Brave New Hollywood prides itself on spotting talent on the rise—hence the name, if you hadn’t clued in yet—and we’re particularly interested in filmmakers and artists who are bucking the big-money, celebrity-driven system to get their movies produced distributed. One such rising star is James Ponsoldt. His film The Spectacular Now won prizes at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival for its young leads—Shailene Woodley (The Descendants) and Miles Teller (Rabbit Hole) and will be released to theatres in early August.
Spectacular is Ponsoldt’s third film; he co-wrote (with Susan Burke) and directed last year’s indie darling Smashed, starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Aaron Paul as a young couple dealing with alcoholism and the dissolution of their relationship. Paul is an Emmy-winner for his role in Breaking Bad with an ardent fan base; it was Winstead who was re-introduced to Hollywood with this plum role.
Woodley, Ponsoldt’s Spectacular Now leading lady, was known to audiences through her ABC Family series The Secret Life of the American Teenager, which recently ended a five-year run. But Descendants showed that she had a deep well of untapped potential, and Ponsoldt aimed to take advantage of that. Those Sundance prizes suggest he was successful.
The Hollywood Reporter calls the film a “sincere, refreshingly unaffected look at teenagers and their attitudes about the future,” and notes Ponsoldt makes solid use of a limited budget. Like Smashed, it also deals with the perils of alcohol abuse, and features Winstead in a supporting role. (It’s a sign of great potential when a filmmaker starts building his own repertory company.)
Spin Magazine went so far as to call Spectacular Now “the next great teen movie” and says it “isn’t a morality tale of any kind,” praising the “almost absurdly natural performances.”
Although his films hasn’t made much of a splash at the box office to date, Tinseltown has clearly noticed. The Hollywood Reporter revealed last month that he will adapt for The Weinstein Company the hit musical Pippin—which won a Tony Award Sunday night for best revival of a musical—for the silver screen. His films “showed his talent for telling stories of self-discovery, and we’re confident he will have the same success rewriting this story,” said TWC bigwig Harvey Weinstein.
TRIVIA: The married Ponsoldt, 34, was born in Athens, Georgia. His father is a retired law professor. He attended Yale University and went on to earn an MFA from Columbia University with a concentration on directing.
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CLICK HERE to read The Hollywood Reporter’s review of “The Spectacular Now.”
CLICK HERE to read SPIN magazine’s article on the film.