With some films shouting their Oscar intentions from the rooftops, Tim Blake Nelson's Leaves of Grass may be trying to fly in under the radar. For a comedy-thriller starring Edward Norton in dual roles and co-starring Keri Russell, Melanie Lynskey, Susan Sarandon, and Richard Dreyfuss, we're only now getting a full (albeit non-MPAA approved) trailer, although another flickered online earlier this year.
Norton plays twin brothers, one a respectable college professor and the other a redneck pot dealer. Lured under the false pretense of his brother's death, the professor returns to his home town only to be entangled in a doomed scheme against a local drug lord (Dreyfuss). It's described as a stoner-comedy-thriller but don't start thinking it's along the lines of Pineapple Express. The film is apparently "a fiercely original work on par with the idiosyncrasies and layers of the Coen Brothers and not like anything you've seen out there in a while." The pairing of Nelson and Norton already had me hooked and I like that the trailer makes the tone of the film tough to pin down as opposed to making it seem muddled. Hit the jump to check it out along with a fuller synopsis of the film. Leaves of Grass hits theaters on December 25th.
Via The Playlist (who also posted their brief thoughts on the film after seeing it at this year's Toronto Film Festival):
Bill Kincaid is a very celebrated Ivy League philosophy professor on the verge of being hired for a tenure at Harvard, the other brother, Brady Kincaid, is a hydroponics weed-growing genius in rural Oklahoma. Estranged from his family and trying to leave all traces of his Midwestern upbringing behind (including completely burying his accent and essentially severing all ties), the very organized, very straight-laced Bill has not spoken to his brother or his mother (Susan Sarandon) in some 10-years or so, but he's brought back into the family fold when Brady becomes embroiled in some drug-related crime activity that he needs dire assistance with.