In Cathy Yan's The Gallerist, a dead body becomes the hottest piece at Art Basel. The trailer for the dark comedy, starring Natalie Portman and Jenna Ortega, arrived Thursday ahead of the film's Dec. 4 theatrical release from Roadside Attractions and Vertical, The Playlist reported.
Portman plays Polina Polinski, a Miami gallery owner trying to get her business on solid ground after a messy divorce. Her break comes in the worst way possible: an obnoxious art influencer, played by Zach Galifianakis, accidentally impales himself on a giant sculpture by rising artist Stella Burgess, played by Da'Vine Joy Randolph. Instead of calling the authorities, Polina and her assistant Kiki, played by Ortega, decide to present the body as a provocative new work. Things spiral from there.
A Sundance satire with a deep bench
Catherine Zeta-Jones co-stars as Marianne Gorman, a powerful dealer and Kiki's aunt who sees dollar signs in the scheme. Sterling K. Brown plays Polina's wealthy ex-husband, Daniel Bruhl plays an aspiring collector and Charli XCX appears as the influencer's girlfriend.
Yan, who directed Birds of Prey, co-wrote the screenplay with James Pedersen and has described the film as a dark satire of the art world. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, and Roadside Attractions and Vertical acquired it after the festival.
For Cup of Soul readers, the cast is the headline. Ortega, Randolph and Brown share the frame in a comedy that takes aim at who gets to decide what art is worth and who profits from it, a question that has long shaped how artists of color are valued, collected and credited.
The December date places The Gallerist in a crowded holiday corridor. See what else is on the calendar in Cup of Soul's 2026 Holiday Film Guide: Black and Brown Stories to See This Season, and catch up on Ortega's year with Klara and the Sun.
