Jessica ChastainandPeter Sarsgaardare resurfacing traumatic memories in their new film.
Memory, from writer-director Michel Franco, features Chastain as Sylvia and Sarsgaard as Saul. As its newly released trailer hints, they’re two lost souls reckoning with their pasts in New York City.
“Sylvia is a social worker who leads a simple and structured life,” reads a synopsis. That life “is blown open when Saul follows her home from their high school reunion. Their surprise encounter will profoundly impact both of them as they open the door to the past.”
The trailer shows glimpses of Saul, who suffers from an addled memory due to dementia, bonding with the withdrawn Sylvia when she agrees to become his caretaker.
At the 2023Venice International Film Festival, the film was nominated for the festival’s highest honor, the Golden Lion. For his performance, Sarsgaard, 52, earned the Volpi Cup for Best Actor.
Jessica Chastain, Michel Franco and Peter Sarsgaard at the “Memory” premiere in 2023.Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty
Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty
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Screen actors, theZero Dark Thirtyactress told reporters at the time, “are often told and reminded how grateful we should be… And that is the environment that I think has allowed workplace abuse to go unchecked for many decades and is also the environment that has saddled members of our union with unfair contracts."
In meeting Sarsgaard’s character, “who doesn’t have a connection to the past,” she added, Sylvia is “able to free herself from her past, and she’s able to start again in each day and each moment to discover who she is again.”
Chastain began filmingMemorynot long after winning an Oscar for Best Actress for playingTammy Faye MessnerinThe Eyes of Tammy Faye. “Michel said that a lot of people told him, ‘Oh Jessica is going to leave your film because she just won an Oscar,’ ” she told IndieWire.
“Memory”.Ketchup Entertainment
Ketchup Entertainment
“Or that she is going to show up and be a nightmare and be a diva,” said Franco. “I told them, you don’t know half of it.She’s the opposite. She’s going to show up satisfied, happy, and be productive.”
Last week, Sarsgaard toldVarietyabout playing Saul, a character who he said is “refusing to be his [dementia] condition.”
Jessica Chastain in “Memory”.Ketchup Entertainment
The writer-director, however, was then more inclined to cast Sarsgaard, according to the actor. “He said, ‘Oh, no, I want you to be heavier. If anything, I want you to really not be a physically fit person.’ Which makes sense for the part, the guy’s been sitting in his house for the last year.”
source: people.com
