Jesse Eisenberg’s new A24 comedy movie starring Julianne Moore and 'The Holdovers' star drops first trailer
Following his successful directorial debut with 'When You Finish Saving the World' and the Oscar-winning success of 'A Real Pain,' Jesse Eisenberg is all set to roll out his third venture as an actor-director. A24 recently released the first trailer for the upcoming R-rated musical comedy 'The Debut,' starring Julianne Moore and Paul Giamatti. Although an exact release date has not been announced, the film is scheduled to arrive sometime this fall. The plot of 'The Debut' centers on the character of Mona Friedman, played by Moore, who is described in the trailer as a shy and awkward housewife who is cast in a small role in a community theater production.
This soon puts her under the domineering theater director, played by Giamatti, who would go to any lengths to extract a perfect performance. On the other hand, Mona's induction into the play takes her out of her previous shell and transforms her into a zealous method actor who would fight to protect the artistic integrity of her performance, even if it means waging a war against the director. The trailer introduces Mona as someone who hasn't sung in front of anyone else "since church choir," and yet somehow lands a role in the production led by Giamatti's Jerry, who is supposedly "the biggest name in New Jersey community theater."
In a way, 'The Debut' mirrors many of the tropes contained in Damien Chazelle's debut feature film 'Whiplash,' and substitutes the world of jazz music with that of community theatre. Elsewhere in the trailer, a character played by Halle Bailey informs Mona, "Jerry is going to test you, and push you, and drag you through the mud." This prediction soon comes to pass as Jerry admonishes Mona by telling her, "Every single thing you are doing is not working," while pushing her to deliver her best performance. Apart from directing, Eisenberg appears to portray a fellow actor in the community theater troupe. The rest of the cast also includes Eldar Isgandarov, Cara Buono, Bernadette Peters, and Craig Bierko.
Eisenberg directed 'The Debut' from a screenplay he wrote, and the movie is produced by Topic Studios and Fruit Tree, with whom he had previously collaborated on 'A Real Pain.' The producers of the upcoming film are Emma Stone, Ali Herting, Dave McCary, and Eisenberg himself. Speaking in an interview with IndieWire, Eisenberg had previously opened up about his writing habit when he related, "I write all sorts of things. Most are unpublished, unproduced, like most people, maybe, I have a higher batting average as an actor, so I have an agent and everything, so it gives me a little bit of a shortcut, but everything informs something else. I wrote a musical 15 years ago, and it never got produced, and the next movie I’m making takes place in the world of community theater (working off his Susan Sarandon-starring play ‘Happy Talk’), and I’m able to repurpose music that I wrote."
