“I feel like I’m slowly losing my mind and I don’t know what to do about it. Everyone thinks there’s something wrong with me,” the eponymous character of “Elyse” says in a new trailer for the film. Stella Hopkins’ directorial debut tells the story of a woman (Lisa Pepper) who struggles to differentiate between reality and delusion.
“She knows something isn’t right,” we’re told. “Everything in her life is a lie. She lives a fabricated life, a fairy tale, [an] embellished reality.” The spot sees Elyse confiding in a psychologist, Dr. Lewis (Anthony Hopkins), and admitting that she thinks her own husband is afraid of her.
The trailer is sparse on plot details, but the pic’s synopsis helps fill in the blanks. “In a psychotic blackout, Elyse commits vehicular manslaughter of her son and his nanny, Julia. Elyse isn’t the only victim; her delusional thinking, narcissism, and violence annihilate her husband. Memory and hallucination intertwine to expose a history of trauma, revealing the truth: Elyse is Catatonic and institutionalized in a State Hospital. Elyse’s recovery is reliant on the dissolution of her marriage, the restoration of the relationship with her mother, and the mutual absolution with the nanny’s daughter, Carmen. It’s the care from Dr. Lewis and the unconditional love from her nurse, David, that promise Elyse a new life.”
“Elyse” will be released in theaters and on demand December 4. Hopkins wrote the script with Audrey Arkins (“Killer Daddy Issues”).
