If you know the name Robert Siegel then you’re probably familiar with his tremendous script for The Wrestler, which earned Mickey Rourke an Oscar nomination for his performance. He made his directorial debut a couple of years earlier with the underrated Big Fan, which saw Patton Oswalt give what I said at the time was one of the best screen portrayals of the year. And now Siegel is back behind the camera with Cruise, and it looks like a synth-pop trip back into the 1980s.
You won’t find a lot of big names in this one, with the exception of model/video maven-turned-actress Emily Ratajkowski. The Gone Girl actress plays Jessica, a good Jewish girl from Long Island who falls head over heels for Gio (Spencer Boldman), an Italian badboy from Queens. The 1987-set flick finds the two lovebirds exploring their wild sides and the joys of muscle cars, neon, skintight leather, and pagers.
This doesn’t look like anything we havent’ seen before, but with Siegel’s script and direction I expect it’ll go places we don’t expect. His writing has helped bring out the best in Rourke and Oswalt, maybe it can do the same for Ratajkowski? Cruise hits theaters and VOD on September 28th.
