Every once in a while, a trailer comes along that ramps your interest up from zero to sixty in an instant. Today, that trailer is forCatfight, a brutal satire starringSandra OhandAnne Hecheas two rivals who like to beat the hell and ruin each other’s lives. For years. This one had completely flown under the radar for me until now, but I’m officially all in.
The film follows a struggling artist Ashley Miller (Heche) and a bitter, rich housewife Veronica Salt (Oh), two women who were close in college but quickly fell out of touch. Years later, they reunite at a party where Asley is working as a caterer and Veronica throwing shade left and right. The women trade barbs and then they trade blows in a savage, bloody knock-down drag-out that leaves Veronica in a coma for two years. When she wakes up, instantly humbled but understandably pissed, the tables have turned and Ashley has become a prosperous artist while her own fortune has evaporated. Cue fist fight #2, which judging from the trailer, is far from the last.
Catfightalso promises a bit of political satire, set against the backdrop of a newly elected U.S. president who is hellbent on starting a new war in the middle east. So it’s part action movie, part political satire, part emotional drama and it’s all from the mind ofOnur Tukel, the filmmaker behind festival hitsApplesauce, Summer of Blood,andRichard’s Wedding. Yup, this movie is going to be something special and weird as hell. Check it out for yourself in the trailer below.
Catfightalso starsAlicia Silverstone,Amy Hill, Myra Lucretia Taylor, Ariel Kavoussi, Craig Bierko,andDylan Baker.The film opens in New York and Los Angeles, and on all digital platforms, on March 3rd. Here’s the full synopsis:
One-time college pals Veronica (Sandra Oh) and Ashley (Anne Heche) run into each other at a party. The women, now in their forties and having not seen each other since school, find that their lives have taken radically different paths. Ashley is barely scraping by as a painter of politically charged canvases, while Veronica is married to a wealthy businessman who’s about to profit hugely off yet another US-led war in the Middle East. Within minutes of their reunion, a rivalry is revived, old wounds are torn open, and a Manhattan stairwell becomes home to a woman-on-woman brawl the likes of which are seldom seen outside of martial-arts epics. And now the gloves are off. The new feature from writer-director Onur Tukel takes a set-up that in most films would lead to a heartwarming story of female friendship — and uses it instead as the springboard for an outrageously madcap black comedy.
