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Vox Lux Teaser Trailer: Natalie Portman is Ready to Take the Stage
Natalie Portman is a pop star gearing up to take the stage in the Vox Lux teaser trailer. This is the second film by actor-turned writer/director Brad Corbet, after his debut on the acclaimed post-WWI parable, The Childhood of a Leader.
Vox Lux's first half takes place in 1999 and follows young sisters Celeste (Raffey Cassidy) and Eleanor (Stacy Martin), as they become child pop music stars in the wake of a terrible tragedy, under the supervision of their manager (Jude Law). The film's second half jumps ahead to 2017, where the grownup Celeste (Portman) is a music superstar whose career threatens to be derailed by the tragedies and scandals of her personal life. Cassidy, who previously appeared in movies like Brad Bird's Tomorrowland and Yorgos Lanthimos' The Killing of a Sacred Deer, actually pulls double-duty by playing both young Celeste and adult Celeste's daughter.
The Vox Lux teaser doesn't really get into all that and instead serves as a mood-setter for the larger film. It further reveals the full title is Vox Lux: A Twenty-First Century Portrait and confirms the cast, including Jennifer Ehle (Zero Dark Thirty). Vox Lux also features songs by Sia and a score by no less than music icon Scott Walker (who also scored Childhood of a Leader). Watch the teaser in the space below:
While Vox Lux doesn't have a distributor just yet, that may change in the near future. As the teaser announces, Corbet's musical showbiz drama is set to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. If the film earns a warm reception from the TIFF crowd, then it shouldn't be long before a studio picks it and schedules it for release later this year. That will allow Vox Lux to join Portman's Annihilation in the (rapidly expanding) lineup of movies in the running for awards consideration over the remaining four months of 2018.
Between Lol Crawley's grounded cinematography and Portman playing a troubled artist (one wearing a feathery costume, no less), it's difficult not to immediately think of Black Swan while watching the Vox Lux teaser. There are also thematic parallels between the films, in the way they examine how performers draw from real-life experiences and how female artists are often exploited by their (male) bosses. However, once you get past all that, Corbet's film otherwise sounds pretty different from Darren Aronofsky and Portman's Oscar winning ballet psycho-thriller. Here's to hoping that proves to be the case with the actual movie.
