Even though the politically minded Weinstein Company comedy "Butter" didn't exactly light up the film festival circuit last year, this writer, for one, is still mildly intrigued. A political satire using a butter sculpting competition in Iowa to lampoon the 2008 political race between Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama, a lot of critics have compared Jennifer Garner's uptight character in the film to House of Representatives Republican Michelle Bachman, and that should at least be worthy of some laughs, no?
Plus the cast, which features Olivia Wilde, Hugh Jackman, Ashley Greene, Alicia Silverstone, Rob Corddry, Ty Burrell, Kristen Schaal and relative newcomer Yara Shahidi, is a pretty good one. Scripted by Jason Micallef (the screenplay went on to make the 2008 Black List), the picture centers on a young African-American orphan (Shahidi) who discovers her uncanny talent for butter sculpting in the Iowa town where her adoptive family lives. She is pitted against the ambitious wife (Garner) of the reigning champion (Burrell) in the annual butter sculpture competition.
The film's trailer was recently released, and in it we see Olivia Wilde as an interesting foil and polar opposite to Garner's buttoned-up goodie-two-shoes character. Wilde plays a stripper named Brooke, who is ostensibly some kind of Monica Lewinsky-esque figure in this comedic parable. "Butter" opens on October 5th via The Weinstein Company. Several new photos of the cast can be seen above and below. You can read our review of the picture from TIFF 2011 here.