Alicia Vikander is a Haunted Ex-Pat in First Earthquake Bird Trailer

Well here’s a delicious-looking new thriller. Netflix has just released the first look at writer/director Wash Westmoreland’s Earthquake Bird (produced by Ridley Scott, no less). The film is based on Susanna Jones’ novel and stars Alicia Vikander as Lucy Fly, an ex-pat living in Tokyo in 1989 who gets involved with a photographer named Teji (Naoki Kobayashi). At first blush, Lucy and Teji’s relationship seems to be that off two very intense oddballs who have found each other and eagerly embark on one of those edgy, off-kilter romances that never seem to end well in the movies. Either does this one, it seems! Enter Lily Bridges (Riley Keough), a newcomer to Japan who inserts herself into the young couple’s lives and then vanishes completely. The Tokyo police are convinced she’s been murdered. Lucy Fly appears to be a suspect. What’s real, what’s in Lucy’s head, and what exactly happened to Lily are the threads that Earthquake Bird will weave and unspool.

The film was shot in and around Toyko, and looks like a riveting, potentially highly disturbing thriller in the vein of The Girl on the Train, Tate Taylor’s adaptation of Paula Hawkins’ book in which an unreliable protagonist (Emily Blunt’s Rachel) was implicated in a murder. The cast is excellent, and Vikander is one of the most intriguing performers working today.

Check out the trailer here:

Here’s the official synopsis from Netflix:

A psychologically unsettling and atmospheric thriller set in 1989 Tokyo from director Wash Westmoreland (Colette, Still Alice), Earthquake Bird follows Lucy Fly (Alicia Vikander), an enigmatic ex-pat haunted by a painful past, who enters into an intense relationship with Teiji (Naoki Kobayashi), a handsome yet similarly troubled local photographer. Lucy’s imperturbable exterior begins to crack when a naive newcomer, Lily Bridges (Riley Keough), becomes entangled in their lives and ends up missing – suspected dead.

Earthquake Bird streams on November 15, 2019.

Featured image: L-r: Riley Keough and Alicia Vikander in Earthquake Bird. Courtesy Netflix.