Marketed as a “mysterious comedy-drama”, Richard Linklater’s 20th features a short- and dark-haired hairy version of Cate Blanchett, starring as an architect long past her prime time who finds a very peculiar way of spicing up her life and her career, thereby challenging a mid-life crisis. It is based on the eponymous runaway bestseller by American novelist Maria Semple.

In the second trailer 0f Where’d You Go Bernadette (you can see the first one here, launched last December), we see our protagonist Bernadette Fox (Blanchett), a doting mother and wife, increasingly frustrated at her petty problems, particularly a feud with a woman living next door. When the situation spirals out of control and the neighbourly relationship collapses (alongside with the wall between the two houses), Bernadette simply “disappears”. We soon learn that she taken up a new career challenge… in Antarctica!

This looks like a major step away from director’s previous endeavour, the sombre and meditative Last Flag Flying (2017), while still dealing with confusion and turmoil in the average American family. Cathartic fun for the bored and embittered middle-aged American professional, who has created a loving family and encountered enough financial stability, and yet remains keen to “break free”, however unorthodox the solution might be!

Where’d You Go Bernadette is out in cinemas across the UK in the second half of 2019. The exact release date is yet to be confirmed.