Trailer: Pauline Chalamet Stars In Dark Comedy What Doesn’t Float

In What Doesn’t Float, New Yorkers are at the end of their ropes.

Pauline Chalamet has left the gilded halls of fictional Essex Collage in Sex Lives of College Girls for a hot-pavement, gritty New York City in her upcoming film What Doesn’t Float, which is out this fall from Gummy Films, the production company she started with Rachel Walden (who recently worked on A24’s Funny Pages), and Luca Balser. It will be the first project from Chalamet and Walden. Balser, who worked on Uncut Gems, is directing.

Shot entirely on location with an NYC-based cast and crew, What Doesn’t Float is an anthology following seven stories. In the trailer, people are nearly getting hit by cars; they’re barreling headfirst on motorcycles to the beach; they’re kayaking through dirty park ponds; they’re yelling; they’re tired!

The official synopsis reads: “Seven stories. One city. A group of characters fill out this darkly comedic anthology of New Yorkers at their wits end. When the dailiness of urban life is suspended by unforeseen conflict, each character must make a decision. While the outcomes vary, a unified sense of the city emerges: New York becomes a mirror to the ego reflecting our true character, while the rest sinks to the bottom.” (Anyone who’s ever lived in New York can certainly attest to the madness that can ensue from the “unforeseen conflict” of daily life.)

The film also stars Chalamet (who we see aboard the back of said motorcycle), along with genre filmmaker/actor Larry Fessenden, Keith Poulson, and others. Funny Page’s Hunter Zimmy and Sean Price Williams are directors of photography.

What Doesn’t Float is is out in New York City on September 22 and elsewhere October 6, from Circle Collective, an offshoot of Utopia, who released Emma Seligman and Rachel Sennott’s cult favorite, career-launching Shiva Baby.

Watch the official trailer, below