It feels like we’ve been waiting for Claire Denis’ long-promised English-language debut “High Life” forever. First announced over two years ago, the film takes Denis into sci-fi territory for the first time, thanks to a script by genius novelist Zadie Smith and her poet husband Nick Laird, and with Robert Pattinson long set to star.
But the start date kept slipping, and when Denis shot comedy “Let The Sunshine In” starring Juliette Binoche and Gerard Depardieu (which premiered at Cannes: here’s our review), we wondered if “High Life” had gone away. Fortunately, we were wrong: the film’s still in the works, and looks to be in production, given that it’s added a bunch of new cast members, according to Variety.
Joining the already-announced Pattinson and “Nymphomaniac” star Mia Goth are a number of new additions, the first among whom is Binoche, reteaming after their first collaboration on “Let The Sunshine In” (it turns out Binoche actually put some photos from the set on Instagram a few weeks back, and we even posted them: the left hand slightly failed to talk to the right hand here…) Perhaps more unexpected is the presence of Andre Benjamin, aka Andre 3000 from Outkast. Benjamin’s only a very occasional actor, with only two credits since 2008 (Hendrix biopic “Jimi: All Is By My Side” and the second season of “American Crime”), but he’s pretty good and always welcome, particularly in a project as interesting as this.
Also on board are German actor Lars Eidinger (“Personal Shopper”), Agata Buzek (“Hummingbird”), Ewan Mitchell (“The Halcyon”), Jessie Ross (“The Frankenstein Chronicles”) and Claire Tran (“Valerian”). They’ll play a group of criminals who agree to go on a suicide mission into a black hole, where they’re tasked with finding alternate energy sources and take part in human reproduction experiments. Fun!
Not mentioned in the cast anymore is Patricia Arquette — perhaps Binoche has taken her role on? Anyway, with shooting now seemingly underway, fingers crossed that the film will be ready for Cannes next year (or perhaps more likely, given any VFX elements, Venice 2018).
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