First look lands for Only What We Carry, starring Quentin Tarantino and Simon Pegg

Deadline debuts a still of Simon Pegg and Sofia Boutella as a seemingly blissful couple ahead of the film’s release.

Quentin Tarantino is stepping back in front of the camera, and we have the first look at the movie he picked to do it. A debut image from Only What We Carry is out, showing Simon Pegg and Sofia Boutella looking like the kind of couple you put on a postcard — content, maybe even happy — which is probably not how things stay.

The film

Only What We Carry is a drama set along the windswept French coast in Deauville. Pegg plays Julian Johns, once a force at the Moulin Rouge, now a recluse holed up in a chateau while he writes his memoir. His quiet routine cracks when former dancer Charlotte Levant (Boutella) tracks him down after a news item gives away his location. Their reunion pushes both of them into the mess they left unresolved: grief that never got processed, truths that never got spoken, and the price tags on the lives they chose.

Production has already wrapped. The project is heading to the European Film Market in Berlin to kick off world sales.

Tarantino, the actor (again)

Here’s the eye-catcher: this is Tarantino’s first major on-screen role since 1996’s From Dusk Till Dawn. He pops up in his own films from time to time, sure, but taking a sizable part in someone else’s movie has basically been off his menu for nearly three decades. In this one, he plays Julian’s publisher — a guy who actually lives at the chateau while Julian writes, which tells you a lot about the kind of control-freak editor we might be getting.

For context: From Dusk Till Dawn had him sharing the screen with Harvey Keitel, George Clooney, Juliette Lewis, Cheech Marin, Fred Williamson, and Salma Hayek. Since then, he has mostly kept acting at arm’s length. What pulled him into this particular project is anyone’s guess, but the fit is intriguing.

Who’s involved

• Simon Pegg as Julian Johns, a once-formidable Moulin Rouge artistic director now living in isolation
• Sofia Boutella as Charlotte Levant, the former dancer who finds him
• Quentin Tarantino as Julian’s publisher, living on-site at the chateau
• Charlotte Gainsbourg as Charlotte’s fiercely protective sister
• Liam Hellmann in a supporting role
• Lizzy McAlpine (yes, the singer) making an appearance
• Written and directed by Jamie Adams

Meanwhile, on the directing front...

Tarantino is still circling his self-declared tenth and final feature, but nothing’s moving fast. He’d been developing a project titled The Movie Critic, then stepped away from it, leaving the next film — if it happens at all — behind a curtain for now.

Only What We Carry is finished, packaged, and heading to buyers. The first image suggests warmth; the logline promises bruises. I’m in.