“Ben Is Back” with Devastating New Poster and Trailer

Julia Roberts will be back in a big way this fall. While she's still averaged a movie a year for the last decade, she's no longer the cultural force she was in the '90s. But she's making her first foray into TV (as more than a guest star) with Amazon's mysterious Homecoming miniseries. And she'll be making a play for another Oscar nomination as Holly Burns in Ben Is Back.

As the mother of the troubled Ben (Oscar nominee Lucas Hedges), she'll get plenty of chances to showcase her acting chops, even on the new poster below. When Ben shows up on Christmas Eve after years away, he brings a flurry of emotions and big trouble. He's alive – which wasn't always a certainty – but may not be for long, since he's still in deep with a local drug dealer.

It will be another family affair for Peter Hedges, who only makes movies about close-knit families. This time it will be literal, as he's directing his son Lucas (Manchester by the Sea) for the first time.

Ben Is Back opens in limited release December 7, and should expand throughout the winter. Bring some tissues.

About Kip Mooney

Like many film critics born during and after the 1980s, my hero is Roger Ebert. The man was already the best critic in the nation when he won the Pulitzer in 1975, but his indomitable spirit during and after his recent battle with cancer keeps me coming back to read not only his reviews but his insightful commentary on the everyday. But enough about a guy you know a lot about. I knew I was going to be a film critic—some would say a snob—in middle school, when I had to voraciously defend my position that The Royal Tenenbaums was only a million times better than Adam Sandler’s remake of Mr. Deeds. From then on, I would seek out Wes Anderson’s films and avoid Sandler’s like the plague. Still, I like to think of myself as a populist, and I’ll be just as likely to see the next superhero movie as the next Sundance sensation. The thing I most deplore in a movie is laziness. I’d much rather see movies with big ambitions try and fail than movies with no ambitions succeed at simply existing. I’m also a big advocate of fun-bad movies like The Room and most of Nicolas Cage’s work. In the past, I’ve written for The Dallas Morning News and the North Texas Daily, which I edited for a semester. I also contributed to Dallas-based Pegasus News, which in the circle of life, is now part of The Dallas Morning News, where I got my big break in 2007. Eventually, I’d love to write and talk about film full-time, but until that’s a viable career option, I work as an auditor for Wells Fargo. I hope to one day meet my hero, go to the Toronto International Film Festival, and compete on Jeopardy. Until then, I’m excited to share my love of film with you.