I do not feature Justin Timberlake in any way, shape, or form. I was a fervent NSYNC stan and I was annoyed that Justin got the star treatment as opposed to JC, who had the best voice from any boyband of the era. I will never forgive him for how he left Janet Jackson out to dry. I hated how his watered-down R&B was so palatable to a certain genre of people who compared him to Michael Jackson. I rolled my eyes when he made the pivot to being a Man in the Woods to shine a spotlight on Americana after he made all his money on Black radio.
In short, if Justin Timberlake is in a movie, I do not care. The movie can be great and I still won’t watch it because he’s in it.
Until this one.
He has a beard, he looks old and haggard, and he’s grumbling all of his lines, so that’s the three ingredients for a Serious Actor right there. I was ready to turn off the trailer because I don’t care about his character and I don’t care about the actor playing his character.
And then Sam shows up with a Barbie doll and I was hooked. I haven’t seen this story before! It could go left. It could be another Heartwarming Tale for Straight People where the queer character is basically used to teach the main character something about themselves, but I’m not getting that this time. It’s reading like a classic outcast story of two people reaching out for each other after being shunned by their community. It’s why I was a nerdy little gay kid sitting with the goths at lunchtime when I was outed.
The script is a (debut, I think) screenplay from Cheryl Guerriero, a novelist who grew up a lesbian star athlete, so I trust her to have a deft hand writing a young gender-non-conforming character. A quickdive into social media has turned up Amy Allen, the mother of the actor who plays Sam, and she very much gives me Millennial White Mom with Good Politics vibes, and the account she runs for her son has a post featuring his gay vocal coach on a gay suicide advert. I just finished Raising Dion, and the stressed out Alicia Keys mother on the show (Alisha Wainwright), plays Justin’s love interest in Palmer, so I’m very much here for that. Plus, Juno Temple is in it and she rarely picks a bad project.
So Palmer is looking like the serious heartstrings project to take Justin Timberlake into the next phase of his career, but it also looks like a fresh take on a current topic and possibly a story of acceptance that some of us need to see. Despite my JTim reservations, I’m putting this one on the list.
Still skipping his verses on No Strings Attached though.
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