The adaptation of Anton Chekov’s acclaimed play The Seagull, starring Oscar-nominated actresses Saoirse Ronan and Annette Bening alongside orey Stoll and Elisabeth Moss, will be released on May 11.
Michael Mayer’s film version of Anton Chekhov’s 1896 stage play of the same name was completed in 21 days, Entertainment Weekly reported. The trailer “teases a quirky take on the classic material, which follows an aging actress named Irina Arkadina (Bening), who visits her brother, Pjotr, and son, Konstantin (Billy Howle) on a secluded country estate”, the publication said. “As temperatures (and passions) rise in the throes of summer, Irina disrupts the placid social scene by introducing a successful novelist, Boris (Corey Stoll), to Nina (Ronan), a free-spirited young woman from a neighboring estate. Nina ultimately falls in love with Boris, which causes a stir among her peers — namely Irina’s son, whose affections for Nina come to a head as Boris seemingly chews up her heart and spits it out.”
The film has been written by Stephen Karam. “The play was trying to do something surprising and new: to show people behaving in naturalistic ways, to eschew histrionics and telegraphed emotions for something more nuanced,” said a director’s statement in the EW report. “[It allowed] the actors to truly live inside the characters they were playing, and to introduce the concept of subtext to world drama.”
