Variety is reporting that Call Me By Your Name helmer Luca Guadagnino has signed up Jennifer Lawrence to lead the cast of his next film. The film is called Burial Rites and is based on the 2013 novel of the same name by Hannah Kent.
Inspired by a true story, Burial Rites is set in the final days of a young woman who has been accused of murder in Iceland in 1829.
Set against Iceland’s stark landscape, the planned film will tell the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution.
The official book synopsis has more.
Horrified at the prospect of housing a convicted murderer, the family at first avoids Agnes. Only Tóti, a priest Agnes has mysteriously chosen to be her spiritual guardian, seeks to understand her. But as Agnes’s death looms, the farmer’s wife and their daughters learn there is another side to the sensational story they’ve heard.
Riveting and rich with lyricism, Burial Rites evokes a dramatic existence in a distant time and place, and asks the question, how can one woman hope to endure when her life depends upon the stories told by others?
Lawrence has two films due in 2018, Red Sparrow and comic-book sequel X-Men: Dark Phoenix.
Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name is drawing some truly deserved Oscar buzz at the moment. The film is currently running at around 13/2 to nab Best Picture at the Oscars in February.
