Only two films into this directing career, J.C. Chandor has already accrued serious Academy Awards pedigree. Don’t bet against A Most Violent Year, an ‘80s-set crime drama with a hot-as-mustard cast, repeating the trick. The film has a new trailer, an Empire-debuting still of its two leads, the Colman’s-like Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain, to share, as well as a new US poster. Click below for a look. Chandor has followed up Margin Call and All Is Lost with another slug of men-in-peril dramatics, this time set within the dynamics of New York’s criminal underworld in late 1981. The setting is key – the temperatures in Gotham plunged to a frosty 10 degrees that winter, while violence exploded as drugs and crime ran rampant – and its trailer footage has an aptly murky feel, with browns, blacks and greys dominating Bradford Young’s cinematography.
“The film is essentially a gangster movie,” explains Chandor in the new issue of **Empire, “but it’s playing off of your expectations in a way, and becomes this very intense character study. You’re trying to figure out who those people are, and so are they. It’s a pivotal month of their lives.”
Those people are Isaac’s Abel Morales, an immigrant who is trying to grow his heating oil business, and his equally tough wife, Anna (Jessica Chastain). Morales finds that his ethics are malleable as he fights to keep his company going with Anna’s help. But as the year progresses, their tactics become less scrupulous and the authorities start to take an interest…
Albert Brooks, David Oyelowo, Alessandro Nivola and Catalina Sandino Moreno are all part of the cast for A Most Violent Year. Does it have awards potential? US viewers can decide from December 31, as per this new Stateside poster, while it’ll be in UK cinemas from January 23.