Some five years after production and its subsequent release into the rest of the world, Veronika Decides To Die will finally land on U.S. shores. The Paolo Coehlo adaptation lensed back in 2008, and stars Sarah Michelle Gellar as a young woman – Veronika – who decides to end her life. Didn’t really have to spell that one out for you; it’s in the title. After swallowing a bunch of pills, she wakes up in a mental hospital and discovers she’s only got a few weeks left to live.
To reignite interest in the movie, Yahoo! has dropped a new trailer, and it definitely serves to point out the gap between production and release. Five years on the shelf and its cast, which also includes David Thewlis, Melissa Leo and Parenthood duo Erika Christensen and Jonathan Tucker, look significantly younger than they do now. That’s the passage of time for you.
Harbouring no bones about its subject matter, the trailer ventures into unexpected territory. This isn’t a weepy drama, folks, it’s a bizarro existential crisis with a thumping score. Check out the trailer above, and let us know if you’ll be catching Veronika Decides to Die when it arrives in select theaters and on VOD January 20th, 2015.
Twenty-four-year-old Veronika seems to have everything — youth and beauty, boyfriends and a loving family, a fulfilling job. But something is missing in her life. So, one cold November morning, she takes a handful of sleeping pills expecting never to wake up. But she does — at a mental hospital where she is told that she has only days to live.
Inspired by events in Coelho’s own life, Veronika Decides to Die questions the meaning of madness and celebrates individuals who do not fit into patterns society considers to be normal. Bold and illuminating, it is a dazzling portrait of a young woman at the crossroads of despair and liberation, and a poetic, exuberant appreciation of each day as a renewed opportunity.
