An antic trailer was released for The Gallerist, the forthcoming art world satire starring Natalie Portman as a dealer on the make—and ready to show a corpse if it helps her rise to the top of the market and a milieu more than ripe for skewering.
Opening and closing with the words “it slaps” uttered sassily by Charli XCX, in her role as the girlfriend of a grating art influencer (played by Zach Galifianakis), the two-and-a-half-minute clip shows Portman stressed and strutting as she readies an important exhibition for Art Basel Miami Beach. When she shows Galifianakis a sculpture titled The Emasculator by a favored artist (played by Da’Vine Joy Randolph), the work winds up impaling him in a way that makes it even more pointed: “It drives a stake through the very heart of the patriarchy,” an impressed critic says while assessing a sculpture on which a dead body remains.
More hijinks ensue in clips of scenes featuring the rest of a starry cast, which also includes Jenna Ortega, Catherine Zeta Jones, and Sterling K. Brown.
In an early review of the movie around its premiere at Sundance in January, Sophia Powers wrote for ARTnews: “The Gallerist is good as eye candy: its cinematography is kinetic, poppy, and polished, and its writing tight. But the film ultimately fails to transcend its superficial veneer—it is as entertaining as it is psychologically vacant.”
The Gallerist is set for a wide theatrical release on December 4.
