Deadline reports that The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby will be shown in its two parts, beginning October 10. The combined version will be released September 12. This is a film you luxuriate in every second — three hours of it would be heaven. Both Richard Linklater and Ned Benson are playing with form in cutting film up and re-arranging it back in unexpected ways. While Michael Apted surely did this with his Up series in documentary form, it’s rare to see filmmakers stray from the usual pattern of making a film, editing it and releasing it. It exists as a whole and complete thing, except when directors decide to recut their films later (none of these ever top their original).
Ned Benson, with Eleanor Rigby, has breathed full life into each one of his characters but most importantly, the female characters. Romantic comedies these days tend to either turn into glossy high end fairy tales designed for mass female audiences or they’re quirky indies involving a manic pixie dreamgirl and some dude who comes of age within it, learning from her, becoming a man as a result of his association with her. That’s fine, of course, taking its cue from the grandaddy of all – Annie Hall. But how nice to see a deeper love story where what’s going on inside the woman matters too. There’s also something about these actors who are so well cast you could watch them all day, chief among those, Jessica Chastain who has a kind of magic about herself that makes you curious about every flicker of emotion on her face. She is endlessly watchable.
Chastain is having another one of those years where she’ll be in multiple Oscar contending Best Picture, starting with Eleanor Rigby, but also Interstellar, A Most Violent Year and Miss Julie.
