Anna Karenina

However his Peter Pan prequel, Pan, turns out — you can get some idea for yourself right here! — Joe Wright might not be going back to the big-budget fantasy spectacle anytime soon. Just added to his list of potential follows-ups is The Lifeboat, which Anne Hathaway, along with headlining, is putting together with Focus Features and Working Title’s backing. A close-quarters drama adapted from Charlotte Rogan, it concerns a newlywed, Grace Winter, who’s being put on trial for murder — a complicated case of murder, however. After the vessel she was riding sunk, Grace was put aboard a lifeboat on which “there are too many people on board, leading to a moral crisis as to who stays and who has to go.” [Deadline]

This marks a potentially interesting challenge for Wright, what with a production-design-happy eye being turned to something potentially as bare as it gets. My mind wants to say “this is just like something Polanski might do,” but a better answer is Hitchcock and Lifeboat, a 1944 thriller that, to my mind, stands as one of the The Master’s most impressive outings. (Me making these connections can be somewhat justified, given that Cast Away scribe William Broyles Jr., someone who has their own experience with this kind of story, has been hired for scripting duties.) Even as no great fan of Wright, I don’t think the man himself would disagree when I say he’s no Hitchcock, but that’s okay — it would still be nice to see him handle something that isn’t so reliant on extravagant dressings as a means of communicating drama. A good bit of tight shooting and cutting would do just fine.

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