American audiences will get to see the full, four-and-a-half hour version of Lars Von Trier’s sex epic Nymphomaniac, but it will require two trips to movie theaters. Magnolia Pictures announced how it plans on handling the film today. It stars Charlotte Gainsbourg, Shia LaBeouf, Christian Slater, Willem DaFoe, Uma Thurman and many others.
The distributor will release the first half of the film on March 12 and the second half on April 18. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Magnolia will also release it on Video On Demand, with the two parts available on March 6 and April 3, respectively.
In the film, Gainsbourg, who also starred in Von Trier’s Antichrist and Melancholia, plays Joe, who recounts her sexual experiences from youth to adulthood for an older bachelor (Stellan Skarsgard). Stacy Martin plays a young Joe and other members of the cast include Sophie Kennedy Clark, Connie Nielsen, Udo Kier, Jamie Bell, Mia Goth and Jean-Marc Barr.
The two part film will be screened in the director’s native Denmark all at once when it premieres on Christmas Day, but producer Louise Vesth told THR that most distributors do not plan on showing the parts all at once.
Meanwhile, there is also a longer version that goes past five hours and has even more graphic sex. That’s expected to be screened at festivals and will possibly get a special screening at Cannes.
The first full trailer for the film was released last month.
image: NymphomaniacTheMovie.com