This year, HBO’s Kate Winslet-starring mini-series Mildred Pierce brought in all the Emmy Nominations. Or at least a sizable chunk of them, 21 total. It was hardly unexpected; it was a period piece starring one of the most popular award-winners Hollywood’s got on tap these days. Now, the team behind Pierce is tackling another project, an adaptation of Sara Gran‘s Dope, said to be starring Julianne Moore. We’ve never read it, and the Amazon reviews of the book are decidedly mixed, but the synopsis has us interested.
The story is set in 1950s New York, and follows Josephine “Joe” Flannigan (Moore’s character), who is taking a stab at re-entering society as a private eye (and a petty thief) after her rehabilitation as a heroin addict.
Here’s Booklist‘s synopsis of the story:
It’s 1950, and former heroin addict and hooker Josephine Flannigan (Joe or Joey to her friends) has been going straight for two years. She still boosts jewelry from department stores, but for her, she’s practically living square. When a wealthy Long Island couple hires her to help find their daughter, whose own dope habit led her astray from Barnard, Flannigan has an opportunity for a new kind of score. Her search takes her through flophouses and shooting galleries, dance halls and whorehouses–and her own past as well. Flannigan is a well-conceived and original heroine, likable herself and keenly sympathetic to all the little crooked people who constitute her world. Her voice doesn’t quite sound like a streetwise ninth-grade dropout–and a few more convincing details would help us believe her bleak background–but those quibbles shouldn’t keep anyone from reading this book. Good plot twists and a great noir ending seal the deal.
The project will reportedly be directed by Tod Haynes, who will hare executive producing credits with fellow Mildred Pierce alums John Wells and Christine Vachon. And unless this project somehow airs out of Emmy eligibility dates, we can practically guarantee you already that it’ll be a big contender when it’s released.
Until then, you can see Moore in a project we have no idea was underway but which we are now a bit intrigued by: She’ll be playing Sarah Palin in HBO’s upcoming film “Game Change.”
(Hollywood Reporter, Metro, Deadline via Alyssa Rosenberg.)
(Photo via Stardust Trailers)
