Roadside Attractions has released the trailer for The Gallerist, the star-studded Art Basel Miami dark comedy from director and co-writer Cathy Yan, following its premiere at Sundance earlier this year. The film opens in select theaters December 4.
Natalie Portman plays Polina, an ambitious gallery owner clinging to the edge of elite society while navigating a nasty separation and mounting financial hardship. In what begins as an impromptu act of survival, Polina conspires with her assistant Kiki, played by Jenna Ortega, to pass off an accidental corpse, the body of an art critic played by Zach Galifianakis, as the centerpiece of her debut show. What follows spirals into a sly game of deception, spectacle, and ticking-clock chaos as influencers and police converge on the gallery, leaving Polina to wonder whether she’ll end up famous, a felon, or both.
The ensemble also includes Sterling K. Brown, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Daniel Brühl, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Charli XCX, marking her second supporting role in an art-world comedy released this year, following I Want Your Sex. Yan, known for Dead Pigs and Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn, co-wrote the screenplay with James Pedersen. Producers include Ash Sarohia, Sophie Mas, Portman, Jonathan King, Tom McCarthy, Rae Baron, and Zola Elgart Glassman, with Ortega, Roberto Malerba, and Pedersen executive producing.
With a premise built around turning a body into an art installation, The Gallerist is positioning itself as a willing provocation aimed squarely at the art world’s own absurdities, for better or worse, depending on who you ask.