Getting really fucking creepy after a trip to space is a movie trope that dates back at least as far as the 1999 classic The Astronaut’s Wife. But the trailer for the new Natalie Portman movie Lucy in the Sky dares ask the heretofore unexplored question: What if it were a woman who went to space and came home crazy?
In the opening of the trailer, Lucy (Portman) is indeed in the sky, looking down on Earth as it is in heaven. In a voiceover, she says, “I saw my house from space. Not literally, but my life.” That life seems smaller after she returns home, and a lot of astronaut angst ensues.
In addition to Portman, the supporting cast is solid: Ellen Burstyn plays Lucy’s mother, Cousin Matthew (Dan Stevens) is her husband, and a dashingly bearded Nick Offerman makes an always-welcome dramatic turn in the role of astronaut therapist. Jon Hamm plays a hot but potentially vindictive co-cosmonaut Lucy maybe bangs in a fit of space hysteria.
Given that this cast generally chooses good scripts and the fact that the film is directed by Fargo’s Noah Hawley, it will be interesting to see what Lucy in the Sky adds to the genre. Especially since the trailer also suggests that the film, which opens October 4, might turn into a workplace-sexism revenge thriller involving hammers, bad wigs, and an homage to The Yellow Wallpaper.