After having premiered at the Toronto Film Festival last September, Paul Haggis’s long awaited ensemble drama Third Person finally has a trailer. Sony Pictures Classics, which picked up the film in November, describes the film’s plot as “a multi-strand story line reminiscent of Paul Haggis’s earlier Oscar-winning film Crash.”
Taking place in Paris, Rome, and New York City, Third Person tells three stories, all of which center on love, loss, and human connection. In Paris, acclaimed author Michael (Liam Neeson) struggles to maintain the relationship with his lover Anna (Olivia Wilde), a young and aspiring writer herself for whom Michael left his ex-wife Elaine (Kim Basinger). While in Rome, black-market businessman Scott (Adrien Brody), who falls in love with a Roman woman, Monika (Moran Atias), helps to get her daughter smuggled into Italy. In New York, Julia (Mila Kunis), an ex-soap opera star, fights a hard custody battle with her ex-husband and famous artist Rick (James Franco) over their son.
With numerous layers of overlap presented in the trailer, Third Person comes across as highly ambitious, which seems suitable considering Haggis worked on it for three years. He hasn’t directed a film since 2010’s The Last Three Days starring Russell Crowe and Elizabeth Banks, which was a commercial flop at the domestic box office. But the past may be behind him, as Haggis claimed in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter that Third Person is his “best film” yet. That seems like a bold statement coming from the director of Crash and In the Valley of Elah and the screenwriter of Million Dollar Baby. It’s certainly one that’s worth testing when the film opens on June 20 this year. The film will also have a special screening at Tribeca.
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