Lizzie Borden’s familiar story doesn’t stop Lizzie’s trailer from feeling fresh
While the new trailer for Lizzie certainly doesn’t shy away from the thing that made Lizzie Borden famous, it also feels like a newer take.
How many different permutations of Lizzie Borden’s story have you encountered in your lifetime? Are you sure you can take another one? Well, what about Lizzie Borden’s story, but also with heavily suggested sexual assault, an upstairs-downstairs romance, and Kristen Stewart using an Irish accent?
No, seriously, that’s just some of what goes on in the trailer for Lizzie that arrived earlier today. The film does carry an R rating, but it’s a movie that’s ultimately about two axe murders, so that seems fair.
Between this and Mary, Queen of Scots, though, it seems a different kind of historical drama could be moving to the forefront in Hollywood: the stories of women throughout history. One could probably trace the trend back to Hidden Figures as well, assuming that more stories featuring women of color also get greenlit. (Crazy Rich Asians, while significant for a number of reasons, is a modern-day story.)
Lizzie‘s trailer does take a step further, though, in centering Lizzie and Bridget’s relationship. Telling more stories featuring not just women, but women who are somewhere on the queer spectrum, is also something that Hollywood could stand to do more of.
If the film intrigues you, then you’ll need to search carefully for a theater, as it doesn’t appear to be getting a wide release come Sept. 14. It’s also, as the trailer points out, a Sundance selection, which means that it’ll probably get some attention eventually, if not right away, in terms of theaters.
Either way, here’s hoping it gets some love (assuming it’s actually good and not just good in the trailer). As noted in the trailer, Chloë Sevigny has gotten Oscar attention before, so that might just help.
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What do you make of Lizzie? Are you ready for another Borden take?