The first trailer for director Bradley Rust Gray’s coming-of-age romance Jack and Diane has gone online. The film stars Juno Temple (seen most recently in The Dark Knight Rises) as Diane, and Riley Keough (The Runaways) as Jack — two girls who fall in love in New York City.
The pair’s blossoming relationship hits a snag, however, when Diane’s aunt, Linda, announces that Diane will be departing for school in France in a few short weeks. The news of Diane’s planned departure pushes Jack away (she tells Diane at one point in the trailer, “Don’t stay for me, okay?”), eliciting strange and somewhat violent changes in Diane.
The trailer focuses heavily on the love story between the two girls, but a series of animated flashes interspersed throughout (courtesy of the Quay Brothers) allude to darker and creepier undertones, and, sure enough, Diane begins changing into a werewolf-like creature when she has trouble coming to terms with her feelings for Jack.
Because the trailer doesn’t shed more light on the supernatural/horror aspect of the film, it’s difficult to tell exactly how Diane turning into a werewolf will be incorporated into the story, and what it means for the couple’s relationship, but the dark animations of what appear to be things like human teeth and a beating heart suggest the film won’t be taking a lighthearted approach to the subject matter.
While werewolves haven’t quite stolen the pop culture spotlight the way vampires have in recent years, they’ve still cropped up in numerous movies and television series, including the Underworld franchise, the Twilight saga, and HBO’s True Blood. At first glance, Jack and Diane doesn’t appear to be going a route similar to those other productions, but we’ll gain a better understanding of whether comparisons can be drawn either when a longer trailer is released, or when the film lands in theaters.
Jack and Diane opens in theaters on September 2, 2012.
