Ominous music, an imagined flood and two good looking people peering each other with what appears to be suspicion. It’s just a hint of what might be to come in the new clip from Sundance Film Festival film Emanuel and The Truth About Fishes, starring Jessica Biel, Kaya Scodelario, Alfred Molina, Frances O’Connor and Aneurin Barnard. Check out M.L.’s daily coverage from Park City this week and next.
Emanuel (Kaya Scodelario), an acerbic but sensitive teen, lives with her father (Alfred Molina) and stepmother (Frances O’Conner). She’s on the verge of another birthday-a day she has never cared for since her mother died giving birth to her-when the mysterious Linda (Jessica Biel), a young and hip mother, moves in next door. Intrigued by Linda’s striking resemblance to her late mother, Emanuel begins to babysit for Linda’s newborn daughter. As Emanuel and Linda spend more time together, they develop a bond that becomes deeply entwined in a surprising secret Linda harbors.
Man vs. beast, man vs. man, man vs. corporation, man vs. himself — The Hunter takes all these pretty ladies out for a spin, but can’t seem to decide which one to bring home. The set-up is so swift it could easily pass you by: Martin (Willem Dafoe) is contracted by a shady outfit to bag a Tasmanian tiger, presumed extinct, in the Australian wilderness. Rumor has it there’s one left out there, and what better reason to fully extinguish a species than in the name of pharmaceutical patent? Martin appears to have no particular feeling about this assignment; as long as his toiletries are properly lined up and he’s left alone, he doesn’t appear to have a particular feeling about much of anything.
Martin’s inscrutability is both a key element of all the above-listed plotlines and the reason no one of them is fully realized. Billeted in a remote Tasmanian home with two young children who have a missing father and a grieving mother (Frances O’Connor) who dopes herself through the days, Dafoe’s character is prepped for a transfusion of warmer, more human blood early on. Sass (Morgana Davies) is the big sister with the foul mouth and matter of fact attitude, Bike (Finn Woodlock) is the mystical mute little brother who draws pictures of Tasmanian tigers (a striking mix of jungle cat and mountain wolf) and seems to know more about his father’s whereabouts than he lets on. Both are utterly irresistible, and with their mother MIA they launch a full charm offensive, even jumping in the tub with Martin after he finally gets a broken generator — and some hot water — flowing again.
Scene by scene The Hunter, adapted from a novel by Julia Leigh, holds your attention like a pair of big, inquisitive…
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