Casey Affleck imagines a world with no women in first Light of My Life trailer

Casey Affleck is protecting the future of the human race in the first trailer for Light of My Life (out next month), a post-apocalyptic feature, which imagines a world in which the planet's women have died off in a mysterious plague. However, one last female exists in the form of Affleck's character's young daughter (played by newcomer Anna Pniowsky), whom he disguises as a boy, so she doesn't get kidnapped by a desperate world looking for a way to keep the species alive.

It's like a reverse twist on Y: The Last Man spliced with strands of DNA from Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men and Cormac McCarthy's The Road. The movie also stars Elisabeth Moss (The Handmaid's Tale, Us) as Affleck's wife, who succumbed to the aforementioned disease and will only be shown in flashbacks to the good times before the plague arrived.

Watch the trailer now:

Written and directed by Affleck, the upcoming flick co-stars Tom Bower, Timothy Webber, and Hrothgar Mathews. Saban Films acquired the distribution rights to the project when it first premiered at Berlin Film Festival back in February.

"Light of My Life is like a horror film that refuses to be a horror film, or even a genre film, because it’s got purer things on its mind: the unshakable bond between father and daughter, and the way the hell they’re in strengthens and deepens that connection," wrote Owen Glieberman in his review for Variety. "Unfortunately, as conceived, that isn’t quite enough to sustain a dawdling two-hour movie. Scene for scene, Affleck does a decent job of directing — his touch is soft, intimate, humane — but he has saddled himself with a script that isn’t entirely there."

Eric Kohn of IndieWire wasn't any kinder to the movie in his review, writing:

"Light of My Life spends less time explaining itself and instead lingers in the present, with mixed results. The opening scene drags for minutes on end, as the father lies next to his daughter in their crammed tent and shares with her a rambling variation on 'Noah’s Ark,' which culminates in the revelation that she might be the last of her species. It’s an intriguing hook, but far too exhausting a journey to get there."

Light of My Life will receive a limited opening in theaters Friday, August 9. It drops on Digital and On Demand the very same day.