2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Tamara Jenkins’ Private Life

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We voiced our hope that we’d see her sometime soon when we launched our inaugural Top 10 American Indie Filmmakers Missing in Action back in 2015, and much to our delight, this past March, the trades confirmed that Tamara Jenkins would direct a Netflix drama with Molly Shannon (winner of the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female and Best Supporting Performance for the American Independent Film Awards). Filming took place in March with Shannon being joined by Paul Giamatti, Kathryn Hahn, John Carroll Lynch, Emily Robinson, Kayli Carter and Francesca Root-Dodson. We almost forget this, but in a one film each decade pace, Private Life is only Jenkins’ third feature film after Slums of Beverly Hills (1998) and The Savages (2007). Expect a solid human condition portrait.

Gist: An author (Hahn) is undergoing multiple fertility therapies to get pregnant, putting her relationship with her husband (Giamatti) on edge. They try to maintain their marriage as they descend deeper and deeper into the weird world of assisted reproduction and domestic adoption. When their doctor suggests third party reproduction, they bristle. But when Sadie, a recent college drop out, re-enters their life, they reconsider.

Production Co./ProducersLikely Story‘s Anthony Bregman (Foxcatcher) and Stefanie Azpiazu.

Prediction: Premieres section.

U.S. Distributor: Netflix.

Eric Lavallée
Eric Lavalléehttps://www.ericlavallee.com
Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist, and critic at IONCINEMA.com, established in 2000. A regular at Sundance, Cannes, and Venice, Eric holds a BFA in film studies from the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013, he served on the narrative competition jury at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson’s "This Teacher" (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022, he was a New Flesh Juror for Best First Feature at the Fantasia International Film Festival. His top films for 2023 include The Zone of Interest (Glazer), Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell (Pham Thien An), Totem (Lila Avilés), La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher), All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (Raven Jackson). He is a Golden Globes Voter.

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