Preview:
- Musician Billie Eilish is to star in a new adaptation of ‘The Bell Jar.’
- Sarah Polley is writing and directing the movie.
- Focus Features is in talks to produce and distribute.
Having already found success in movies thanks to her Oscar-winning music for ‘No Time to Die’ and ‘Barbie’, Billie Eilish is looking to follow other singer-songwriters to the screen and making her cinematic acting debut.
And the project? An adaptation of Sylvia Plath’s classic novel ‘The Bell Jar’, which has ‘Women Talking’ filmmaker Sarah Polley aboard to write and direct.
Focus Features is in talks to produce and distribute the eventual film in the States, with Deadline confirming an earlier rumor from The InSneider about Eilish’s casting.
Related Article: Disney+ Short Will See Lisa Simpson Meeting Billie Eilish
What’s the story of ‘The Bell Jar’?
The only novel written by American writer and poet Plath, ‘The Bell Jar’ was originally published in 1963.
This semi-autobiographical work charts a young woman’s descent into mental illness and the burden of societal pressures. The book paralleled Plath’s own experiences with depression; the writer tragically died by suicide just a month after the novel’s first UK publication.
Who else has tried to film the novel?
Larry Peerce directed a 1979 adaptation which starred Marilyn Hassett as main character Esther Greenwood.
Since then, it has mostly been false starts: Julia Stiles was attached to star in a version in 2007 that ultimately didn’t come to pass. And Kirsten Dunst was attached to direct Dakota Fanning in the story a decade later but that also fell by the wayside. Showtime was reportedly developing a small screen take in 2019, but that hasn’t moved forward.
Movies and TV Shows Featuring Sarah Polley:
- 'The Adventures of Baron Munchausen' (1988)
- 'Exotica' (1994)
- 'The Sweet Hereafter' (1997)
- 'Last Night' (1998)
- 'eXistenZ' (1999)
- 'Go' (1999)
- 'The Weight of Water' (2000)
- 'My Life Without Me' (2003)
- 'Dawn of the Dead' (2004)
- 'Slings and Arrows' (2006)
- 'Away from Her' (2006)
- 'Splice' (2009)
- 'Take This Waltz' (2011)
- 'Stories We Tell' (2012)
- 'Alias Grace' (2017)
- 'Women Talking' (2023)
