Amazon is still keeping its cards close to its chest with the teasers for The Underground Railroad, Barry Jenkins’ adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. The new teaser is barely 30 seconds of beautiful footage, but importantly, it finally reveals the release date for the show.
The Underground Railroad follows Cora Randall (Thuso Mbedu), who escapes a Georgia plantation in search of the Underground Railroad—and finds an actual railroad. “Free or runaway?” a conductor asks Cora, who answers, “I’m not sure.” She is pursued by a bounty hunter, Ridgeway (Joel Edgerton), who is fixated on capturing Cora for personal reasons: Her mother is the one person the hunter never managed to catch.
Jenkins, an Oscar nominee for Moonlight, directed all ten episodes of The Underground Railroad. He has released a handful of gorgeous teasers on his Vimeo page, including one in which all the footage and the score run backwards. The scenes are all lush and atmospheric, showcasing gorgeous work from Jenkins’ frequent collaborators, cinematographer James Laxton and composer Nicholas Britell (Laxton and Britell both worked with Jenkins on Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk).
Amazon isn’t holding this one back for weekly releases; all ten episodes will be available on May 14th.
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