If you’ve never heard anything about Michael Winterbottom’s long-gestating drama Everyday, the above trailer will make something abundantly clear to you: the actors playing this family look like they’re actually aging as it goes back and forth in time. And then you’ll probably slap the side of your face and say something exclamatory when I tell you that the conceit behind the film’s production involved Winterbottom filming scenes for the movie a few weeks at a time over the course of five years, from 2007-2012. That’s a level of dedication that's hard to fathom.
But there is a good chance you may have heard of the movie, as it premiered at the Telluride and Toronto Film Festivals over a year ago, and was then released a few places internationally throughout the year. In fact, the trailer above is the same one that was used to promote Everyday’s U.K. release in January. The trailer doesn’t even promote the fact that IFC Films is putting the film out on VOD on November 22nd. It’s like they expect us lowly writers to do all the news sharing.
Really, it doesn’t matter to me how many other people have gotten to see this flick first; I’m still very interested in its unique approach to a story we’ve seen before. Ian and Karen, played by John Simm (Life on Mars) and Shirley Henderson (Meek’s Cutoff), are a married couple with four kids who are held apart for five years following the husband’s arrest on drug smuggling charges. The family’s ability to cope with their struggles while maintaining relatively healthy relationships is captured in a series of similar events, seen from viewers’ eyes, unconstrained by time. It’s hard to match the authenticity of what stress can do to a person’s face, and this is better than any age make-up tactics other films have utilized over the years.
Beyond the extended production time, the realism also lies in the four kids – Shaun, Robert, Katrina and Stephanie Kirk – all of whom come from the same family. It’s an interesting premise that sounds just simple enough to use that grounded approach in the best way possible.
The movie is startlingly different from Winterbottom’s last two films from 2011, the hilarious Steve Coogan comedy The Trip, and the dismal southern-fried torture porn The Killer Inside Me, a film that got a little enjoyment out of but immediately felt guilty about.
Don’t wait five years before watching Everyday. Catch it on November 22nd, and check out the international poster below.
