FRESH KILLS Trailer (2024) Emily Bader, Jennifer Esposito

FRESH KILLS Trailer (2024) Emily Bader, Jennifer Esposito

FRESH KILLS Trailer (2024) Emily Bader, Jennifer Esposito, Drama Movie
© 2024 - Quiver Distribution

"I'm trying to protect you!!" Quiver Distribution has debuted the official trailer for an emotional, intense family drama titled Fresh Kills, which is the feature directorial debut for New Yorker actress Jennifer Esposito. Esposito writes, directs, and stars in the film - a modern mafia story following the story of the loyal women of an organized crime family that dominated some of the boroughs of New York City in the late 20th century. The film is about a young woman named Rose Larusso, who learns her father is an emerging mafia kingpin. Rose’s growing desire to break free from the path set before her soon threatens her existence and alienates her from her closest allies: her mother Francine, her sister Connie, and her aunt Christine. Fresh Kills stars Emily Bader as Rose, Odessa A'zion, Jennifer Esposito, Domenick Lombardozzi, Nicholas Cirillo, and Annabella Sciorra. This played at a few film festivals last year and will be opening in select US theaters this June. A very powerful trailer! This is actually seems like it might be worth a look.

Here's the official trailer (+ poster) for Jennifer Esposito's film Fresh Kills, direct from YouTube:

Fresh Kills Posters

In her debut as a writer-director, actress Jennifer Esposito (Blue Bloods, Summer Of Sam, Crash) brings late 1980s Staten Island to vivid life through the lens of Rose Larusso (Emily Bader), an inquisitive young girl who discovers that her father (Domenick Lombardozzi) is an emerging mafia kingpin. Rose’s growing desire to break free from the path set before her soon threatens her existence and alienates her from her closest allies: her mother Francine (Esposito), her sister Connie (Odessa A'zion), and her aunt Christine (Annabella Sciorra). Fresh Kills is written and directed by Italian-American actress / filmmaker Jennifer Esposito, making her feature directorial debut after only just some producing work previously. Produced by Christine Crokos, Jennifer Esposito, Leslie Ann Owen, and Samantha Sprecher. Quiver Distr. will release Esposito's Fresh Kills film in select US theaters starting on June 14th, 2024 this summer. Look any good?
Quiver Distribution revealed the official trailer for Fresh Kills, the indie drama film directed by and starring Jennifer Esposito, along with Emily Bader, Odessa A’zion, Domenick Lombardozzi, and Annabella Sciorra.

The drama follows the women of the Larusso crime family as they navigate mob life in 1980’s New York City

Release Date
Directed by Jennifer Esposito, marking her directorial debut, Fresh Kills world premiered at Tribeca Festival and opens in theaters on June 14.

Synopsis
In her debut as a writer-director, actress Jennifer Esposito (Blue Bloods, Summer Of Sam, Crash) brings late 1980s Staten Island to vivid life through the lens of Rose Larusso (Emily Bader), an inquisitive young girl who discovers that her father (Domenick Lombardozzi) is an emerging mafia kingpin. Rose’s growing desire to break free from the path set before her soon threatens her existence and alienates her from her closest allies: her mother Francine (Esposito), her sister Connie (Odessa A’zion), and her aunt Christine (Annabella Sciorra).

Reviews
The Film Stage review gave the film a grade of C+, writing, “While not reaching The Sopranos‘ level of tragedy and nuance, Fresh Kills feels very much of its universe, bursting with authenticity even if its rapid pace, compressing many of the events, gives a disjointed feel until the final act. This is the kind of family where talking about feelings is discouraged, yet this film plays a bit cold compared to the vulnerability expressed in David Chase’s series. The third act, set largely in 1997, starts paying off as walls continue to close in.”

Variety review called the film an ‘effective drama’, writing, “Despite the title, “Fresh Kills” is an organized crime tale whose body count and violence remains largely offscreen. What grips us is the fear that those things might at any moment invade the domestic lives depicted, and the resulting tension that suffuses everyday doings. The denial Rose has lived in — naively asking wised-up Connie “Is Dad an honest man?” — eventually collapses in the worst way possible. Even then, however, the emphasis isn’t on dirty deeds done, but the compromises these women make (knowingly or otherwise) to accommodate them. They married into being, or were born as, accessories.”

Official Trailer
Watch the official trailer for Fresh Kills.
Family ties are tested in Jennifer Esposito's directorial debut, Fresh Kills, as Rose must choose between loyalty and freedom.
Intense and family-oriented, the film's trailer will appeal to fans of The Sopranos and Goodfellas.
Jennifer Esposito's successful transition from actress to filmmaker is showcased in the crime thriller, set to premiere on June 14.
No matter how well you may get along with one another, family can be tough. Whether it’s harshly differing viewpoints or just small spats, there’s no one out there who has a perfect relationship with their blood relatives. Such can be said twofold for the leading character of Jennifer Esposito’s (Crash) directorial debut, Fresh Kills, as teenager, Rose Larusso (Emily Bader, My Lady Jane), finds herself questioning the world she grew up in. Collider’s thrilled to exclusively debut the trailer for the Quiver Distribution film, which arrives on June 14. Caught between the bond to her own flesh and blood and a life outside the crime-ridden underbelly of 1980s Staten Island, the trailer forces Rose to make an impossible decision - betray the ones she loves and live for herself, or betray herself and live for her family.

Intense, family-oriented, and overflowing with Staten Island accents, the trailer for Fresh Kills will be right up the alley for fans of similarly themed titles like The Sopranos and Goodfellas. The Larusso family is captained by its patriarch, Joe (Domenick Lombardozzi, Boardwalk Empire), a hothead and the leader of an organized crime syndicate. Joe’s wife, Francine (Esposito), and her daughter, Connie (Odessa A’zion) have always rolled with the punches (both figuratively and literally), accepting that they live the high life because of the sometimes illegal dealings that Joe’s involved with. But, as she journeys through her teenage years, the family's youngest daughter, Rose (Bader), has a difficult time accepting that her father isn’t the “honest man” she wants him to be and weighs the possibility of cutting all ties. The film also stars Anabella Sciorra (The Sopranos), Nicholas Cirillo (Outer Banks), and David Iacono (The Summer I Turned Pretty).

Jennifer Esposito’s First Foray Into Filmmaking
The poster for Jennifer Esposito's Fresh Kills
Esposito has had an incredibly fruitful career in front of the camera, through both big-screen roles in films like Summer of Sam and Crash as well as on TV, in titles including Spin City, Blue Bloods, and The Boys. All those years spent working as an actress in the entertainment biz led Espositio to pursue a path in filmmaking, which she’s successfully done with Fresh Kills. Adding more credits to her name for the production, Esposito also penned and produced the crime thriller, with Leslie Ann Owen, Christine Crokos, and Samantha Sprecher joining her in the latter. Adding their names as executive producers are Jason Weinberg and Christos V. Konstantakopoulos.

Check out the brand-new poster above and exclusive first look at the trailer for Fresh Kills below before watching it on June 14, 2024.
‘Fresh Kills’ Review: Jennifer Esposito’s Debut Depicts Mob Life From the Wives’ and Daughters’ POV
The veteran actor’s writing-directing debut is an effective drama about the women characters usually left on the margins of organized crime tales.

By Dennis Harvey

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Fresh Kills
Mob narratives seldom place women front and center, unless it’s in a flat-out comedy (“Married to the Mob,” recent “Mafia Mamma”) or campy TV movies like “Mafia Princess” and “Bella Mafia.” No stranger to the genre as an actress, Jennifer Esposito attempts to balance that ledger with her debut as writer-director, “Fresh Kills.”

This solid drama centers on a family not unlike “The Sopranos,” but with its patriarch mostly pushed to the background. The focus here is on wives and daughters, who must turn a blind eye to criminal doings from which they both benefit and suffer the consequences. Originally a Tribeca premiere, “Fresh Kills” has been traveling the festival circuit and should prove a viable item for streaming platforms and broadcasters.

After a framing sequence that fast-forwards to a later moment of crisis, we meet the Larussos in 1987 as they’re moving on up to a “better life” from their old Brooklyn one, taking over a fairly palatial Staten Island address. This upward mobility doesn’t do much to quell the volatile marital chemistry between Joe (Domenick Lombardozzi) and Francine (Esposito), or fundamentally change their two children, with Rose remaining the “quiet one” while Connie is her brash opposite.

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As the two girls become young women played by Emily Bader and Odessa A’Zion, those characteristics only deepen — Rose’s passivity makes her easily pushed around by everyone, in particular her hotheaded sibling. “You are part of this family whether you like it or not,” she is told, and any whiff that she may not like it incites furious lectures from “Con” about family loyalty, sometimes accompanied by a physical threat. When Rose hints she might want something more than engagement to neighbor Bobby (David Iacono), or managing the bakery her father bought to keep Connie and troubled cousin Allie (Nick Cirillo) “out of trouble,” she’s given an angry earful of “Ya think ya bettah than us?!?” Even the mother who treats her as a confidante doesn’t want her getting any notions of independence.

These characters don’t really evolve, or get revealed as more complex than they first appear; Esposito’s screenplay has authenticity but not a lot of depth or surprise. Still, her relatively narrow focus is well-served by performances and direction that fill it out with lived-in assurance.

Despite the title, “Fresh Kills” is an organized crime tale whose body count and violence remains largely offscreen. What grips us is the fear that those things might at any moment invade the domestic lives depicted, and the resulting tension that suffuses everyday doings. The denial Rose has lived in — naively asking wised-up Connie “Is Dad an honest man?” — eventually collapses in the worst way possible. Even then, however, the emphasis isn’t on dirty deeds done, but the compromises these women make (knowingly or otherwise) to accommodate them. They married into being, or were born as, accessories.

In the showier of the two lead roles, A’Zion convinces with a scary volatility that makes Connie roughly equivalent to James Caan’s “Godfather” part, or De Niro’s in “Mean Streets”: the explosive live wire whose recklessness seems to invite doom, though her fate isn’t quite as anticipated. Bader carries the film ably enough, even if Rose could have used a little more elaborating of the intelligence we’re meant to assume she possesses (like more than her one big idea being to try out for a job on Sally Jessy Raphael’s TV show.)

She gets an accusatory climactic speech that feels a bit forced, as does one just prior for the always welcome Annabella Sciorra, who’s otherwise underutilized as a supportive aunt. Esposito herself is fine as the simultaneously dissatisfied and resigned Francine, though the suggestion of real mental instability in one early sequence goes unexplored. Lombardozzi and the other male cast members are effective, however few glimpses are given into their money laundering, murders and whatnot.

Professional rather than particularly distinctive in its stylistic aspects, the production makes its most assertive aesthetic impression via production designer T.V. Alexander’s garish decor (Francine fancies herself talented in that regard), plus the big hair and loud fashions of the late-’80s/early-’90s era. The film could have had more fun with vintage cuts on the soundtrack, settling for some rather weak covers of Radiohead and others. But overall it evokes a highly specific milieu with finesse, eschewing cultural caricature.

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Fresh Kills, Jennifer Esposito, Red Sea Film Festival
‘Fresh Kills’ Review: Jennifer Esposito’s Debut Depicts Mob Life From the Wives’ and Daughters’ POV
Reviewed online, Dec. 8, 2023. In Tribeca, Red Sea, Palm Springs film festivals. Running time: 119 MIN.
Production: A Fresh Kills Prods. production. (World sales: The Exchange, Los Angeles.) Producers: Leslie Ann Owen, Jennifer Esposito, Christine Crokos, Samantha Sprecher. Executive producers: Jesper Vesterstroem, Jason Weinberg, Christopher Tricarico, Harsh Padia, Purvi Padia, Ali Sabet, Deborah Raymond, Freddy Raymond, Michael Bassick, Michael Laundon, Pierre Romain. Co-producer: Todd Sandler.
Crew: Director, writer: Jennifer Esposito. Camera: Ben Hardwicke. Editor: Todd Sandler. Music: Theodosia Roussos.
With: Emily Bader, Odessa A’Zion, Jennifer Esposito, Domenick Lombardozzi, Nick Cirillo, Annabella Sciorra, Stelio Savante, Callie Thorne, David Iacono, Franco Maicas, Luciana VanDette.