Coming off of a triple Oscar win with Ex Machina, Room, and Amy, as well as a successful wide release of The Witch, A24 is easily the biggest success story when it comes to new independent distributors. Next month they’ll release Pamela Romanowsky’s The Adderall Diaries, a drama which premiered at Tribeca last year and features James Franco, Amber Heard, Ed Harris, Christian Slater, and Cynthia Nixon. Ahead of the release, we now have the first trailer for the drama.
We said in our review, “Style trumps substance in writer-director Pamela Romanowsky’s The Adderall Diaries, a pet project involving Franco that perhaps seems to write the wrongs of his previous bomb about the writing process, Third Person. Inspired by a memoir from the real Stephen Elliott, his process here is a tortured one as he blames his father for his addictions in this cinematic equivalent of a Staind song.”
Check out the trailer below.
Based on the bestselling memoir by Stephen Elliott, The Adderall Diaries is the gripping and complex story of how an author’s fascination with a high-profile murder case leads him to come to terms with his troubled past while embarking on a potentially life-changing romance in the present.
James Franco plays Stephen Elliot, a once-successful novelist paralyzed by writer’s block and an escalating Adderall dependency, who becomes obsessed with a high-profile murder case as a way to escape his personal troubles. His interest leads him to meet Lana Edmond (Amber Heard), a smart, sexy reporter who gives him unique access to the case. As their relationship takes off, Stephen is suddenly thrust back into the past when his father (Ed Harris), a cruel and vindictive man, shows up to challenge the veracity of the memoir Stephen is writing. As Stephen simultaneously delves into the details of the murder case (which turns out to have some unexpected parallels to his own troubled upbringing) and reunites with his estranged father, he is forced to separate truth from lies and fact from fiction–ultimately leading him to finally reconcile his past and confront his future.
The Adderall Diaries hits theaters on April 15th and DirecTV tomorrow.