Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Andrew Sanford | News | June 23, 2026
There wasn’t a lot to do where I grew up in Western Massachusetts. You could go “muddin’,” which is when you put new tires on your car or truck and go drive in the mud. We had a mall, but that started to shut down toward my senior year of high school. Oh, and there’s coke and meth. Lots and lots of coke and meth. Still, the activity I found was theater, and as soon as I took that beyond my high school, I was hit with an unfortunate fact: some people take it way too seriously.
I wasn’t immune to that, of course, as I was in my teens and still trying to develop my brain. I distinctly remember having “senior chats” with kids in lower grades that make me cringe just thinking about them (luckily, none of those kids were turned off to theater by my high-and-mighty attitude). I had learned it from several adults over the years who would treat community performances and their position in them as the most important thing in the world. It sucked, and is shown in a much better light in the trailer for Jesse Eisenberg’s The Debut.
In the trailer, we see Julianne Moore (already off to a great start) as an older mother whose life has seemingly slipped away from her. Now, she’s reclaiming her time and performing in a local musical for an overly-dramatic director played by Paul Giamatti (hell yes). While the show seems to give Moore some much-needed confidence, it seemingly starts to get to her head (been there, girl) as the trailer ramps up and she takes the stage. It looks fantastic.
Moore and Giamatti are on fire in the trailer, and, given the film’s fall release, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see their names bandied about come Oscar season. It’s early, and I haven’t seen the film yet, but these two actors are cast in roles that very much fit their strengths, and Jesse Eisenberg, who wrote and directed the film, directed Kieran Culkin to his first Oscar in an equally fitting casting choice. The pieces are all there!
Just try to enjoy this trailer about people in a community making art together, even though it’s produced by A24, which just signed a deal with Google to train AI. Boooo, A24. Booooo.
