Blake Lively is at her absolute best when she is playing against type, and thinking outside of the box. Of course we have fun watching her flow into the icy, alluring role of a possible murderer in a movie like A Simple Favor. But she turns more heads when she’s the only one on-screen in the terrifying survival thriller The Shallows, or disappearing into the role of a Boston bar fly for Ben Affleck’s The Town.
The actress appears to be burying herself into a new type of character in Reed Morano’s The Rhythm Section, an adaptation of a page-turning paperback by Mark Burnell. On the heels of the film’s latest trailer, Paramount provided CinemaBlend with an exclusive clip showing Jude Law training Lively for a difficult mission, which we will dive into after you watch the footage:
Who is this mysterious woman, and why does she need Jude Law’s training? In The Rhythm Section, Blake Lively plays Stephanie Patrick, a woman whose immediate family is killed in a plane crash… one in which Stephanie was supposed to be on.
As she begins to investigate the tragedy on her own, though, Stephanie learns that this wasn’t exactly an accident. So she begins to track the people responsible by assuming the identity of an assassin. And in the above exclusive clip, we understand the meaning of the title, and how Law’s mentor character will use the concept of music to turn Lively into a stone-cold killer.
Want another reason to get excited by The Rhythm Section, beyond what you have seen so far? It is produced by Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, the brain trust behind the James Bond franchise. The duo has been making 007 thrillers for years, and so if they can lend their expertise and apply some knowledge from that series to boost Blake Lively’s turn, this could be a spy story worth exploring.
In addition to Blake Lively and Jude Law, The Rhythm Section co-stars Sterling K. Brown of NBC’s This Is Us. Author Mark Burnell tackles his own screenplay, and Reed Morano continues to build on an impressive filmography that includes episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale, The Power, Billions and the feature film I Think We’re Alone Now.
Look out for The Rhythm Section when it reaches theaters on January 31. Want to keep track of the rest of the 2020 movie releases? Bookmark our calendar, and check it often.
