Olivia Wilde, Hailee Steinfeld and Nicole Behaire are set to star in The Keeping Room, directed by Daniel Barber. Barber made his feature directorial debut with the Michael Caine action film Harry Brown [THR].
From a screenplay by Julia Hart, the film tells the story of three Southern women in the middle of the Civil War – two sisters and a slave – who must defend their home and family from a group of disbanded Union soldiers. The short synopsis reads provocative enough, considering these are Southern women, white and black, fighting against the proverbial Northern “good guys.”
Barber’s Harry Brown got some raves for its exploitative style fused with semi-political themes (like some of the best exploitation movies). And despite the change in scene and setting, Keeping Room seems a sensible follow-up to Barber’s modest debut.
Steinfeld has been surprisingly quiet since her critically-lauded (Oscar-nominated) turn in True Grit, while Wilde has perhaps been too busy, diluting her brand with small, uninteresting turns in sloppy fare like The Change-Up and In Time. The real winner here is Behaire, who’s star continues to rise from the humble beginnings of the liked-but-little-seen American Violet in 2008 to the loved-but-little-seen (but much talked about) Shame last year.
What do you think of this premise? This cast?