Liam Hemsworth, Caleb Landry Jones join Paul Schrader’s ‘Non Compos Mentis’ the Erotic Thriller Hollywood Didn’t Know It Was Waiting For
Some films announce themselves quietly. Others walk into the room like they own it. Paul Schrader’s Non Compos Mentis falls firmly into the second camp.
The Oscar-nominated writer-director behind Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and the acclaimed ‘man in a room’ trilogy is returning to one of cinema’s most charged and underestimated genres: the Paul Schrader thriller.
Set to begin production in New York this spring, the film arrives at the European Film Market with an extraordinary cast and a premise so sharp it practically draws blood. Desire, dementia, betrayal, and a family fortune hanging in the balance. This is not a quiet film.
A Cast That Turns Heads at Every Film Market
When a project attaches Liam Hemsworth, Caleb Landry Jones, Sarah Pidgeon, and two-time Academy Award winner Dianne Wiest to a single call sheet, buyers pay attention. At the European Film Market in Berlin, where buzz travels faster than a private jet from LAX to Tegel, Non Compos Mentis is already the conversation.
Hemsworth, best known globally as Gale Hawthorne across the entire Hunger Games franchise through 2015’s Mockingjay Part 2, has spent recent years proving there is far more to him than dystopian archery. He has starred in The Witcher and in Lonely Planet for Netflix, both showing a quieter, more interior range. Here, he steps into the coiled tension of a New York defense attorney navigating a very dangerous affair.
Caleb Landry Jones, a Cannes Best Actor winner who is currently starring in Luc Besson’s Dracula, brings the kind of unpredictable intensity that makes even veteran cinephiles lean forward in their seats. His Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri performance is still discussed in film school seminars from Paris to Seoul.
Opposite him, Sarah Pidgeon earned a Tony nomination for her Broadway debut in David Adjmi’s Stereophonic and is about to headline FX’s Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette for executive producer Ryan Murphy.
Wiest, the last person on any set who needs an introduction, rounds out a cast of rare depth.
The Art of Beautiful Destruction
Schrader has always been interested in men standing at the edge of their own control. It is the thread running through Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle, through the gambling ascetic of The Card Counter, through the obsessive penitent of First Reformed.
Non Compos Mentis continues that tradition, but this time the arena is more intimate: a brownstone, a family, a lover, and a mother who is slowly disappearing into dementia.
“My films are often about men testing the limits of their own control. Here, control becomes an illusion, and the consequences are intimate, erotic, and finally destructive.”
Paul schrader
Those words land with weight when you consider how precisely Schrader has built his recent work. Solemn, interior, almost meditative. Non Compos Mentis sounds like the pressure valve finally releasing, trading solitude for volatility, monastery for Manhattan.
Producer David Gonzales, who has collaborated with Schrader on both Master Gardener and Oh, Canada, frames it with equal directness.
“Paul is returning to the erotic thriller to examine how desire can destabilize power within a family. With this exceptional cast, we’re building a film that is both intimate and explosive.”
Producer David Gonzales
The word ‘explosive’ does a lot of work in that sentence, and you suspect it earns every bit of it. If you have ever watched a Schrader film and felt the slow dread of a situation accelerating beyond anyone’s ability to stop it, you know exactly what kind of explosion he means. The kind that leaves no clean edges.
New York as a Character: Where Privilege Cracks at the Seams
Setting this story in New York is not incidental. The city has always been Schrader’s sharpest instrument. From the midnight streets of Taxi Driver to the Upper West Side unease that courses through so much of the city’s literary and cinematic tradition, New York is where American privilege and American anxiety share the same elevator.
Non Compos Mentis centers on two brothers, one a polished defense attorney, the other a hard-edged corporate heir, whose uneasy bond finally shatters when the attorney begins a consuming affair with a younger woman. Their mother’s decline into dementia, rather than drawing them together, becomes the territory over which they wage a ruthless battle for the family fortune. It is, at its core, a love triangle nested inside a succession drama, which sounds like something a particularly deranged Upper East Side estate lawyer might describe over a martini. If you have ever sat through a tense holiday dinner with relatives who are all pretending to be fine, this film will feel uncomfortably relatable.
Films like this tend to resonate from Tribeca screening rooms to Toronto midnight slots, from the Croisette cafe terraces where deals get done between espressos to the Berlinale lounges where European distributors circle promising acquisitions.
Non Compos Mentis has the architecture of a film that travels.
The Flavor of a Schrader Film: Rich, Bitter, and Hard to Forget
There is a particular flavor to a Schrader production that cinephiles recognize immediately. It is not comfortable viewing. His films taste like the finest, most austere single malt you have ever had: complex, slightly punishing, and completely impossible to put down.
Non Compos Mentis promises something slightly different. With an erotic thriller framework, there is heat where his recent trilogy offered cold. There is hunger where there was once denial.
The film will have all the visual rigor and moral weight Schrader brings to everything he touches, but wrapped in something more visceral. More fun, in the darkest and most pleasurable sense of that word. A Schrader erotic thriller is not a genre exercise. It is a philosophical argument conducted at close range, with consequences that linger long after the credits roll.
For festival programmers and market buyers hunting for something that will generate real conversation, this is the kind of film you describe over a long dinner at a place that does not have a menu. You tell the story across the table, watch the listener’s eyes widen, and both agree you need to see it immediately.
The project is being produced by Gonzales and will be exec produced by Nadine de Barros on behalf of Fortitude Films, which is introducing Non Compos Mentis to buyers at the European Film Market.
What Comes Next for the Cast
Non Compos Mentis is arriving at a particularly charged moment for nearly everyone involved. Pidgeon is about to become a household name through the Ryan Murphy FX series. Wiest is heading into Practical Magic 2 for Warner Bros., a sequel that feels almost too culturally satisfying to be real. And Jones is transforming into Dracula for Besson, a role that, if we are being relatable about it, most of us would watch just to see what he does with it.
Hemsworth, meanwhile, is at an interesting inflection point: post-Hunger Games, post-Witcher, building a body of work that suggests someone actively interested in complicating the hero mythology. A Paul Schrader erotic thriller is a very deliberate choice. It is the kind of film you take to define what you want your career to mean.
FAQ: Paul Schrader erotic thriller Non Compos Mentis
Q: What is Non Compos Mentis about?
A: Non Compos Mentis is Paul Schrader’s upcoming erotic thriller centers on two privileged brothers whose rivalry over their family fortune explodes when one begins a volatile affair with a younger woman, all set against the backdrop of their mother’s decline into dementia. The film begins production in New York in spring 2025.
Q: Who is starring in Paul Schrader’s Non Compos Mentis?
A: The film stars Liam Hemsworth, Caleb Landry Jones, Sarah Pidgeon, and two-time Academy Award winner Dianne Wiest. It is produced by David Gonzales and exec produced by Nadine de Barros for Fortitude Films, which is presenting the project at the European Film Market.
Q: Where does Non Compos Mentis fit in Paul Schrader’s filmography?
A: It follows Schrader’s celebrated ‘man in a room’ trilogy, First Reformed, The Card Counter, and Master Gardener, as well as Oh, Canada, which starred Richard Gere and premiered in competition at the 77th Cannes Film Festival. Non Compos Mentis marks Schrader’s return to the erotic thriller genre.
A Film Worth Watching For
Non Compos Mentis is exactly the kind of project that reminds you why you fell in love with cinema in the first place: a singular director, a cast operating at the height of their powers, and a story with real teeth. The European Film Market is only the beginning. Watch for this one at festivals, in market screenings, and eventually on screens in cities that know exactly how to receive a film this precisely, beautifully made.
If Non Compos Mentis is on your radar, share this piece with a fellow film lover, programmer, or the person you know who has never forgiven themselves for missing First Reformed on the big screen. They will thank you.
