When Ain’t Them Bodies Saints debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, it worked its way up as an audience favorite throughout its run. Now that IFC has it under its belt and ready for an August 16th release, the first clip starring Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara has hit the web.
The official synopsis reads as follows:
“Set against the backdrop of 1970’s Texas Hill Country, AIN’T THEM BODIES SAINTS is a romantic American story that follows three characters on various sides of the law – outlaw Bob Muldoon (Casey Affleck), his wife Ruth Guthrie (Rooney Mara), and a local sheriff named Patrick Wheeler (Ben Foster), who gets caught in their crosshairs.”
For director David Lowery, who also wrote the film, this is his second feature film. The film was developed at the Sundance Institute’s Writing and Producing Labs. In addition to Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara, the film also stars Ben Foster, Keith Carradine, Nate Parker, Rami Malek, Kennadie Smith and David Zellner.
The clip below sees the opening scene from the film with its stars Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara having an intense fight. Their back and forth is palpable and certainly relatable as they pull and tug through their insecurities of being without each other. In the clip, Mara is specifically vulnerable as she asks if Affleck plans to leave her after hearing news that he’s going out on his own.
When Affleck realizes the misunderstanding, he becomes amused and dead-set on convincing Mara that her worst fears are wrong. The scene is framed beautifully with the natural light of the sun capturing the two figures in the argument.
An early review of Ain’t Them Bodies Saints briefly discusses the direction of the film: “Director and writer David Lowery avoids every cliche from the action-thriller, romance and noir handbooks, transmitting a palpable sense of the pain caused by forced absence from a loved one. He tightens the angst through deft pacing, avoiding any jailbreaks, high-speed car chases and shootouts, and instead making us feel the anxiety of waiting. That makes the very occasional moments of fierce, furious action even more endorphin-packed.”
Ain’t Them Bodies Saints opens in theaters August 16, 2013.
