‘The Hummingbird Project’ Trailer: Jesse Eisenberg & Bald Alexander Skarsgård Take on Wall Street
Everyone knows nerdy tech bros can’t be movie star handsome. That must be why, for his latest role as a guy building a new fiber-optic cable line to disrupt the stock exchange, Alexander Skarsgård had to go bald. At least it makes the Swedish actor more plausible to play cousin to Jesse Eisenberg, no offense to Eisenberg. Throw in a blonde Salma Hayek in aviator glasses, and color us intrigued.
In its newly released trailer, “The Hummingbird Project,” written and directed by Canadian filmmaker Kim Nguyen (“Two Lovers and a Bear”), promises high stakes comedy and biting indictments of our financial system. Think “The Big Short” meets “The Social Network,” but maybe not as good as that sounds.
The official synopsis reads: “Cousins from New York, Vincent (Eisenberg) and Anton (Skarsgård) are players in the high-stakes game of High-Frequency Trading, where winning is measured in milliseconds. Their dream? To build a straight fiber-optic cable line between Kansas and New Jersey, making them millions. But nothing is straightforward for this flawed pair. Anton is the brains, Vincent is the hustler, and together they push each other and everyone around them to the breaking point with their quixotic adventure. Constantly breathing down their necks is their old boss Eva Torres (Salma Hayek), a powerful, intoxicating and manipulative trader who will stop at nothing to come between them and beat them at their own game.”
“The Hummingbird Project” premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September to mixed reviews. IndieWire critic David Ehrlich wrote of the film: “Starting as a cold satire before thawing into a sentimental meditation on what really matters in this life…the film struggles to make the transition between its two modes, and ultimately falls into the narrow hole that it digs for itself.”
The Orchard will release “The Hummingbird Project” in theaters on March 15. Check out the trailer (and get a look at bald Skarsgård) below.
