Zach Braff Adapts to ‘The High Cost of Living’

Zach Braff is working on a new indie project – Canadian indie. Currently filming in Montreal, the helmer/star of Garden State is the topliner in Deborah Chow’s directorial debut – a dark drama that will most likely receive its world premiere at TIFF next September. The project was awarded the inaugural Kodak New Vision Mentorship under the guidance of acclaimed director Patricia Rozema (Kit Kittredge: An American Girl) to develop the film.

Despite the supporting cast of French actors, I don’t think The High Cost of Living is a multi-language pic. This tells the story of a young pregnant woman whose world falls apart when she loses her baby in a hit and run accident. It starts with an accident. Henry (Zach Braff) makes a wrong turn and crashes into Nathalie (Isabelle Blais, Denys Arcand’s The Barbarian Invasions). In a fit of panic, and over the legal limit, he cuts and runs, leaving Nathalie lying in the street, unconscious, bleeding and eight months pregnant. She wakes up in the hospital only to find her bright future destroyed and the baby she is still carrying, dead. Her husband, Michel (Patrick Labbé) is too unnerved and emotionally bereft to deal with the tragedy. As her life unravels, she stumbles across Henry – who has been searching for his victim. Unaware of what he has done, Nathalie sees him as an unlikely guardian angel, everything Michel is not – compassionate, charming and a little crazy. She finds a welcome relief in the tall, rumpled stranger that seems only too willing to offer her refuge. But Henry has his own problems. His past misdeeds are catching up, and he soon discovers that the police are steadily closing in. The inevitable collision will force both Henry and Nathalie to confront loss, labour and life, and to ultimately decide whether the cost of living is worth the price.