Michelle Williams Is a Struggling Artist in the Showing Up Trailer

Michelle Williams is back in her first starring role since 2021’s superhero sequel, Venom: Let There Be Carnage—and this time, she’s playing the kind of quiet, nuanced role for which she’s best known. In the trailer for A24’s Showing Up, Williams plays a struggling Portland sculptor preparing for a career-changing art show while her personal life crumbles in chaos. Hong Chau (The Whale) plays Williams’s professional and personal rival in the warm-hearted comedy, and André (3000) Benjamin also makes an appearance.

The film marks the fourth collaboration between director Kelly Reichardt and Williams, who worked together on 2008’s Wendy and Lucy, the 2010 period piece Meek’s Cutoff, and the Kristen Stewart and Laura Dern-starring Certain Women.

Williams, of course, has experienced an illustrious career following her time on Dawson’s Creek, with major performances in Brokeback Mountain and Blue Valentine cementing her legacy as one of the greatest actresses of her generation. Since 2018, she’s remained busy with a steady stream of cross-genre movies, playing an insecure executive in the 2018 Amy Schumer-starring comedy I Feel Pretty, Anne Weying in the Tom Hardy-starring superhero Venom movies, a role originally portrayed by a man in the 2019 film After The Wedding with Julianne Moore, and as Gwen Verdon in the FX miniseries Fosse/Verdon, for which she won the Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Television Miniseries.

She’s also in 2022’s The Fabelmans, Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical film about his childhood, in which she plays a character inspired by his mother (she’s also been nominated for a Golden Globe for that role).

Hong Chau, too, has been on a career streak, starring in Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale, this year’s psychological thriller The Menu, Wes Anderson’s upcoming Asteroid City, and now, Showing Up.

Showing Up will release in theaters in the spring of 2023. Given that there are plenty of audiences who will show up to any film that Williams is in, it’s sure to spark conversation.

Watch the trailer for Showing Up below: