FOCUS FEATURES 2011 Summer Preview

By | April 13, 2011

BEGINNERS
opens on Friday, June 3, 2011 (select cities)

Director: Mike Mills
Cast: Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer, Mélanie Laurent, Goran Visnjic, Cosmo

From writer/director Mike Mills comes a comedy/drama about how deeply funny and transformative life can be, even at its most serious moments. “Beginners” imaginatively explores the hilarity, confusion, and surprises of love through the evolving consciousness of Oliver (Golden Globe Award nominee Ewan McGregor). Oliver meets the irreverent and unpredictable Anna (Mélanie Laurent of “Inglourious Basterds”) only months after his father Hal (Academy Award nominee Christopher Plummer) has passed away. This new love floods Oliver with memories of his father, who, following the death of his wife of 45 years, came out of the closet at age 75 to live a full, energized, and wonderfully tumultuous gay life. The upheavals of Hal’s new honesty, by turns funny and moving, brought father and son closer than they’d ever been able to be. Now Oliver endeavors to love Anna with all the bravery, humor, and hope that his father taught him.

ONE DAY
Opens on Friday, July 8, 2011 (select cities)



Director: Lone Scherfig
Cast: Anne Hathaway, Jim Sturgess, Patricia Clarkson, Ken Stott, Romola Garai, Rafe Spall

Adapted from the internationally praised and bestselling novel, “One Day” charts an extraordinary relationship. After one day together in 1988, Emma Morley (Academy Award nominee Anne Hathaway) and Dexter Mayhew (Jim Sturgess of “Across the Universe”) begin a friendship that will last a lifetime. Over the next twenty years, key moments of their relationship are revealed on the same day – July 15th – of each year. Dex and Em face friendship and fights, hopes and missed opportunities, laughter and tears. And as the true meaning of this one crucial day is revealed, they must come to grips with the nature of love and life itself.

THE DEBT
Opens on Friday, August 31, 2011

Director: John Madden
Cast: Aaron Eckhart, Michelle Rodriguez, Ramon Rodriguez, Bridget Moynahan, Ne-Yo, and Michael Peña

The espionage thriller begins in 1997, as shocking news reaches retired Mossad secret agents Rachel (Academy Award winner Helen Mirren) and Stephan (two-time Academy Award nominee Tom Wilkinson) about their former colleague David (Ciarán Hinds of Focus’ “Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day”). All three have been venerated for decades by their country because of the mission that they undertook back in 1966, when the trio (portrayed, respectively, by Jessica Chastain [soon to be seen in “The Tree of Life”], Marton Csokas [Universal’s upcoming “Dream House”], and Sam Worthington [“Avatar,” “Clash of the Titans”]) tracked down Nazi war criminal Vogel (Jesper Christensen of “Casino Royale” and “Quantum of Solace”) in East Berlin. At great risk, and at considerable personal cost, the team’s mission was accomplished – or was it? The suspense builds in and across two different time periods, with startling action and surprising revelations.

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