Although he’s one of the great post-modernist novelists — or perhaps because of that — Don DeLillo’s work has mostly resisted adaptation. The sole one of his books to reach the screen until now was “Cosmopolis,” in the form of David Cronenberg’s disappointing translation, with the rest of his work being too dense, or too ambitious, to bring for the screen.
But a number of filmmakers have, over the years, been interested in making DeLillo’s 2001 book “The Body Artist” into a film — “A Bigger Splash” director Luca Guadagnino nearly made a version with Isabelle Huppert a few years back. And now it’s finally arrived, albeit without the original director and star, but with Benoit Jacquot (“Farewell, My Queen”) directing. And now you can get a first look at the trailer.
Retitled “Never Ever” (or “A jamais” in French), the film sees film director Jacques Rey (Mathieu Amalric) fall in love for and marry a performance artist (newcomer Julia Roy), only to die in a motorbike chase, leaving the artist haunted by his presence, or the lack of it. Reception from the film’s screening at Venice and TIFF has been reasonably warm (though we haven’t yet checked it out at either yet), and from the trailer, this looks like it could be an unnerving drama that does justice to the source material. Check the trailer out below.
