Well, congrats to the folks behind "Hateship, Friendship" for managing to keep the details on the downlow, to the point where with the film starting to shoot next week in New Orleans, we're only getting details now. And with a promising cast and solid source material to work from, this is one to keep an eye on.
Kristen Wiig, Hailee Steinfeld, Guy Pearce and Nick Nolte are set to star in the film that is based on the book of short stories, "Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage," by Alice Munro ("Away From Her"). The involved story follows a teenager (Steinfeld) who is being cared for by a nanny (Wiig), and tries to spark online romance between her nanny and her father, a recovering drug addict (Pearce) living in the another town. However, he has problems of his own. His father (Nolte) blames Pearce for the death of his own daughter. Heavy stuff, right? Well, there will be some lighter moments as well as director Liza Johnson (the post-war drama "Return" starring Linda Cardellini) told us earlier this year.
"It’s a bit more comedic, but I wouldn’t exactly call it a comedy. What I really like about Munro is that it’s in everyday life but it’s so dramatic, it’s always forward moving in these little emotional ways but you're on the edge of your chair the entire time because you’re always wondering what’s going to happen in her desire," she explained. "I think it can be a really beautiful piece, it’s definitely a performance vehicle."
It's yet another unexpected choice from Wiig, who isn't taking the easy road when she has a pile of "Bridesmaids"-esque scripts she could sign up for and sleepwalk through. As for Steinfeld, her profile rightly continues to rise after "True Grit." As for Nolte and Pearce? We'd pretty much watch anything with them in it. So we'll mark this one down and watch out for it on the fall festival circuit next year. [THR]