The widespread eccentricities and perverseness of Craigslist has become mostly accepted nowadays, the site acknowledged as a place where sexual deviancy and under-the-table acquisitions are to be expected. So much so that some people may have completely forgotten about the newspaper want ads where the trend of anonymous goods and services being exchanged originated. Of course, not every ad is full of debauchery, but those ads make for boring movies.
Deadline reports director Sam Taylor-Johnson is in negotiations to helm Sony Pictures’ A Reliable Wife, an adaptation of the 2009 suspense novel written by Robert Goolrick. Taylor-Johnson ‘s only other feature to date has been 2009’s Nowhere Boy, which followed the young adult life of a pre-Beatles’ John Lennon (played by Aaron Johnson, who would later become her husband). For the new project Taylor-Johnson will be working from a script written by Andrew Kevin Walker (Se7en, The Wolfman)
The novel is set in 1909 Wisconsin, where a successful business man awaits and eventually meets the Chicago-born bride-to-be that answered his newspaper ad calling for a “reliable wife.” Little does he know the woman has quite a secretive past, and she plans on poisoning him and becoming his affluent widow. What she doesn't know, though, is that he has his own secrets and motivations as well. Much of the action takes place in a single remote location, where the businessman’s son also enters the story as part of a love triangle.
This sounds like just the kind of seedy and exciting period piece that could be a refreshing alternative to all those stuffier period adaptations. If Kiera Knightley joins this cast soon, no one will be surprised.
