Nina (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is trying to escape personal and professional turmoil in the new movie All About Nina, opening this week. She’s an up and coming comic who’s known for entertaining crowds with her provocative and personal set but a bad breakup and general dissatisfaction with her life in New York has her heading out west to try and make it in Los Angeles.
Unfortunately she brings those troubles with her on the move. While things continue to go well for her career, personal relationships are still a mess, even her new romance with Rafe (Common), a well-meaning and overly-honest guy she can’t bring herself to fully trust. When outside factors play on that as well, Nina has to figure out how willing she is to commit to trying to have it all.
The Posters
Winstead and Common are shown at the top of the poster, him looking her but her looking at the camera to show in some way the different levels they’re at in their relationship. Below that is an arty shot of Nina doing her standup routine, a single spotlight showing her holding the mic. “Get your act together” reads the copy at the top, a nice way to address both aspects of Nina’s life that are covered in the story.
The Trailers
Nina is working hard to make it as a comic in the trailer, mining her dating life for material and then moving to LA to try and kick her career to a new level. She meets Rafe, who is overly honest with her on just about everything. The two begin a relationship as she gets her big shot on stage, but her past and her attitude catch up with her and cause problems for both endeavors.
Online and Social
The Orchard isn’t usually known for its extensive websites, but the official site for this movie isn’t bad. There’s nothing all that innovative about it, there’s just the trailer, a synopsis and a few other bits of material along with Facebook, Twitter and Instagram links, but that’s more than the studio usually offers.
Advertising and Cross-Promotions
Nothing I’ve seen.
Media and Publicity
The movie had its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. Months later it was picked up for distribution by The Orchard. It later screened at the LA Film Festival.
That’s actually about it. A few sites got some exclusives clips, but I don’t see much of anything like interviews or other features with Winstead, Common or writer/director Eva Vives.
Overall
If there were a stronger publicity element here I’d feel it was a lot stronger effort. The trailer shows a great performance by Winstead, and her turn has been the focus of much of the conversation coming out of festivals. But there doesn’t seem to have been more of an effort to let everyone else know about it, which is too bad.
Picking Up the Spare
Director Eva Vives was interviewed about how the character of Nina is justified in her anger and hurt and how she wanted to tell a story about the reality that underlies a woman’s pain. Instead hit similar themes in this interview as well.
Instead talked more frequently about how she seems to attract roles about women with difficult pasts and what kinds of scenes were toughest to shoot.
Exclusive screenings in New York and Los Angeles were arranged to support survivors of sexual abuse.
Another great feature interview with Winstead here.
Cinematic Slant 