affair with diplomat and inveterate gambler Henry Cadogan, she decides to give up on her private life and discover the region as an explorer. Before the backdrop of the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire she learns languages, translates literature, meets with Muslim dignitaries in Cairo, Basra and Baghdad and earns their trust through her pluck and respect. Predestined to be a mediator between the Orient and the British Empire, she contributes to defining the new borders in the region after the First World War. And then love enters her life once again. Werner Herzog uses the vast desert landscapes to depict the architecture of his characters' souls. A panoramic epic about the woman who has gone down in history as 'the female Lawrence of Arabia'.
Queen of the Desert - Trailer [VO] by Filmosphere
