CULTURE

Natalie Portman Returns From Space In the First Trailer for Lucy in The Sky

This has Oscar written all over it.

Aug. 26, 2019

By the looks of the brand new trailer for Lucy in The Sky, we’ll be hearing Natalie Portman’s name a lot this awards season. From director Noah Hawley—who’s making his directorial debut after masterminding FX’s Fargo and Legion—the film stars Portman as Lucy Cola, an astronaut who has just completed a lengthy mission in outer space. When she returns, she struggles to adjust to the mundanity of earthbound life, which manifests itself in all kinds of ways.

The trailer shows her embarking on an affair with fellow astronaut William Oefelein (Jon Hamm), while her marriage to her husband (Dan Stevens) slowly falls apart. Eventually, Lucy makes an all-consuming attempt to get back to space as her own world falls apart.

The film, which gets its title from the Beatles song that’s also used in the trailer, is loosely based on the true story of astronaut Lisa Nowak, who became involved in a love triangle and was charged with trying to murder Oefelein’s new squeeze. While the trailer doesn’t reveal whether the film will depict that aspect of Nowak’s life, it does look like a harrowing portrait of a woman coming apart at the seams.

Portman mastered that narrative arc in Black Swan, on her way to winning her first Oscar. She then repeated that formula to great effect in films like Annihilation and Vox Lux, but failed to earn nominations for either performance. That likely won’t be the case this time around, as Lucy in The Sky has Oscar written all over it. Ellen Burstyn, Zazie Beetz, and Nick Offerman round out a stellar cast.

Lucy in The Sky will have its world premiere next month at the Toronto International Film Festival before hitting theaters on October 4. Watch the trailer below.