Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson is showing off her darker side in her new film The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Peter, which will make it’s world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival January 25.
The nearly 2-hour drama showcases how “a deglamorized Hudson displays dramatic chops that have been underused since Dreamgirls, landing some moving moments,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The film is about two abandoned small boys trying to survive in a Brooklyn project, and stars not one but two American Idol veterans, Hudson and Jordin Sparks, as women facing the hardships of inner city life.
The script was written by Michael Starrburry and co-produced by Alicia Keys. Skylan Brooks, Anthony Mackie, Jeffrey Wright and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje round out the cast.
Sundance describes The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete as “a beautifully observed and tremendously moving film about salvation through friendship and the way transformation sometimes can happen just by holding on long enough.”
During a sweltering summer in New York City, 14-year-old Mister’s hard-living mother is apprehended by the police, leaving the boy and nine-year-old Pete alone to forage for food while dodging child protective services and the destructive scenarios of the Brooklyn projects. Faced with more than any child can be expected to bear, the resourceful Mister nevertheless feels he is an unstoppable force against seemingly unmovable obstacles. But what really keeps the pair in the survival game is much more Mister’s vulnerability than his larger-than-life attitude.
Follow Chris Witherspoon on Twitter at @WitherspoonC