The so-called first 10 minutes of All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, starring Amber Heard (below), is now online, courtesy of Yahoo’s UK site (it’s actually more like eight-and-a-half minutes, for the record), and the good advance buzz on the movie looks more and more justified. There’s a long, complicated and typically Weinstein-ian history to this film and its several delays, but things are now pointed in the right direction, insofar as The Weinstein Company has divested themselves of domestic releasing responsibilities — probably a good thing for all parties involved, given the shoddy treatment it would have received in the wake of “creative differences” squabbles, allegedly over gore, other trims and running time.

Given what’s on display, I think the Weinsteins may have been freaked out by how nice-looking a product they had on their hands. The film’s trailer proper is a thing of slow-building and highly evocative stalking terror — several wide shots conjure up recollections of genre touchstones like I Spit on Your Grave and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, both the original and Marcus Nispel’s gorgeously shot re-imagining. And beyond the nicely restrained, impressionistic introductions, the film’s opening party scene — in which a bullied kid seemingly stuck in “friendship alley” uses his wits to coerce a jockish romantic rival for Mandy’s affections into taking a stupid risk — is its own nicely orchestrated chamber piece about teen egos and competitiveness. Most striking, though, is the self-conscious underwear posing by the bullied best friend, prior to a poolside sequence.

Not to gloss over debut screenwriter Jacob Forman’s contributions, but one can tell that music video director Jonathan Levine — who just had his second feature effort, The Wackness, premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival — worked this thing out in his head. If the
rest of the movie is this well ordered and smart, no matter the familiarity of the plot trappings, I’ll be mightily impressed. Regardless, the trailer and this advance look has definitely aroused my interest. Mandy Lane opens next month in the United Kingdom, and is set for a March Stateside bow, from upstart Senator Entertainment.