For any director, we imagine the transition from the commercial and music video realm to features is not without its struggles and at this year’s Sundance, such an example arrived with Fredrik Bond and his drama The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman. One of the highly-anticipated titles of the festival, it was also perhaps our least favorite, and now with a shortened title and runtime, it will hit theaters and VOD next month.
Tracking Shia LaBeouf, who decides to go to Bucharest to “find himself” following the death of his mother, he gets romantically entangled with a mysterious woman named Gabi (Rachel Wood) who is still married to an abusive gangster named Nigel (Mads Mikkelsen). As we said in our full review, this is a “visually and audibly distracted aggravation of a movie, constantly searching for a reason to keep going and constantly failing to make a valid case for itself.” The first trailer has now landed, which can be seen below, along with a batch of posters, for the film also starring Melissa Leo and Rupert Grint.
Synopsis:
When his late mother appears in a vision and tells him to go to Bucharest, Charlie immediately boards a plane across the Atlantic. But when he meets a fellow passenger, Charlie finds himself with another promise to fulfill. Charlie does so – and falls head over heels in love with Gabi, a beautiful musician.
However, a vicious gangster has already laid claim to Gabi, and has no intention of letting her go. Determined to protect her, Charlie enters into the hallucinatory, Romanian underworld filled with violence and, strangely enough, love.
Charlie Countryman hits theaters and VOD on November 15th, 2013.