Love Blossoms for Kate Winslet in Trailer for 'A Little Chaos'

The romantic drama A Little Chaos marks Alan Rickman's first directorial effort since 1997's The Winter Guest, and so far it hasn't made much noise. This is despite a cast led by Kate Winslet, Matthias Schoenaerts, and Stanley Tucci, plus a prime slot at Toronto where the film was met with mixed reviews. But it's Winslet in a beautifully decorated period setting, Schoenarets as the love interest, and Tucci dressed like a musketeer; if that's not enough reason to turn out then nothing is.

Winslet plays a landscape designer hired by King Louis XIV (Rickman, pulling double duty here) to build a royal garden for his palace in Versailles. While she contends with issues of gender, class, and politics, her fires are stoked by a handsome but competitive landscaper played by Schoenaerts.

A Little Chaos opens March 27th.


A Little Chaos - Main Trailer by Sookyang

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Kate Winslet Mistakes the King for the Help in Clip from 'A Little Chaos'

Seventeen years ago Professor Snape...er, Alan Rickman made his directorial debut with The Winter Guest, and despite earning a heap of awards it was a career path he didn't follow. But that has changed now with his follow-up, the British period drama A Little Chaos, which is set to be the Closing Night film at TIFF this weekend after screening for press later today. It's a prestigious slot, but the cast of Kate Winslet, Matthias Schoenaerts, Stanley Tucci, Helen McCrory, and Jennifer Ehle gives a pretty good indication why it was chosen.

Rickman also stars in the film, and in the first clip released by EW we see him sharing an awkward moment with Winslet. He plays France's King Louis XIV, who wants to add a fountain to his lush garden at Versailles. Winslet is gardener  Sabine De Barra who really wants the job but must compete with her potential love interest, Andre Le Nottre (Schoenaerts). In this scene we see Winslet's character mistaking the king for just another gardener. She's lucky that didn't end with her locked up in a tower or something.

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First Look at Kate Winslet in 'A Little Chaos', Brit Marling in 'The Keeping Room', Tobey Maguire in 'Pawn Sacrifice'

The summer is coming to a close and with the fall right around the corner that can only mean one thing: time for the Toronto International Film Festival. I won't be attending so don't expect a full rundown, but dammit the line-up they have assembled is hella impressive, with possible awards contenders like Foxcatcher, The Drop starring Tom Hardy, Reese Witherspoon's Wild, and Jason Reitman's Men, Women, and Children holding key slots. If you want to see the list check it out here. With the festival announcement comes the expected flood of first look images, and here are just a few from some movies I've been eagerly awaiting.

Kate Winslet and period dramas go hand-in-hand, and she'll take on another one in A Little Chaos, the festival's closing night film. Alan Rickman directs and co-stars with Paul Dano, Stanley Tucci, and Matthias Schoenaerts,. Here's the synopsis which involves Louis the XIV and the Palace of Versailles, but not in the way you might think: A landscape gardener with a taste for the unconventional is invited to design one of the fountains at the Palace of Versailles. As she battles with the weather, the perilous rivalries at the court of Louis XIV and her own private demons, she finds herself drawn closer to the formality and enigma of the architect who hired her. 

Audiences are just now having a chance to check out Brit Marling in the brilliant Sundance film, I Origins (review here), but she's now hitting Toronto with The Keeping Room. Directed by Daniel Barber (Harry Brown) and co-starring Haileen Steinfeld and Sam Worthington, here's the the story is described as: Left without men in the dying days of the American Civil War, three Southern women - two sisters and one African-American slave - must fight to defend their home and themselves from two rogue soldiers who have broken off from the fast-approaching Union Army.

I suck at chess but movies about chess are a personal favorite, and Pawn Sacrifice is one that I've been waiting for. Tobey Maguire stars as legendary chess champion Bobby Fischer in the Ed Zwick-directed film, which centers on his 1972 World Championship match against Russian champ, Borris Spassky, seen here portrayed by Liev Schreiber. Steven Knight (Locke) wrote the script with Peter Sarsgaard co-starring. In this remarkable true story set in the height of the Cold War, chess legend Bobby Fischer is locked in a gripping championship clash with the Soviets as he struggles against his own psychological demons while the whole world anxiously awaits the outcome.

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