Jessica Chastain will be the first to admit that her character in her most recent film, J. C. Chandor’s 1981-set New York City gangster scheme A Most Violent Year, is at first underestimated.
Jessica Chastain will be the first to admit that her character in her most recent film, J. C. Chandor’s 1981-set New York City gangster scheme A Most Violent Year, is at first underestimated. “She’s easily overlooked,” said the actress at the movie’s premiere at Florence Gould Hall Theater last night. “She wants to be with the most powerful man in the room because it is a man’s world but sometimes, she’s the most powerful man in the room.”
This steely resolve set the tone of Chandor’s cold-hearted thriller (opening December 31), which places Chastain opposite her onetime Juilliard pal, Oscar Isaac, as the sharp-edged wife to Isaac’s fast-climbing, American dream–hustling businessman over the course of one of the most violent years in New York City history. The pair is succeeding in the bloody heating oil business moderating shared ambition in complementary Armani looks and the path to the top is as rapidly tumbling as it is compromising.
Chandor, Chastain, and Isaac along with the likes of Ang Lee, Sophie Auster, Zachary Quinto, Jerry Adler, and Lindsay Ellingson (wearing a hard-to-miss backless beaded Armani number) were on hand to take in the final cut and toast its premiere. “For me, it was the strategy of it all,” said Isaac of the project’s appeal. “The fact that this was someone who was so calculating everything about him, every gesture, his hair, the suits, everything and [he had] a kind of almost sociopathic ambition I thought was fascinating.”
The audience, which walked a few blocks southwest to Armani’s Fifth Avenue flagship for champagne and cocktails at the expansive Ristorante after the screening, seemed to be in full agreement over the project’s gritty, psychological appeal. “I was brought up watching dark thrillers with my dad,” said Zosia Mamet as canapés of cucumber-wrapped fresh crab and mini croque-monsieurs made their way around the room. “So I’m super fascinated by the tone and picture of a thriller like this.”
Further back in the room, Chastain (in a sweeping, deep red Giorgio Armani gown inspired by a dress in the film), Chandor, and the film’s six-year-old star, Giselle Eisenberg (who had skipped the premiere to go ice-skating with her dad), sunk into a booth with a bevy of family and friends. “As a storyteller, this was a dream,” said Chandor, who looked to early eighties New York street photography as he developed the project over the last decade. Chastain was quick to add: “Lots of people say acting is lying. I think it’s the opposite.” “I’ll just let the movie speak for itself,” said Chandor.
