Saoirse Ronan Is an Aristocratic Rebel in First Trailer for On Chesil Beach

If there’s one part Saoirse Ronan has down, it’s playing an iconoclast. She mastered the rebellious role in last year’s beloved Lady Bird, and she’s poised to do so once again in the 1962-set On Chesil Beach. In the first look at the upcoming film adaptation of Ian McEwan’s lauded 2007 novel, Ronan plays an aristocrat willing to walk away from her upper class upbringing for love.

When her father played by Samuel West grills her about her relationship with Edward, played by Billy Howle, Ronan throws a question back at him, saying, “You mean, is he working class or one of us?” Ronan’s character Florence Ponting isn’t entirely confident about her newfound romance, though, as the trailer later shows.

“We can never be happy, and it’s all my stupid fault,” she tells Edward.

“Have you actually forgotten that we were married today?” he asks. “We’re man and wife. That’s what you promised! It’s hopeless.”

“Is it?” she asks.

The rest of the film assumedly answers that question, although it won’t be until May 18 until we know for sure. “It is awkward,” Ronan told The Upcoming of the story when it premiered at the London Film Festival last fall. “It needs to be done in quite a delicate, sensitive way. It’s the kind of subject that hasn’t really been approached before or told in such a way and I was quite excited about that. Florence is someone who is incredibly reserved yet has this animal need inside her to have sex. The battle within yourself to make that a reality is something that everyone faces.”

While Ronan has On Chesil Beach coming up, as well as Mary Queen of Scots and The Seagull, her future may hold less films where she’s in front of the camera. She recently opened up about being inspired to direct after working with Greta Gerwig on Lady Bird, telling Sunday TODAY per People, “That was something I was drawn to even before acting. [As a little girl] I’d bully all my friends into being in little films I made. I’d get the camcorder — I loved bringing all of this together to make one thing.”

Related: Saoirse Ronan on the Time Susan Sarandon Tried to Get Her in Trouble With Prince Charles, and Her Girl Crush on Robin Wright