It’s not totally unheard of for Sarah Silverman to do serious roles anymore, but it is still pretty rare—especially when the role is as serious as this one seems to be. According to Variety, she’s going to star in a new “psychological thriller” called Viral opposite Blair Underwood (who is also directing and producing). The movie is about a man whose wife has disappeared, leaving him deeply paranoid, and the only thing that can pull him out is a new relationship with a “victims advocate and self-help blogger” with “her own demons” (Silverman) who he meets in therapy. Variety says Viral “will explore if they are strong enough to get past their own nightmares and mental illnesses to find true happiness together.”
That sounds vaguely problematic, in terms of stigmatizing mental health problems, but mostly it just sounds like the premise for a full-on drama and not a psychological thriller. If we had to guess, then, we’d say that something is almost certainly up with Silverman’s character, which may lead into why a movie about a man dealing with his wife’s mysterious disappearance is called Viral and not… Disappearance or whatever. Whatever’s going on, Underwood promises that Silverman is “going to be an absolute revelation” in the film, so that sounds exciting.