Antebellum’s first trailer made it obvious that Janelle Monáe’s Veronica Henley was destined to become mixed up in all types of wildly dangerous situations over the course of the film. What wasn’t clear was whether the racist dangers she was facing were from the present day or whether, somehow, Veronica was literally dealing with people from the past.
The movie’s new trailer doesn’t exactly spell things out explicitly, but it leans into the idea that when Veronica ends up being captured and enslaved in the past, she’s still aware of her life in the present day, which is what makes her that much more determined to escape from and destroy her captors.
The trailer makes it seem as if Antebellum might exist in a similar narrative space to Octavia Butler’s Kindred, but just as it looks like time travel is the thing that’s driving the story forward, what the characters say in the trailer suggests that whatever Veronica’s dealing with might actually be set in the present day.
Antebellum, written and directed by Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz, and also starring Jena Malone, Kiersey Clemons, Gabourey Sidibe, Jack Huston, and Eric Lang hits theatres May 7.