Mulligan
Keira Knightley, watch your back: Carey Mulligan might just be the new queen of literary adaptations. So far she’s starred/will be starring in at least six.
Pride & Prejudice (2005)
Bleak House (2005)
Northanger Abbey (2007)
An Education (2009)
Never Let Me Go (2010)
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011)*
Next, it seems she’ll play the role of Florence Ponting in the film adaptation of Ian McEwan’s novella On Chesil Beach. The film is still being cast, but it’s expected to hit theaters in 2012. Sam Mendes will direct, and McEwan adapted the screenplay himself. That must have been quite a task, since much of the novel takes place inside the characters’ minds.
A quick plot synopsis from our review:
Newlyweds Edward Mayhew and Florence Ponting, not long out of university, are both still virgins on their wedding night, and the overlapping anticipation and anxiety of what they will encounter in the marriage bed provide the drama of the story. They live, we are told, in a time when a conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible. So, as they eat their supper in the room of a Georgian inn on the Dorset coast, just a few hours after their marriage, Edward and Florence each think, but never speak, about what they hope will or will not soon transpire in the adjoining bedroom. (Read more)
This will be the fourth time one of McEwan’s novels is adapted for film. The 2007 adaptation of Atonement won an Oscar. Any On Chesil Beach fans out there want to suggest an actor to play Edward?
*see comments for details.
I heard she backed out of Tattoo. Did she change her mind? I hope so because I can really see her in the role, but she said something about too much violence if I recall.
Yeah, looks like Mulligan was passed over for Tattoo as the director didn’t feel she was gritty enough and was too clean-cut.
But she is attached to a remake of My Fair Lady which is based on Pygmalion, so there’s another literary reference for her CV.