This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Today's Trailer of the Day for the 2017 Sundance Film Festival is freshly released to the internet — for the comedy "The Last Word."

Shirley MacLaine stars as Harriet Lauler, a businesswoman who's used to getting her own way. One day, she walks into her local newspaper's offices to demand someone write her obituary — while she's still alive to check the mistakes.

The task falls to young reporter Anne Sherman (Amanda Seyfried), who in her reporting cannot find a single person in Harriet's past with anything nice to say about her. "She puts the 'bitch' in 'obituary,' " Anne tells her editor (Tom Everett Scott).

Chastened, Harriet decides she will find someone — in this case, a young African-American girl, Brenda (played by newcomer AnnJewel Lee Dixon) — to whom she can be a positive influence.

The movie is directed by Mark Pellington, whose directorial debut ­— the post-war drama "Going All the Way," starring Ben Affleck, Jeremy Davies and Rose McGowan — premiered at Sundance in 1997. He also directed the concert movie "U2 3D" (SFF '07) and the drama "I Melt With You" (SFF '11). (Pellington also famously directed the effective video for Pearl Jam's song "Jeremy.")

The screenplay is by Stuart Ross Fink, a first-timer.

The supporting cast includes Anne Heche, Joel Murray, Philip Baker Hall and Thomas Sadowski. (It's on the set of this movie where Seyfried and Sadowski, who met while co-starring in an off-Broadway play, started dating. The pair is now engaged and expecting a baby.)

"The Last Word" will have its world premiere in the Premieres section of the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, which runs Jan. 19-29 in Park City and at venues in Salt Lake City and the Sundance resort in Provo Canyon. The movie will be released nationwide by Bleecker Street Media on March 3.