Trailer Watch: Alison Pill & Sarah Gadon Are Sisters Coping with Loss in “All My Puny Sorrows”

Trailers

Trailer Watch: Alison Pill & Sarah Gadon Are Sisters Coping with Loss in “All My Puny Sorrows”

“Suffering is something that is passed on from one generation to the next — like flexibility, grace, or color blindness,” says Alison Pill in a new trailer for “All My Puny Sorrows.” An adaptation of Miriam Toews’ bestselling novel of the same name, the drama sees the “Star Trek: Picard” actress playing Yoli, a novelist whose family has experienced generations of suffering. She’s worried that she’s “peaked” and “already on the downside of a largely forgettable career,” but her priorities shift when her big sister, Elf (Sarah Gadon, “Alias Grace”), a gifted concert pianist, is hospitalized following a suicide attempt. Yoli returns to their hometown near Winnipeg to help her recover.

The sisters lost their father to suicide, and now Elf is turning to Yoli for help ending her life. “Will you take me to Switzerland?” she asks her sister. “They have clinics there where dying is legal.” Yoli demands to know if she’s “thinking at all about the reasons to stay alive.”

Another of Toews’ novels, 2018’s “Women Talking,” is being adapted by Sarah Polley, whose writing and directing credits include “Stories We Tell,” a doc about her family, and “Away From Her,” a portrait of a wife and husband reckoning with the impact that Alzheimer’s disease is having on their relationship. Set to star Frances McDormand, Rooney Mara, and Jessie Buckley, “Women Talking” tells the story of a group of women struggling to reconcile their faith in the aftermath of a series of sexual assaults perpetrated by the men in their Mennonite colony.

“All My Puny Sorrows” premiered at last year’s edition of the Toronto International Film Festival and will launch on demand and digital May 3.