Robert Pattinson plays a young man called Rey in ‘The Rover’. He gets caught up in a tumultuous and perennially unnerving coalition with a stranger, Eric (Guy Pearce), in a not-too-distant future in this new film from David Michod, the writer-director of Animal Kingdom.

The RoverGuy Pearce and Robert Pattinson star in 'The Rover'

At the centre of any attention paid to ‘The Rover’ is Pattinson, who is following the not-un-trodden path from teenage pinup to ‘serious’ actor. “I don't know if I'm necessarily any good at sculpting a career or anything. But I know what I want to do,” he explained in an interview to The Sydney Morning Herald

He wanted to be part of The Rover because “it was an original script and it was one of those parts where you read it and you think, 'I'd love to do this, but I know I'm never going to get it.’”

Watch the trailer for 'The Rover' here

Speaking about the movie in 2012, ‘R-Pattz’ – as he has become known, for some reason - told Indiewire: "It's very existential. It's really interesting. I couldn't really explain to you what it's about but it's sort of about how much pain can the world take and how much disgust and cruelty before love dies. I think that's kind of what it's about."

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The film takes place “in an unspecified relatively near future, after a number of years of quite seriously steady Western economic decline,'' Michod says. ''It's not post-apocalypse. This is an Australia that has broken down into a kind of resource-rich Third World country.” The plot synopsis, meanwhile, doesn’t allude to this contextual backdrop, suggesting that the dilapidated state of Australia adds nuance to the plot rather than dominating its twists and turns.

‘The Rover’ will enjoy its Cannes debut this Sunday (May 18) before hitting France on June 4. The Sydney Film Festival will follow on June 7 with the American release taking place – on a limited basis – on June 13. The U.K will see it on August 22.

Check out more photos from 'The Rover' below

Robert Pattinson
Guy Pierce
The Rover