Anomalisa director thrusts André Holland and Gemma Chan into an amnesiac’s waking world of deception in a trailer for The Actor

Neon and Anomalisa director Duke Johnson are bringing something twisty and mysterious this Wednesday with a trailer for The Actor, a bizarre amnesiac tale filled with mischief, misinformation, and malcontents. It stars André Holland as a man with no memory surrounded by suspicious characters and a beautiful stranger who wants to help him solve the mystery of his past and become a part of his future.

Here’s the official synopsis for The Actor courtesy of Neon:

“Based on the novel Memory by Donald E. Westlake, The Actor finds Paul Cole (Holland) stranded in a mysterious small town with no memory of who he is or how he got here. Without a sense of identity or purpose, he starts from scratch and begins courting a local costume designer (Chan). As bits and pieces of his past slowly emerge, he attempts to find his way home, but time is slippery, appearances can’t be trusted, and it’s unclear which of his identities is real.”

Duke Johnson (Anomalisa, Mary Shelly’s Frankenhole) directs from a script based on Westlake’s novel, which he co-wrote with Stephen Cooney. Abigail Spencer, Duke Johnson, Paul Young, and Ken Kao produce, with Charlie Kaufman as an executive producer. May Calamawy, Asim Chaudhry, Joe Cole, Fabien Frankel, Olwen Fouéré, Edward Hogg, Toby Jones, Youssef Kerkour, Simon McBurney, Tanya Reynolds, Tracey Ullman, and Scott Alexander Young join Holland and Chan as primary cast members.

Neon’s The Actor trailer is a nice bit of mind-bending business. The dream-like presentation drips with style and harkens back to Johnson’s adult animated film Anomalisa with a visual flare akin to Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Be Kind Rewind). With no memory of who he is, Paul becomes trapped in an unfamiliar world with deceivers on all sides. Who is he? How did Paul get there? Who can he trust? The Actor‘s overall look shifts from a gritty crime noir to a soft haze, like a dream slipping away promply after returning to the waking world. I must admit I’m intrigued.

What do you think about Duke Johnson’s The Actor trailer? Let us know in the comments section below.

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