Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem are haunted by the past in Everybody Knows trailer

Celebration quickly turns to panic and old secrets re-emerge in Everybody Knows, Asghar Farhadi’s new Spanish-language drama starring Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem — and now audiences can get a first look at the trailer.

The film centers on Laura (Cruz), who travels from Argentina to her small hometown in Spain with her two children to attend her sister’s wedding. There she reunites with family and old friends, including former flame Paco (Bardem), but the festivities are interrupted by the kidnapping of Laura’s teenage daughter, a crime that threatens to tear the community apart.

The result is a film with elements of an intimate interpersonal drama and a taut abduction thriller. But for Bardem, who narrates the atmospheric trailer (in English), pinning down a specific genre is beside the point.

“I think the movie, as every other good movie, it’s about many things,” the actor tells EW. “And of course you have to find the point of view, and the point of view of Asghar Farhadi is about deconstructing human nature by making those characters face their truth, their own truth. I think that’s a very common pattern is his filmography, where the characters are always hidden by social or familial or behavioral masks, and there’s a moment of confusion. And there’s a moment when something goes so wrong that the truth has to be outspoken to solve that matter.”

In Everybody Knows, he says, “There is a great thriller and there is suspense that will keep you at the edge of your seat, but mostly it’s about us, people, facing other people.”

Those themes transcend genre, and language as well. Farhadi, the Iranian director behind the Oscar-winning films A Separation and The Salesman, does not speak Spanish, but Bardem says the language barrier was never really an obstacle.

“I never felt a lost-in-translation moment at all,” Bardem says. He credits Farhadi’s two translators on set, and the filmmaker’s innate understanding of “what this is all about — meaning moviemaking, performing, dialogue, organic performances, and the truth of the actors. That’s beyond any language.”

Everybody Knows (Todos lo Saben) will have an Oscar-qualifying run in Los Angeles beginning Nov. 30, followed by a limited release Feb. 8. Watch the trailer above.

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