Jennifer Garner’s latest feature film, Butter, might have some people a little bemused and confused by having at its central premise the sculpting of butter – I’d never heard of it before, myself – but it sounds like it does in fact have some potential, and the first clip from the film has been released, courtesy of The Playlist.
In the past few years, Garner’s been tending to stick to fairly light-hearted films, and if you’ve enjoyed her work in films like Arthur, The Invention of Lying, and Juno, then there’s a good chance that you’ll like her in Butter too.
The film has been scripted by newcomer Jason A. Micallef, and directed by Jim Field Smith (She’s Out Of My League), and has a terrific cast that includes Hugh Jackman (X-Men Origins: Wolverine), Ty Burrell (TV’s Modern Family), Olivia Wilde (Cowboys & Aliens), Ashley Greene (Twilight), Alicia Silverstone (Clueless), and the young Yara Shahidi (the upcoming I, Alex Cross).
“The story follows Laura (Jennifer Garner), the wife of former butter sculpting champion Bob (Ty Burrell), who tries to take the mantle from her husband only to be thwarted by a young adopted African American girl (Yara Shahidi), who has discovered that she has a natural talent for making art out of butter.”
Whilst I do know a little about American politics, I readily admit that I don’t know enough to fully understand all of the references that Butter will allude to, so I’m embedding a little cheat-sheet from The Playlist about the film:
“[T]he premise serves as an analogy for the 2008 Democratic primaries. In this political allegory, Laura and Bob are obviously Hillary and Bill Clinton, with the the young African girl playing the Barack Obama figure in the story. And in this clip, in which Laura pleads her case to the jury of the butter sculpting competition, the satire is more than apparent. However, Garner’s character also gives a pretty fierce nod to Sarah Palin, and is described on the site as: Wife first, Christian second, American always and Stepmother third.”
The site that the description mentions in the final sentence is the film’s recently launched website, which is thought to be the start of what could well be an Oscar push by The Weinstein Company for Butter, ahead of the awards season early next year. A Twitter account has also been set up under Laura’s name, with some great words of wisdom, like,
“Tip: being thin and pretty is an easy way to quickly and concisely show others that you’re better than them.”
I was a little sceptical of a film about butter at first, but I’m definitely quickly warming to the project now, and this first clip from the film is a great look at what we can expect from it. There’s no word on a release date yet, but if The Weinstein Company do want it to be eligible for the Oscars next year, they’ve at least got to give it a week-long run in Los Angeles, and they’ll either decide to put it on wide release sometime next year, or if we’re lucky, we might see this before this year is out. Without further ado, here’s the great first clip showing Jennifer Garner giving a campaign speech for her butter sculpting. Enjoy.
