The transition from cute teen actor to serious adult often means risking your career on edgy, attention-grabbing projects. Much like Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens, who boarded Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers in an effort to shed their innocent Disney image, Michael Cera took to a Chilean thriller as a way to escape the lovable dork typecast that has followed him since Arrested Development. Two years after he announced his decision, a trailer has finally arrived.
Cera goes from awkward to somewhat menacing in Sebastián Silva’s Magic Magic, a surreal, psychological indie that required the Superbad star to learn Spanish. He plays Brink, an obnoxious boy who accompanies a group of young American tourists to the remote Chilean countryside. There the sensitive lead character Alicia (Juno Temple) begins to unravel, and her deteriorating mental state leads to chaos for her friend Sarah (Emily Browning) and the rest of the group. The work premiered at Sundance to little fanfare (our review was less than glowing), but the trailer looks titillating enough to draw audiences to the theater. See trailer below.
Update: Trailer removed at the request of the producers.
Magic Magic also features Catalina Sandino Moreno and Agustín Silva. No release date has been set.
What do you think of the trailer? Does it change your expectations for the film?