Reaping the benefits of a big name lead and her biggest budget to date, Claire Denis is about to expose herself to a wider audience than her career’s ever seen before with her English-language sci-fi “High Life.” But if her recent take on the rom-com genre, “Let the Sunshine In,” is anything to go by, the filmgoing public be would be ill-advised to approach this space drama expecting thrills in a “Gravity” or “Interstellar” vein.
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Nonetheless, coming from the auteur who once found otherworldly beauty in a Parisian traffic jam, one imagines that a journey into the final frontier will serve as a more than sufficient basis for another intimate and intoxicating work to immerse and disorient the senses.
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The film sees Denis reunite with Juliette Binoche after the success of ‘Sunshine.’ She’ll be starring opposite Robert Pattinson, who continues to rack up his indie-arthouse credentials, and Mia Goth, who you’ll also be catching a few months from now in the much-anticipated “Suspiria” remake. But perhaps the most curious name in the cast is André Benjamin – also known by his rapper name André 3000 – who impressed Denis with his portrayal of Jimi Hendrix in 2013’s “Jimi: All Is by My Side.”
Check out a synopsis of the film below:
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Deep space. Beyond our solar system. Monte and his infant daughter Willow live together aboard a spacecraft, in complete isolation. A solitary man, whose strict self-discipline is a protection against desire –his own and that of others– Monte fathered the girl against his will. His sperm was used to inseminate Boyse, the young woman who gave birth to her. They were members of a crew of prisoners: space convicts, death row inmates. Guinea pigs sent on a mission to the black hole closest to Earth. Now only Monte and Willow remain. And Monte is changed. Through his daughter, for the first time, he experiences the birth of an all-powerful love. Willow grows, becoming a young girl, then a young woman.
Pattinson, Goth, Binoche, and Benjamin will be joined by Lars Eidinger, Agata Buzek, Ewan Mitchell, Jessie Ross, Claire Tran, and Gloria Obianyo. “High Life” has already played the New York and Toronto International Film Festivals (read our review). A24 will release the film sometime in 2019.