Lucy In The Sky Trailer Sends Natalie Portman To Space

Lucy Cola is about to lose her grip on reality.

The first full-length trailer for Lucy in the Sky, the sci-fi drama starring Natalie Portman as an astronaut determined to return to space following a transcendent experience, was released on Monday, August 26 — and it is intense. 

It opens with Lucy alone, in the vastness of space, being told over comm that "it's time to wrap it up." 

"Just a few more minutes," she says as light from Earth flickers in her eyes. 

There are flashes of Lucy's life back home — Fourth of July fireworks, a midday drive, an afternoon in the yard. But Lucy is obsessed with returning to space. There's foreshadowing of what will become of her — specifically during a conversation between Lucy and Dr. Plimpton (Nick Offerman), in which he relates the story of astronaut Michael Collins, whose own experience on Apollo 11 left him feeling "absolutely alone." 

Lucy begins an affair with Mark Goodwin (Jon Hamm) and subsequently becomes distracted, more detached from her everyday life. She skips sessions with Dr. Plimpton, which raises concerns. At one point, Lucy opens an email addressed to the NASA crew chief, which calls her out for being inconsistent and erratic, insinuating that she isn't cut out for the program. Eventually, she is pulled, and the rest of the trailer sees Lucy on a steady mental decline. She tears wallpaper from the walls and walks through the rain wearing a blonde wig. In the final scene, a police officer pulls her over and asks what it's like in space. "Only place where anything makes sense," she tells him.

Lucy in the Sky is directed by Noah Hawley, the visionary mind behind Fargo and Legion. It certainly looks as though he'll be bringing some of that same type of imagery to Lucy in the Sky, albeit on a somewhat subdued scale. 

The story is loosely based on the life of former astronaut Lisa Nowak, who in 2007 drove more than 900 miles from Houston to Orlando in order to kill a woman who was also involved in a romantic relationship with Nowak's lover. While it's clear that Lucy in the Sky will pull elements from the original story (the wig, some tools she grabs from a hardware store shelf that will most likely be used as weapons), it doesn't seem as though that will be the main focus here. Instead, Lucy in the Sky looks like it will explore the relationship between loneliness and sanity, set against the backdrop of outer space.

Lucy in the Sky hits theaters October 4.