Indie Wire…Robert Pattinson Will Rewrite His Career at Cannes, and 7 More Predictions About This Year’s Fest

By Anne Thompson and Eric Kohn4 hours ago

Matt Baron/BEI/Shutterstock

While the Cannes Film Festival is the showboat film festival to end all festivals, all of that is a springboard for the talking. Talking about the movies, talking about the movie industry, talking about the talking. Last year, the talking points were the persistence of Kristen Stewart, Woody Allen and Ronan Farrow, auteurs like Jim Jarmusch and Nicolas Winding Refn, and women (or the lack thereof). This year, we’ve read the Croisette crystal ball for the conversations likely to dominate the festival in the days to come. This isn’t necessarily about must-see titles (we’ve got those covered here); these are the stories most likely to be heard beyond the Cannes bubble. Here’s a look at the news cycle to come.

Nicole Kidman Takes Charge

If last year’s Cannes It Girl was brainy “Personal Shopper” and “Cafe Society” star Kristen Stewart, this year’s model is Nicole Kidman, who stars in four high-profile movies: Sofia Coppola’s bid to return to critics’ graces with Civil War battle of the sexes “The Beguiled” in competition (Focus Features); Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest Colin Farrell movie, “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” (A24); John Cameron Mitchell’s out-of-competition midnight ensemble, “How to Talk with Girls at Parties” (A24); and Jane Campion‘s returning Sundance Channel series, “Top of the Lake: China Girl.” And: Stewart is back with her Refinery 29 short, “Come Swim” (May 20). —Anne Thompson

Can Haneke Make History?

"Happy End"

Another bid for critics’ love is Michael Haneke’s “Happy End,” which boasts not only “Amour” stars Isabelle Huppert and Jean-Louis Trintignant but also a timely immigrant story. Will the Austrian filmmaker keep up his Cannes winners’ streak? He’s won the Palme d’Or twice, for “White Ribbon” and “Amour;” another Huppert vehicle, “The Piano Teacher,” won the Grand Jury Prize, and “Cache” won director. Only “Funny Games” went home empty handed in 1997. No filmmaker has ever won the top prize three times in a row. Meanwhile, Huppert and Kidman could vie for Best Actress; Huppert also stars in Hong Sang-soo’s out-of-competition title, “Claire’s Camera.”—AT

Lynne Ramsey Will Provide a Big Finale

Cannes obsessives love to speculate about competition-film scheduling. Why is Todd Haynes’ “Wonderstruck” playing first — to raise the bar for the competition right out of the gate, or to avoid getting lost? What’s the deal with the evening slot for the Haneke movie? How come one Hong Sangsoo movie made it into competition, and the other one didn’t? And what’s the deal with the Lynne Ramsay film playing last?

The truth is, there’s no rhyme or reason. Some movies are accepted early and have an easier time getting prime slots; others are programmed at the last minute and are pushed to the end. (And sometimes, as with 2016’s late screening of Sean Penn’s “The Last Face,” they’re scheduled to avoid sudden death.)

This year, it’s Lynne Ramsay’s “You Were Never Really Here,” the story of a sex trafficking ring adapted from Jonathan Ames’ novel. Screening to press late on the second Friday of the festival and receiving its red-carpet premiere the next day, it could add a last-minute surprise to the Palme d’Or odds, crash and burn, or wind up somewhere in between.

Hope is not lost; last year, Paul Verhoeven’s “Elle” screened on the second Friday. However, Ramsay’s movie was apparently so unfinished when programmers saw it that she’s been shooting additional material over the past few weeks. In other words, nobody, not even Ramsey herself, can really say definitively whether this movie plays. That sense of uncertainty means that some modicum of excitement will remain in the competition until the very end. But Ramsay, whose “We Need to Talk About Kevin” played well here in 2011, certainly has enough going for her to make it worth keeping an eye on this one after the crowds wind down. —Eric Kohn

Matt Baron/BEI/Shutterstock

Will Smith Gets Jiggy With the Movies

Expect to see a lot of red carpet photos of Will Smith at Cannes 2017. The A-list member of this year’s jury will be taking his orders from jury president Pedro Almodovar and hanging around with fellow judges Jessica Chastain and Park Chan-wook, among others. What will the “Men in Black” star, who had it rough with critics last year thanks to the one-two punch of “Suicide Squad” and “Collateral Beauty,” make of the international auteurs? Will this year’s jury feel the need to award one of the three women directors in competition, or attempt to take a political stance? Throughout the festival, pundits will scrutinize every movie to assess how it played to this group, with its fascinating blend of arthouse and commercial names. It’s not always the critical favorite that wins over the jury (the widely beloved “Toni Erdmann” lost the Palme to “I, Daniel Blake,” which had a muted reception). The obvious choice isn’t always obvious. —EK

Robert Pattinson and Louie Garrel Are Kicking Things Into High Gear

New York sibling directors Josh and Benny Safdie cracked the competition this year with their heist thriller “Good Time,” but it’s likely to attract the most attention for star Robert Pattinson. Now firmly into his post-“Twilight” phase, the actor plays a bank-robbing New Yorker trying to help his mentally disabled brother over the course of a single frantic night. Pattinson, who has been in Cannes competition before with David Cronenberg’s “Cosmopolis,” is well positioned to wow audiences already enamored of his earlier roles with something edgier and more surprising; he could be a strong contender for the festival’s acting prize.

He will have competition from Louis Garrel, the French heartthrob who plays a young Jean-Luc Godard in the ’60s-set “The Redoubtable.” Garrel, whose prolific filmmaker father Phillipe is premiering a movie in Directors Fortnight, is already a major celebrity in France; early glimpses of the movie in its trailer prove that he’s gone the extra mile with his portrayal of the New Wave legend, which could help his odds at Cannes and beyond. —EK

Polanski Drama Per Usual

Then there’s Roman Polanski, always outspoken and still angry about not bring able to return to the U.S. because of the risk of arrest for his never-settled statutory rape case. He’s bringing “Based on a True Story” out of competition at the festival’s end, when many attendees will have already left. That worked for him in 2002, when Miramax scooped up his Holocaust drama “The Pianist” — which went all the way to Best Director and Best Actor wins for Polanski and Adrien Brody. The new film, for which Polanski shares a screenwriting credit with Olivier Assayas, revolves around a writer who gets entangled with one of her fans. It may or may not be good, but as usual with Polanski, his own troubled past threatens to overwhelm any conversations about the work itself. —AT

The Future of the Movie Business Will Get Messy

As the entertainment industry evolves, so is Cannes, showing films from theatrically friendly Amazon Studios (Todd Haynes’ “Wonderstruck” starring Michelle Williams and Julianne Moore, and Lynne Ramsay‘s “You Were Never Really Here” starring Joaquin Phoenix) and unapologetic streaming site Netflix (Noah Baumbach’s “The Meyerowitz Stories” starring Ben Stiller, and Park Chan Wook’s “Okja,” starring Tilda Swinton), which forced the festival tocommit going forward to only playing movies that have guaranteed theatrical releases in France.

Why shouldn’t Cannes change with the times? Also changing the status quo are Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, who’s showing his VR short “Carne y Arena,” and TV series “Top of the Lake” (Sundance Channel) and “Twin Peaks,” which is billed as a 70th anniversary event, but is actually the only way for Festival director Thierry Fremaux to lure David Lynch, Palme d’Or winner for “Wild at Heart,” back to the Riviera. —AT

The Legacy of Cannes Will Be Discussed In Detail

Cannes turns 70 this year. It has provided a safe haven for major films ranging from “Apocalypse Now” to “Pulp Fiction,” survived scandals and political revolutions, commanded great respect and derision from the global film industry. This year, the festival is putting additional emphasis on its legacy, giving festivalgoers special pins to commemorate the occasion, releasing a book of essays to resurface its history, and throwing a few more flashy parties than usual. Expect a lot of conversations about the role that Cannes has played in modern cinema and how it can continue to support the survival of the art form in the years to come. —EK

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