Directed by Padraic McKinley, “The Weight” premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival to strong reviews and ranked third in IndieWire’s critics’ poll of the fest.
Written by Matthew Booi, Shelby Gaines, and Leo Scherman, this adventure‑thriller is led by Oscar-winning Russell Crowe as Clancy and five‑time Oscar nominee Ethan Hawke as Samuel Murphy, a recently incarcerated man, with Julia Jones as Anna, a headstrong Indigenous runaway.
The trailer comes out. starting with Samuel, played by Ethan Hawke, a prisoner who is desperate to return to his daughter before she is permanently placed into the state adoption system. At that point, Warden Clancy (Russell Crowe) offers Samuel a chance at early release if he leads a crew of dangerous prisoners to smuggle stolen government gold out of a remote mine. Throughout the journey, the primary tension remains Samuel’s drive to reunite with his daughter, prioritizing her over the gold he has been tasked to protect.
Padraic McKinley—known for his TV work on The Good Lord Bird, The Loudest Voice, and Fightworld—makes his directorial debut with a film that has landed a 94% “Fresh” score on Rotten Tomatoes.
American actor and filmmaker Ethan Green Hawke made his screen debut at just fourteen in Explorers (1985), before earning wide recognition with Dead Poets Society in 1989. Over the course of his career, Hawke has built a reputation as one of the most versatile talents of his generation, collecting a Daytime Emmy Award and amassing nominations for five Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, two BAFTA Awards, and a Tony Award.
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