First look at Gia Coppola’s Venice entry ‘Mainstream’ with Maya Hawke and Andrew Garfield

The Venice Orizzonti section film also stars Nat Wolff, Alexa Demie and Jason Schwartzman

Just above Hollywood boulevard, lives Frankie (Maya Hawke) a young woman in her early 20s trying to navigate who she wants to be. With the death of Frankie’s father still lingering, Frankie knows she wants to do something of meaning but isn’t sure how and with the world in a current state of so much content and narcissism, it’s hard to not “compare and despair.” Stuck working as a bartender at a corner comedy club with her best friend Jake (Nat Wolff) Frankie questions what people today really value.

It isn’t until she has a few cosmic run ins with the mysterious Link (Andrew Garfield), a man that seems to live life without rules that it inspires Frankie to film him and upload his anti-mainstream rants onto the internet. Together, with the help of Jake, this unlikely band of outsiders rise to internet stardom.

However, it’s hard to stay sane when the pressure of relevancy becomes important and new characters, like manager Mark, (Jason Schwartzman) start making demands to bring in money.   To make matters more complicated, Frankie and Link start getting romantically entwined.  Frankie watches as Link becomes the epitome of everything he once denounced. It isn’t until Link publicly humiliates a young fan Isabel (Alexa Demie) and Jake quits the team that Frankie really questions if she is also becoming the monster she helped create.

A love story of being in love with someone who doesn’t love themselves set against the new emerging culture of today’s world.

Mainstream is an official selection of the 2020 Venice International Film Festival in the Orizzonti section. It is directed by Gia Coppola, written by Coppola and Tom Stuart and produced by Fred Berger p.g.a., Gia Coppola, Lauren Bratman p.g.a., Andrew Garfield, Siena Oberman p.g.a., Jack Heller p.g.a., Enrico Saraiva, Francisco Rebelo de Andrade, Alan Terpins, Zac Weinstein.

The 77th Venice International Film Festival runs September 2-12 in a limited format due to the coronavirus pandemic.

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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