This Burberry Movie Trailer Is One of 2016’s Best

An innovator on the cusp of creating something new. A love affair. An adventurer discovering parts unknown. A bitter betrayal. One sweeping score. It’s all there in the gripping trailer for The Tale of Thomas Burberry, starring Domhnall Gleeson, Sienna Miller, Dominic West, and Lily James. It’s also not a real trailer. Which is a bummer, because this three-minute clip comes off as some strong awards-season bait starring some of the most talented actors working today.

Here’s the deal: To celebrate the brand’s 160th anniversary, Christopher Bailey and director Asif Kapadia conjured up a brief Thomas Burberry biopic. After all, the man who invented gabardine and the best-known British clothing brand they work for certainly has a life’s tale worth telling—even if it’s not entirely accurate (why ruin a good story with the truth, right?).

Domhnall Gleeson plays the real eponymous designer and inventor, and Sienna Miller is Sara, a fictionalized version of his first love. Dominic West plays Sir Ernest Shackleton (real), who was outfitted by Burberry on his headline-making Arctic expeditions. Lily James is Betty Dawson, who’s based on pilot Betty Kirby-Green (so, real-ish). (In an early version of #sponsored, Kirby-Green flew a plane called The Burberry on a record-breaking trip from London to Cape Town—nine years after Burberry’s death.)

Domhnall Gleeson as Thomas Burberry

Sienna Miller as Sara

Dominic West as Ernest Shackleton

Lily James as Betty Dawson

The mini movie does shed light on Burberry the man’s many accomplishments and innovations, from creating uniforms for British soldiers during World War I to Shackleton’s all-terrain gear to perfecting the trench coat for generations to come. “People come to me with their dreams,” Gleeson says in the trailer, “and I bring them to life.” Now, if only we could crowd-fund this trailer to life as a full-length movie.