Timed with its premiere at TIFF, the first trailer for In Iranian-American filmmaker Maryam Keshavarz's Viper Club is now here. In the YouTube Originals feature, ER nurse Helen Sterling (Susan Sarandon) struggles to free her grown son, a journalist captured by terrorists in the Middle East. After hitting walls with the FBI and State agencies, she discovers a clandestine community of journalists, advocates, and philanthropists who might be able to help. This first trailer gives us a good idea of the overall plot of the film even if its editing obscures the structure a bit, for better or worse. We'll soon find out how the film is received at TIFF and just how much this trailer gives away.

Directed by Keshavarz from a screenplay she co-wrote with Jonathan Mastro, Viper Club also stars Matt Bomer, Lola Kirke, Julian Morris, Shelia Vand, Adepero Oduye and Edie Falco. Look for the YouTube Originals film to arrive in select theaters on October 26th.

Watch the first trailer for Viper Club below:

Watch the official trailer for Viper Club, a YouTube Originals Film. In select theaters October 26th.

Here's a more in-depth synopsis:

Helen (Academy Award-winner Susan Sarandon) is a veteran emergency room nurse facing another kind of crisis when her only son - a war correspondent on foreign assignment — is taken hostage by a terrorist organization. Initially (and somewhat naively) confident that the highest levels of her government will make her son's safe return a priority, Helen soon becomes disillusioned by the state's inaction and double-speak.

 

Isolated, frustrated, and alone, Helen finds a beacon of light in Charlotte (Edie Falco), an enigmatic and effective activist who represents a covert group with proven successes in bypassing governments to free prisoners. Helen invests her fervent hope in Charlotte's refreshing pragmatism.