After breaking out with the well-crafted horror feature The Babadook last year, writer-director Jennifer Kent probably had her pick of what to take on next. Today we finally have the answer. While she was reportedly considered (but never approached) for WB’s Wonder Woman, Kent will thankfully stay in the independent realm, directing from her own script.
According to Deadline, she’ll be helming an adaptation of the Alexis Coe book Alice + Freda Forever. Produced by Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, the story follows the “budding romantic relationship between two young girls in 1892 Memphis, Tennessee that incited a sensational murder and shocked the nation.” With the book based on over one-hundred different love letters — along with various documents surrounding the relationship of Alice Mitchell and Freda Ward — it’ll be interesting to see Kent’s style transfer to something not in the horror genre.
As we await more details, check out the Amazon synopsis below, which reveals much of the story, which sounds right up Kent’s alley. One can also read our interview with Kent here.
In 1892, America was obsessed with a teenage murderess, but it wasn’t her crime that shocked the nation—it was her motivation. Nineteen-year-old Alice Mitchell had planned to pass as a man in order to marry her seventeen-year-old fiancée Freda Ward, but when their love letters were discovered, they were forbidden from ever speaking again.
Freda adjusted to this fate with an ease that stunned a heartbroken Alice. Her desperation grew with each unanswered letter—and her father’s razor soon went missing. On January 25, Alice publicly slashed her ex-fiancée’s throat. Her same-sex love was deemed insane by her father that very night, and medical experts agreed: This was a dangerous and incurable perversion. As the courtroom was expanded to accommodate national interest, Alice spent months in jail—including the night that three of her fellow prisoners were lynched (an event which captured the attention of journalist and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells). After a jury of “the finest men in Memphis” declared Alice insane, she was remanded to an asylum, where she died under mysterious circumstances just a few years later.
Alice + Freda Forever recounts this tragic, real-life love story with over 100 illustrated love letters, maps, artifacts, historical documents, newspaper articles, courtroom proceedings, and intimate, domestic scenes—painting a vivid picture of a sadly familiar world.
Have you read the book?