When it comes to most major blockbusters, by the time the release occurs, it feels like we’ve already seen the vast majority of the film, but one of the joys of attending film festivals is seeing movies before the marketing campaign kicks in. With Sundance gearing up this month, most films will screen to audiences who have seen nothing but a few stills, but there are certainly a few exceptions.
Now one has arrived today, as a trailer for the Park City-bound Big Sur has been released ahead of its premiere. The project, yet another Jack Kerouac adaptation alongside Walter Salles‘ On The Road, which is currently expanding in limited release, stars Jean-Marc Barr as our lead and comes from Michael Polish (The Astronaut Farmer).
The promising trailer features some beautiful imagery and expectedly, a great deal of Kerouac dialogue. Check it out below for the film also starring Kate Bosworth, Josh Lucas, Radha Mitchell, Anthony Edwards and Henry Thomas, and if it doesn’t satisfy your Keroauc fix, Sundance has you covered with the Daniel Radcliffe-led drama Kill Your Darlings.
Big Sur focuses on a moment in Jack Kerouac’s life when, overwhelmed by the success of his opus On the Road and struggling with alcoholism, he retreats to his publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s cabin in the small, coastal California town of Big Sur, which eventually inspires his 1962 novel of the same name. Kerouac’s time begins with quiet moments of solitude and communing with nature. But, struck by loneliness, he hightails it to San Francisco, where he resumes drinking heavily and gets pushed into a relationship with his best friend Neal Cassady’s mistress, Billie.
While writer/director Michael Polish (Twin Falls Idaho) explores a less glamorous moment in Kerouac’s legacy—one of alienation and mental breakdown—Big Sur equally examines the beauty of this time in the writer’s life, witnessed in the romance of friendship and the purity of nature. Jean-Marc Barr embodies Kerouac’s intelligence and masculinity, but also portrays him at his most contemplative and vulnerable. Luscious and breathtaking, Big Sur approaches a religious cinematic experience.
Sundance Film Festival kicks off on January 17th.