Dan Fogelman has been a writer, producer and director in Hollywood for over a decade. He's the writer behind such hits as Cars, Tangled, Galavant and more. However, he's most recently become a more well-known name thanks to creating the NBC behemoth This Is Us. His new movie, Life Itself, looks to have a similarly emotional tone to the network drama, and you can take a first look at the trailer for the new Amazon movie, below.
Life Itself is the story of four generations who are all connected by a single event. In the first look at the movie, we see Oscar Isaac and Olivia Wilde playing a couple who seemingly have a great love story. We hear uplifting dialogue about life and why certain moments are important, and that dialogue is intercut with a slew of moments between lovers and family members. At one point Oscar Isaac's character is talking to Annette Bening's character about his life, and solemnly notes,
Strange to think about how a completely random moment would shape my entire life.
In this way, our first looking at Life Itself is both intriguing and a bit mysterious. We see shots of Oscar Isaac talking about romantic certainty, and another shot of Wilde's character looking pregnant. There's a couple chasing each other in a library and another shot of a man on his knees holding a coffee cup.There's a shot of a little girl in a car with what looks to be glass hitting her face, warning us that an ominous thing is to come. Each of these stories will seemingly all tie together and I can't wait to see how.
I have no idea if Life Itself will employ the same sort of format as This is Us, in which multiple timelines are shuffled back and forth so that storylines from the past and present come together fluidly on the screen; however, it seems as if that sort of direction might work perfectly here. One of the reasons This is Us works so well, in my opinion, is because when we see Kate or Randall behaving a certain way as adults, we also get a string of scenes from earlier in their lives that help us to see how their outlooks were shaped a certain way. It's a stirring and unusual way to do things, and Life Itself could do very well if it takes a similar tact.
Along with Oscar Isaac and Olivia Wilde, Life Itself also stars Mandy Patinkin, Olivia Cooke, Laia Costa, Annette Bening and Antonio Banderas. The flick was bought by Amazon back in December, but unfortunately, it will be a while before we catch the movie, as it is expected to open on September 21. Intriguingly, This is Us just aired its Season 2 finale this week, which means we'll likely be waiting until next September for more episodes of that emotional rollercoaster, as well. At least in September there will be a glut of Dan Fogelman stuff to look forward to. For what's going on with the TV schedule, take a look at our full guide.
