PARK CITY — A subdued Sundance film festival winds up this weekend after the quietest session in years, with no all-night bidding wars or breakout hits selling for big bucks the way “Don Jon” and “The Way Way Back” did last year here. Nevertheless, several indies drew strong support and picked up major distributors. Among the best-received films this year:
Whiplash
First-time director Damien Chazelle’s study of an obsessed student drummer (Miles Teller) and his abusive coach (J.K. Simmons) who pushes him to excel drew all but unanimous praise and several observers touted Simmons for an Oscar nomination. Sony Pictures Classics bought rights for a moderate $2.5 million.
Here, the cast dishes to the Hollywood Reporter about the film:
I Origins
This arty, atmospheric sci-fi film stars Michael Pitt as a scientist who becomes obsessed with secrets hidden in the retinal patterns of people’s eyes. Fox Searchlight bought it for $3 million, one of the highest price tags of the week.
Here, Pitt talks about “I Origins”:
Calvary
A superb Brendan Gleeson plays a wise and wised-up priest surrounded by haters and disbelievers in a seething little town in which one of his own parishioners promises to kill him in revenge for being repeatedly raped by another — now dead — priest years ago. Writer-director John Michael McDonagh’s script is sobering and shattering. Searchlight also bought this one.
Check out the trailer:
Obvious Child
Dubbed “the abortion rom-com” by festgoers, this breezy comedy stars Brooklyn’s Jenny Slate as a stand-up comic who gets pregnant in a one-night affair and decides not to keep the baby but winds up happy anyway. A24, a new player that released “Spring Breakers,” is handling distribution.
Director Gillian Robespierre talks about her film at Sundance:
Wish I was Here
Zach Braff’s long-awaited follow-up to “Garden State” is a soulful if somewhat cutesy comedy about middle age, fatherhood, taking responsibility and saying goodbye to parents. Focus Features nabbed the rights.
Braff and the rest of the cast chats to the Hollywood Reporter about the film:
Cooties
Lionsgate picked up rights to this zombies-in-high school comedy starring Elijah Wood and Rainn Wilson.
CraveOnline talked to Wood about his horror comedy:
Boyhood
Richard Linklater’s heart-tugging portrait of a boy (Ellar Coltrane) growing up in Texas over a 12-year period was shot at intervals between 2002 and 2013, with the actors (including Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette) aging before our eyes. Negotiations for distribution for this alternately poignant and funny film are ongoing.
Linklater, Hawke, Arquette and Coltrance talked to Entertainment Weekly about the film.
Laggies
A sweet but formulaic and conventional rom-com about a 20-something woman (Keira Knightley) who learns to grow up when she befriends a teen (Chloë Grace Moretz) and the girl’s lawyer dad (a hilarious Sam Rockwell) was picked up by A24.
Rockwell and Moretz discussed the film alongside director Lynn Shelton with Entertainment Weekly.
