DOWNTOWN OWL Trailer (2024) Vanessa Hudgens, Lily Rabe

DOWNTOWN OWL Trailer (2024) Vanessa Hudgens, Lily RabeShow more

DOWNTOWN OWL Trailer (2024) Vanessa Hudgens, Lily Rabe, Ed Harris
© 2024 - Sony Pictures

Lily Rabe takes a small town by storm, with the help of Vanessa Hudgens, in the upcoming Downtown Owl.

The new movie (available to buy or rent on digital April 23) marks the American Horror Story star’s directorial debut alongside longtime boyfriend and Midnight Mass star Hamish Linklater, who adapted the screenplay from Chuck Klosterman’s 2008 novel of the same name.

PEOPLE has the exclusive first look at Sony Pictures Entertainment’s “Great Plains dark dramedy” Downtown Owl, which costars Ed Harris, August Blanco Rosenstein, Jack Dylan Grazer, Arianna Jaffier, Finn Wittrock and Henry Golding.

Rabe plays Julia, a woman retreating to an 800-strong town of Owl, North Dakota in 1983. “You’re back in high school now,” Hudgens’ outgoing character Naomi tells Julia in the trailer. “And everyone’s looking at you through homecoming glasses.”

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Vanessa Hudgens and Lily Rabe in "Downtown Owl". SONY PICTURES
She urges Julia to let her hair down for a night on the — small — town. “Wear your least comfortable bra,” she advises.
Julia is “searching for a break from her cosmopolitan life in Milwaukee,” per the movie’s official synopsis. After arriving to teach high school for a semester in “the close-knit Reagan-era town of Owl,” it continues, “the small town turns out to be a wonderland of second-string poets, smoldering Marlboro Men, and a social hierarchy that echoes high school.”

The synopsis adds, “Julia doesn’t know if she’s come to town to get away from home or to find it.”

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Behind the scenes of "Downtown Owl". SONY PICTURES
In the trailer, Rabe can be seen partying with Hudgens at the town’s local bar Hugo’s, asking Harris for guidance, and getting snowed into her car in North Dakota’s harsh winters.

“Pretty much everyone advises against making a movie with the parent of your children, especially your first movie, especially when the newest child is a newborn,” Rabe, 41, and Linklater, 47, tell PEOPLE in a statement. The couple, who have been dating since around 2016, share three children together.

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Lily Rabe in "Downtown Owl". SONY PICTURES
“But making Owl was so rewarding, and we hope audiences have as exhilarating an experience watching it as we had working on it together,” they add.

The filmmaking duo also call the movie’s cast “all such elite talents and humans” who “just dropped from heaven into our prairie badlands.”
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The film includes “an undeniable soundtrack by T Bone Burnett,” they add, and features songs from Elvis Costello, Margo Price, Charley Crockett and more.
Among Rabe's upcoming projects is the Jessica Lange movie Places, Please. Linklater plays President Abraham Lincoln in the Apple TV series Manhunt.

Downtown Owl is available to buy or rent on digital April 23.

"You just moved to another town and pretend to be somebody you're not?" Sony Pictures Ent. has revealed an official trailer for a indie film titled Downtown Owl, set for a direct-to-VOD / digital release later this April. This originally premiered at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival last year and marks the directorial debut of the two actors Hamish Linklater & Lily Rabe. "Getting away from home to try and find it." Based on the novel of the same name by Chuck Klosterman, Downtown Owl is a sparkle dark Reagan Era comedy set in the fictional town of Owl, North Dakota in the leading days up to the region's most intense whiteout blizzard in a century in Minnesota. Lily Rabe stars as Julia, who escapes to this Reagan-era town of Owl for a temporary high school teaching job. Ed Harris, Vanessa Hudgens, Henry Golding, August Blanco Rosenstein, Jack Dylan Grazer, Arianna Jaffier, and Finn Wittrock also appear in this Great Plains dark dramedy. Looks like it has some sweet Americana moments in it, along with tons of fun performances.

Here's the official trailer (+ poster) for Hamish Linklater & Lily Rabe's Downtown Owl, from YouTube:

Downtown Owl Poster

Searching for a break from her cosmopolitan life in Milwaukee, Julia Rabia (Lily Rabe), arrives in the close knit Reagan-era town of Owl, North Dakota for a one-semester high school teaching job. But when the small town turns out to be a wonderland of second-string poets, smoldering Marlboro Men, and a social hierarchy that echoes high school, Julia doesn’t know if she's come to town to get away from home or to find it. Downtown Owl is co-directed by actors turned filmmakers Hamish Linklater & Lily Rabe, both making their feature directorial debut with this project. The screenplay is written by Hamish Linklater. Produced by Bettina Barrow, Lily Rabe, Hamish Linklater, and Rebecca Green. This initially premiered at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival last year. Sony Pictures Entertainment releases Linklater & Rabe's first film together, Downtown Owl direct-to-VOD starting April 23rd, 2024 this spring. Anyone interested in htis?

Lily Rabe directs and stars in Downtown Owl, a film about finding home in unexpected places.
The trailer shows Rabe's character navigating small-town life and questioning her reason for leaving the city.
Based on Chuck Klosterman's novel, the star-studded film will be available on digital on April 23, and promises a heartwarming story.
Lily Rabe is a director now. The American Horror Story star added a hyphen to her career descriptor after taking on the script for Downtown Owl written by Hamish Linklater (Midnight Mass). A new trailer for Downtown Owl sees Rabe's character arrive in a small town and find that what she had deemed a place of escape might be where her heart is content. The film features a star cast including Finn Wittrock―whom Rabe starred on American Horror Story Season 10 with―Ed Harris, and Vanessa Hudgens.

The trailer opens with Rabe's character, Julia Rabia, arriving in the fictional quaint town of Owl, North Dakota. A narrator welcomes Rabia to Owl and makes all kinds of promises about what a great place the town is. The reality is much different because some people are unfriendly, like Horace (Ed Harris), a man in the diner who acts like being asked a question is a serious violation of personal space, the students are unmotivated, and some, like Eli (Jack Dylan Grazer), are tough to deal with. Her coworkers are an eclectic bunch, with Coach Laidlaw taking out his frustrations with his team on other people, while Naomi (Vanessa Hudgens, High School Musical) has serious boundary issues.

Naomi drags Rabia out to a bar and she meets some town residents. Owl can have really bad weather, but what disrupts Rabia's life is interacting with the townsfolk, including, Vance (Henry Golding), a former football star whose best days are behind him. Rabia gets into the town's rhythm, and before she knows it, she's accustomed to it. But questions about her life before the small town make it clear that she has been lying to herself about her reason for leaving the city. She thought she wanted to give her husband space to work on his Doctorate, but what if that was a ruse? What if she hated the life she led in the city? What if this small town was the home she never knew she wanted? As the trailer ends, a mundane question takes on an existential meaning. What was she going to do?

Who Is Behind Downtown Owl?
Linklater adapted the film from a 2008 novel of the same name by Chuck Klosterman. Rabe directed the film with help from Linklater. She also stars alongside Hudgens, Wittrock, Linklater, Harris (Westworld), Golding, Dylan Glazer (We Are Who We Are), and August Blanco Rosenstein. T Bone Burnett was the music director.

The Sony Pictures Entertainment film will be available on digital to buy or rent on April 23. Watch the trailer below.

The new feature film “Downtown Owl,” which was shot in and around St. Paul two years ago, has a lot going for it.

Locals will likely be interested to see how first-time filmmakers and real-life couple Lily Rabe and Hamish Linklater transformed St. Paul locations like the Spot Bar and Highland Park High School into the fictional North Dakota small town of Owl. While the film’s small budget is apparent on screen, the pair made the most of it and fashioned a credible rural setting in the process.

Also, Rabe is a delight to watch as Julia, even if her character makes a series of illogical and irritating decisions. She’s best known for starring in nine seasons of “American Horror Story” and that experience has helped her develop a warm, likable screen presence. Really, the acting overall is top notch, from Ed Harris as the elderly townsperson Horace to “It”/“Shazam” star Jack Dylan Grazer as hyperactive teen Eli.

But “Downtown Owl” really falters with the basics of telling a coherent story.

It’s based on the 2008 novel of the same name by essayist and North Dakota native Chuck Klosterman (who, full disclosure, is a friend of mine). But without giving too much away, Linklater’s adapted script makes some substantial — and questionable — changes to the story, which is set in 1983.

The book focuses on three characters: Julia, Horace and sullen football player Mitch (August Blanco Rosenstein). But the film homes in on Julia, effectively knocking down the other two to supporting roles. It opens with her arrival to Owl, as she’s decided to teach a semester at the high school, seemingly to give her husband the time and space he needs to finish his graduate thesis.

From the start, Rabe and Linklater introduce a blur of characters, including several of the town’s teens, a football coach played by “AHS” alum Finn Wittrock and fellow teacher Naomi (Vanessa Hudgens), the only person in the film with a serious commitment to period-correct fashion and at least an attempt at a North Dakota accent.

Naomi lives a wilder life than her students and convinces Julia to join her for drinks at a local bar populated mostly by drunk dullards. (One of the few jokes that lands in the film comes from a bit about how everyone there has a nickname.)

From there, we learn Julia does indeed enjoy drinking alcohol and that her marriage is on the rocks. We also meet former high school football star and local celebrity Vance (Henry Golding), a brooding and inarticulate semi-hunk in a cowboy hat and tight Wranglers with whom Julia inexplicably becomes obsessed.

Julia remains at the center of the action, but the script introduces far too many side plots — many of which are left unexplained — that muddle the overall action. It’s difficult to understand why some of the characters are even on the screen, let alone care about them.

Rabe and Linklater seem to have been aiming for the whimsical, sometimes surreal vibe of Joel and Ethan Coen’s 1996 classic “Fargo.” Not only do they fail, they somehow manage to make the 90-minute running time feel like twice the length.

“Downtown Owl” is currently available to purchase or rent online through sites like Amazon and Fandango. While Sony has yet to announce plans, it will likely show up on a streaming service later this year.

‘Downtown Owl’

Directed by: Lily Rabe and Hamish Linklater
Starring: Lily Rabe, Ed Harris, Vanessa Hudgens and Finn Wittrock
Rated: R for language, substance use, alcohol use and smoking
Should you watch? The local locations are far more compelling than the actual plot. 2 stars