Fans of the little seen Lymelife – Derick Martini‘s directorial debut might be happy to know that the filmmaker is getting set for a New Mexico shoot and will be tackling the coming-of-age format once again, but perhaps with a tone that is far more darker, with Hick. Variety reports that he’ll be working with one of the most in demand young actresses in the biz right now in Chloe Moretz, who with this role (apparently a mix between Paper Moon and Taxi Driver), would be breaking out of cutesy offers she must be getting by the ton. The project is based on Andrea Portes’ novel which she put into screenplay format for Christian Taylor’s Taylor Lane Prods. and Steven Siebert’s Lighthouse Entertainment. The price tag for the indie project is around the 6 million dollar mark and looks to contain some road movie elements, drug use and crime.
From Publishers Weekly – Portes’s chilling debut tracks a 13-year-old Nebraska girl’s hard-going life on the road. Young Luli knows losers—her “aging Brigitte Bardot” mother, Tammy, and her father, Nick, go at each other every night at the Alibi, the watering hole in hometown Palmyra, Neb. Tammy runs away one morning, and Nick soon follows, leaving Luli alone at home with the Smith and Wesson .45 her Uncle Nipper gave her. Pistol in tow, she hitches rides heading west to Vegas. A crooked man (literally; he “looks like an italic,” says smart-alecky Luli) named Eddie picks her up briefly before throwing her out of the car. Next comes cocaine-snorting grifter Glenda, who enlists Luli as an accessory to a robbery that goes awry. Glenda takes Luli under her wing. The two cross paths again with Eddie, who rapes Luli and ties her up in a secluded motel. Glenda comes to her rescue, but the confrontation with Eddie ends badly. Luli’s flippant narration makes for a love-it or hate-it read.
Moretz has recently completed Let Me In and has The Invention of Hugo Cabret and The Fields to be released sometime next year.
