Primetime - Robert Pattinson as Chris Hansen for A24

[Harper48]

A24 dropped the full trailer for Primetime and it is a much bigger swing than I expected going in. Robert Pattinson plays Chris Hansen, the host behind the old To Catch a Predator segments, and the tone here is somewhere between dark comedy and unsettling character study. The trailer opens with a voiceover from a network executive telling Hansen that America loves the show even if he personally does not, which sets up the whole media satire angle immediately.

Lance Oppenheim directing his first narrative feature after Ren Faire is a fascinating choice for this subject matter. His documentary background clearly shows in how staged and artificial some of these scenes look on purpose, almost like reality television bleeding into scripted drama. Merritt Wever and Skyler Gisondo show up briefly but this is very much Pattinson's showcase from start to finish based on the edit.

The premiere at Venice already generated a fair bit of buzz before this trailer even went public. Early reactions describe it as uncomfortable in exactly the way it is supposed to be, which tracks with how the marketing has been playing coy about tone. There is a real tension in the footage between the absurdity of the format and the genuinely disturbing subject matter underneath it.

Pattinson continues to pick some of the strangest and most interesting projects of any A list actor working right now. This one in particular feels designed to generate conversation rather than just box office numbers, which fits A24's whole model perfectly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnYDnbSEfrY