French film producer Saïd Ben Saïd sort of resurrected the career of Paul Verhoeven with the release of Elle (2016), and he had been itching to re-team with the filmmaker and that collab gave us the thunderous Benedetta (2021). It looks like (according to Premiere) they’ll be working once again together on the book-to-film adaptation of Sans compter by author Philippe Djian of 37°2, le matin (aka Betty Blue) and …. Oh… (which turned out to be Elle) fame. Verhoeven is tipped to move onto production on The Sinner before moving onto this project (next month in Los Angeles). The earliest we see this moving into production would be late 2024.
The book synopsis tells us that there are two meaty roles (one could easily go to Isabelle Huppert) as it tells the tale of Nathan, a journalist, lives with his wife and mother-in-law (Gaby), housed in an outbuilding in their garden. The latter is a poetess who fascinates him and of whom he does not miss any public reading. The day a promoter tries to buy part of the land to build an amusement park and comes up against Gaby’s categorical refusal, things get worse: a deputy gets annoyed, a hiker mysteriously disappears and Nathan’s reason wavers. The novel is told from the sole point of view of Nathan whose reader embraces certainties and questions.
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Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member 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 served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).
