It’s only been a year and a half since Damien Echols, Jessie MIsskelley and Charles Jason Baldwin – collectively known as the West Memphis Three – were released from prison, having spent over half of their lives behind bars for three child murders that no one could actually prove they committed. The story of the trio of unfortunate sons has been told both in book form and in the three Paradise Lost documentaries that tracked the well-known case over the years, as well as Amy Berg’s recent doc. Atom Egoyan’s upcoming feature film Devil’s Knot is based on the book of the same name by Mara Leveritt, and Hollywood Reporter has given us the very first look at the film, seen above.
While it would have been awesome – if anticipating anything about a film with such ugly subject matter at its core can be awesome – to have seen Echols (James Hamrick), Baldwin (Seth Meriwether) and Misskelley (Kristopher Higgins) in character, what we have is Reese Witherspoon as Pam Hobbs, mother of one of the victims, who looks like she just recently heard some very bad news. She’s being held by her husband and Steve’s stepfather Terry, played by Allesandro Nivola, who is currently finding himself at the wrong end of the blame game in reality, but I’m not sure how far into that the film will go. All in all, this is an image that doesn’t make this film look very different from anything we’ve seen in documentary footage, though the colors of everyone’s shirts are brighter.
Devil’s Knot co-stars Bruce Greenwood, Dane DeHaan, Colin Firth, Stephen Moyer, Elias Koteas, Mireille Enos, Amy Ryan and Kevin Durand. As of now, the film doesn’t have a release date, but the subject matter and the cast give us the impression awards season should keep an eye out.
