When Boyhood was released, it was hard not to see particular scenes immediately becoming “classics.” One such scene was that in which Ethan Hawke, playing the father of the boy experiencing…boyhood, gives his son a mixtape of The Beatles members’ best solo work, saying, “Basically I’ve put the band back together for you.” It turns out this was actually based on a mixtape the real Hawke put together for his daughter Maya, as a metaphor to help her understand having divorced parents. So if in watching the trailer below for his new film 10,000 Saints, you think, “Why exactly is it that Ethan Hawke is once again playing a divorced (or separated) father who tries to instill The Beatles in his son’s identity?” just shut up, recall that he actually is a Beatles-obsessed divorced father, and allow everyone else to swoon.
Hawke more specifically plays a former-hippie whose son is named Jude (as in, the person to whom Paul McCartney says “Hey”). He’s been relatively estranged from his son after having cheated on Jude’s mom with her friend and having gotten said friend pregnant. The movie follows the friends and family members of Asa Butterfield’s Jude many years later through their lives in the punk culture-saturated late-’80s East Village. It’s a complex web of characters: a story seems to emerge as Les (Hawke’s character) sends his current girlfriend’s (Emily Mortimer’s) rebellious daughter (Hailee Steinfeld) to hang out in the Village with Jude — and all of the characters’ damaged half-relationships seemingly implode after a death and another accidental pregnancy, and the film culminates during the Tompkins Square Park Riots in 1988.
10,000 Saints is based on the novel by Eleanor Henderson, and is written and directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini (the duo behind American Splendor). It opens on August 14. Watch the trailer:
Via /Film.