Everybody abroad the Jennifer Lawrence train! Between this news story and her brief, seductive moments in the first X-Men:First Class trailer (oh, and that Oscar nomination or whatever) the girl’s on fire. The news story in question is that of Oliver Stone and his adaptation of Don Winslow’s 2010 novel Savages, and Lawrence’s starring role in the film. [Deadline]
The novels concerns two pot growers, Ben and Chon, and the girl they love, Ophelia (where have I heard that name before…). A cartel sends them a message complete with the cut-off body parts of other drug dealers: join or die. Ophelia is then kidnapped, and so on and so on. And if Ophelia looked like Jennifer Lawrence…well. Stakes, people, stakes.
This feels right up Stone’s alley, not unlike Midnight Express and Scarface, which he both wrote early on in his career. Oh, and Stone’s known to be somewhat of a drug connoisseur himself, in painfully euphemistic terms. As for Lawrence, it’s nice to see her jumping back and forth from leading lady (Winter’s Bone) to scorned lady (Like Crazy) to shape-shifting lady (First Class) to druggie/hippie lady.
Fun fact: Winslow also wrote the novel The Winter of Frankie Machine, which was almost a film twice, first with Scorsese directing Robert De Niro and second with Michael Mann. That project never happened. It looks like this one will.
Have you read Winslow? Do you still believe in Stone?