A FIRST LOOK AT CHARLI XCX’S ROLE IN ‘SACRIFICE’
words by ANOUK WOUDT
Bringing the ethos of Music, Fashion, Film to life, Charli xcx lands another acting role in the upcoming film Sacrifice, directed by Romain Gavras. Set to premiere on Netflix this August 20th, she’s not the only name in this ridiculously stacked cast that you might recognise. With starring roles from Chris Evans, Anya Taylor-Joy, John Malkovich, and even Yung Lean, the film holds promise on the cast alone. But with a first look at the trailer, we get a glimpse of what to expect in this apocalyptic sacrificial thriller.
image via IMDB
As a French director, the film marks Romain Gavras’ English-language directorial debut, though the cast features a returning French collaborator, Vincent Cassel. His filmography also features a significant amount of music videos, which is where he has found a majority of his success. This includes M.I.A.’s BORN FREE and BAD GIRLS, as well as Kanye West and Jay Z’s No Church in the Wild music video. He’s also collaborated previously with Yung Lean on a musical short titled STORM I & II. With his music-focused background in mind, suddenly his decision to cast two musicians makes a lot more sense.
As the trailer opens, we are introduced first and foremost to Chris Evans’ character, Mike Tyler – an affluent movie star whose fallen out of the public eye. Immediately, he’s seen being taken hostage by a group of terrorists led by Anya Taylor-Joy’s Joan, who believe the world’s fiery demise is coming in two days. Their solution? The sacrifice of three individuals, which includes Mike Tyler. The other two are played by Vincent Cassel and Ambika Mod, the former being the richest man in the world, Ben Bracken and the latter being just a girl named Katie – a choice we hope is explained.
images via YOUTUBE
Charli xcx’s character is less explained – all we know is that her name is Mother Nature, which feels fitting enough. Her character is seen on stage performing, so her role might be closely tied to her real-life pop star endeavours. As for Yung Lean, he will be playing Joan’s brother (we see the resemblance!), but his trailer appearance is minimal, so it’s still unclear what type of role he will play.
This story clearly chronicles a type of class war, pitting the ordinary people against the rich and famous – a sentiment that has had a cultural rise over the past decade. This commentary coming from the mouths of the biggest A-List celebrities might take away from the point at large (in a Don’t Look Up kind of way), but alas, we have yet to see if the movie manages to make its point regardless. Though its 38% on Rotten Tomatoes says otherwise… Critics overall had a general disdain towards the movie, making it actually one of the lowest-rated films to come out of this year’s fall film festivals. But who knows? Taxi Driver got booed at Cannes, but now it’s classified as one of the great masterpieces of American cinema, so you can’t always trust film festival reception. So we’ll just have to make up our minds when the film comes out.
