Atwell Plays Daughter of Suspect Number One in Southcombe’s ‘I, Anna’

We’re not sure why the news just came out on this since production began back in January and has just wrapped up, but British actress Hayley Atwell (who we first got wind of in supporting roles in Cassandra’s Dream and The Duchess with her major break coming in Brideshead Revisited) is among the cast of the noir-thriller I, Anna. She stars alongside her Duchess co-star Charlotte Rampling, and leading mean Gabriel Byrne and the gifted Eddie Marsan – an actor we feel never receives enough credit. Adapted for the screen by first time director Barnaby Southcombe (son of Rampling), Atwell plays the daughter of Rampling’s antagonist-like character. Filming began back in January, it wrapped this month and should be out in time for the Fall festival season.

Gist: Based on the novel of the same name by psychoanalyst Elsa Lewin, this is about a lonely police detective who arrives at the scene of a brutal murder and is distracted by a brief encounter with Anna, a strikingly mysterious woman. He can’t get her out of his head until the day they meet again and she has no recollection of ever having met him. As he continues the investigation, his professional judgement is compromised with his desire for love and intimacy and the mystery deep within Anna’s mind unravels revealing a truth too painful to bear.

Worth Noting: Much like her Brideshead Revisited co-star Felicity Jones, she may not be a household name yet for North American audiences, but we’re betting that Atwell won’t be an obscure face/name after this summer’s release of Marvel Studio’s behemoth Captain America: The First Avenger where she’ll be playing the captain’s love interest, Peggy Carter.

Do We Care?: As long as there’s no voice-over work told from the point of view of a murder suspect — we imagine loving Rampling’s beady eye stare and can’t imagine anything less than a stellar performance from the thesp in her son’s feature film debut.