After taking the festival circuit by storm with his 2008 film, Lymelife, director Derick Martini became something of an indie darling. Now he’s back with his latest film, Hick, which tells the tale of a confused young girl running away from her deadbeat parents and learning about life on the road. The main attraction here is that said young girl is being played by Chloe Moretz, an actress who’s shown great potential up to this point, and is just chomping at the bit to get a meaty role to sink her teeth into, so she can really show what she can do.
Whether or not Hick is the right platform for her will be a matter of opinion, but, as you can see from its new trailer, the film contains enough dark, dramatic material to give her range a showcase, no matter how you positively or negatively you respond to the absurd and traumatizing things you’ll experience.
What I can confirm is that up-and-comer Eddie Redmayne (My Week With Marilyn), who shows up in these clips as a ginger cowboy, will be turning quite a few heads once Hick gets its release. He’s magnetic, compelling, and terrifying all of the way through the film, in a way this new ad only gives you a glimpse of. There will be divided opinions on the, perhaps, exploitative way that Martini shoots the underage Moretz, and whether or not the bad things her runaway character endures over the course of the film amounts to an interesting look at the politics of power and human nature or is just masturbatory schadenfreude, but the praise for Redmayne will be universal.
Also, Blake Lively has a big role here, and you get a glimpse of Alec Baldwin. Hick hits video on demand come May 8 and then will receive a limited theatrical run starting on May 11. [Yahoo! Movies]