‘Anesthesia’ Trailer: Kristen Stewart Does the ‘Crash’ Thing

Remember Crash? Like several of its other Best Picture-winning brethren, Crash is a film that no one has really thought about since it won the Oscar (like The King’s Speech…and The Artist…), but Anesthesia remembers it very well. The new film from actor / director Tim Blake Nelson has debuted a trailer, featuring Kristen Stewart, Corey Stoll, and several other very likable people whom you often enjoy in other films. So what happens when you put them together in an interconnected narrative about humanity…or something…? See for yourself.

Anesthesia premiered at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, though we haven’t heard much about it since then. Sam Waterston stars as a beloved professor who is brutally attacked before the film goes back several days to show us the various people and the actions they took (or didn’t take), all culminating in that violent moment.

The structure is quite familiar, and some of that dialogue is pretty heavy-handed, but this is an incredible cast: Stewart, Stoll, Waterston, Gretchen Mol, Michael K. Williams and Glenn Close star in Anesthesia, and we’re interested in seeking it out based on the strength of those names alone — particularly Stewart, who has been absolutely killing it over the last couple of years; more specifically earlier this year in Clouds of Sils Maria.

Here’s the official synopsis:

A snowy New York City night, a beloved teacher, a shocking crime: this provocative drama pieces together the puzzle of a man’s life just before it changes forever. While on his way home one evening, Walter Zarrow (Sam Waterston), a popular Columbia University philosophy professor, is violently attacked on the street. Flash back one week, as actor-director Tim Blake Nelson traces the domino effect of events that led up to this seemingly senseless assault. Along the way, hidden connections between a seemingly disparate group of people — including a self-destructive student (Kristen Stewart), a hard-drinking suburban housewife (Gretchen Mol), and a desperate junkie (K. Todd Freeman) — emerge, forming a complex, engrossing mosaic of lost souls united by tragedy. The stellar ensemble cast includes Glenn Close and Michael K. Williams.

Anesthesia hits select theaters and VOD on January 8, 2016.