Sarah Jessica Parker takes lyrical journey through New York in moving 'Here and Now' trailer
By Joey Nolfi, Entertainment Weekly
Sarah Jessica Parker is repainting the well-worn streets lining her old Sex and the City stomping grounds blue as a woman navigating a life-shattering emotional crisis in the first trailer for Fabien Constant’s Here and Now.
The first preview for the upcoming drama (which debuted at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival under the title Blue Night) charts the existential journey that unfolds against the backdrop of a single day in New York City, where a jazz singer, Vivienne (Parker), receives a grim medical diagnosis that sends her on a self-reflective journey — where she encounters mysterious strangers and familiar faces played by Common and Renée Zellweger, among others — through a city that feels familiar and broad all at the same time.
Matters worsen as Vivienne balances the anxieties of her performative career as well as deep-seated regrets stemming from a convoluted personal life, which involves ex-husband (Simon Baker), an overbearing mother (Jacqueline Bisset), and an increasingly distant daughter (Gus Birney) — all of whom she attempts to keep in the dark about her dire prognosis.
“I certainly saw that Vivienne was a person who’s singular in her approach and independent, but also having made what some might argue as bad choices. Still, I liked her unique approach, even through her day, her choice to be quiet, to reserve information, to retreat,” Parker previously told EW of her take on the character. “I respected and understood how hard all of that must be, how much you need comfort and how hard it is to ask for it… to feel superior and inferior simultaneously. These are all emotions that lots of women feel across industries: mothers, girlfriends, friends. To have an opportunity to experience so much of that onscreen in two hours or less is unusual. Maybe that’s why the experience was so fulfilling.”
The role also required the actress to dust off her singing pipes for a key musical scene near the end of the film.
“Absolutely terrifying. Horrifying!” she said of what it felt like to lend her real voice to the project. “We didn’t have a lot of time to do it. We were doing it after shooting all day, really late at night. Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman have a studio space that they very kindly offered, so it was very nice. At least I was with people who were really friendly and encouraging and supportive of what we were trying to do just as friends. It made a difference, having a friendly face to stare at. It was also just so much fun to have this beautiful song that Rufus [Wainwright] had written, but also to come up with the Tiffany cover [I performed] was really cool.”
Here and Now hits limited theatrical release, On Demand, and digital platforms on Nov. 9. Watch the first trailer above.
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