Michael Stuhlbarg, Steve Carrell, and now Oscar Isaac? It’s official: Timothée Chalamet’s on-screen daddies rival Lucas Hedges’s moms. Chalamet once again plays a brooding prince, this time in Denis Villeneuve’s epic adaptation of the novel Dune by author Frank Herbert. The space prince Paul Atreides may be having sweet, prescient dreams of Zendaya’s Chani, but in reality, his kingdom is under siege. When his father is assigned to rule the desert planet Arrakis, which harbors a valuable, mind-altering “spice,” Paul is called to defend his kingdom, with help from the native Fremen, Chani’s people, and his intimidating list of special skills, including prescience and computing like an AI. While the ousted House Harkonnen, led by Stellan Skårsgard as the monstrous Baron Vladimir, try to seize the planet back, the humans must also contend with the massive, merciless, nasty-lookin’ sandworms that rule Arrakis from beneath. “I must not fear,” Chalamet whispers Herbert’s famous words. “Fear is the mind-killer. When the fear is gone, only I will remain.” Maybe Dune is the anti-anxiety blockbuster 2020 2021 needed. The film was delayed from last year all the way to October 22, due to COVID-19-related movie theater closures. The many other beautiful and award-winning actors to go interstellar in the film include Oscar Isaac, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Jason Momoa, Dave Bautista, Javier Bardem, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Chang Chen, David Dastmalchian, and Charlotte Rampling. Denis Villeneuve’s transcendental natural settings are coming to a laptop screen theaters near you this October.
