We like Juno Temple very much. She’s shone in indies like “Cracks” and “Greenberg,” and we’re clearly not the only ones who’ve noticed — the actress has been cast in a key role by Christopher Nolan in “The Dark Knight Rises.” We also like Michael Angarano very much. The actor’s been appealing in smaller roles from “Almost Famous” to “Snow Angels,” and really staked his claim as a leading man earlier in the year in Max Winkler‘s firmly enjoyable comedy “Ceremony.” So we’re positively delighted to reveal that the pair are teaming up for a new independent comedy.
A reader tipped us off that the pair are both attached to “The Brass Teapot,” which TF1 International are currently shopping around at Cannes. The film’s an expansion of a 2007 short, written by Tim Macy, based on his short story, and directed by commercial and music video helmer Ramaa Mosley, and both are again on board for the feature version, which will be produced by Atlantic Pictures, who are also behind the upcoming Emma Roberts flick “The Art Of Getting By.”
TF1‘s website, along with one of those cheesy photoshopped sales posters, and the promotional image above, reveals a synopsis for the film:
A small town in New York State. John and Alice are in their 20s, married, very much in love, and broke. In high school, gorgeous Alice was voted “most likely to succeed” but now she’s just trying to make ends meet while her friends are enjoying the good life. Her husband John, neurotic and riddled with phobias, just wants to get the bills paid.
But after they get into an accident and end up at a roadside antique shop, Alice is spontaneously drawn to and shoplifts a brass teapot. It isn’t long before they realize that this is no ordinary teapot. It has the power to produce cash, but only when someone feels pain…
Thrilled by this extraordinary source of free money, John and Alice start to figure out ways to hurt themselves, each other and eventually others. But as the pain, both physical and emotional, escalates, John and Alice begin to realize they are on a slippery slope…
A magical and offbeat dark comedy, “The Brass Teapot” is also a hilarious fable about temptation and the lengths to which people will go for money.
We assume at this point that Angarano and Temple are playing the central married couple, and it seems like strong casting. It’s a premise that certainly speaks to these times of recession, like a comic take on “The Box” and, while it has the potential to be a little twee, it could also have a nasty little sense of humor on it, and we’re certainly going to keep our eye on the project. TF1 say that the film will be delivered in the first semester of 2012, so we imagine that it’ll get before cameras any day now.