Hilary Swank goes back home in ‘What They Had’ trailer

Bleecker Street has revealed the trailer for its family drama heart-tugger, What They Had, and it could be an awards-season favorite.

Two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank (Boys Don’t Cry, Million Dollar Baby) stars as Bridget Ertz, a woman who returns home to Chicago at her brother’s (two-time Oscar nominee Michael Shannon) urging after their Alzheimer’s-stricken mother Ruth (two-time Emmy winner Blythe Danner) wanders off in the middle of a blizzard. Between the struggle of her personal life and the reluctance of her father (Oscar nominee Robert Forster) to consider putting Ruth in a home, long-held resentments come to the surface and the family is forced to deal with them directly for the first time. The film debuted at this year’s Sundance Film Festival to strong reviews for the cast, and especially Swank.

What They Had is the first feature for actress/writer/director Elizabeth Chomko (Terriers, Common Law) and also stars Taissa Farmiga (American Horror Story) and Josh Lucas (SweetHome Alabama).

Bleecker Street will release What They Had on October 12th. Here is the first trailer and poster.

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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), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) 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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