Former Actress Sarah Polley Slated to Direct a Film Adaptation of THE BELL JAR
Oscar-Winner Set to Direct Adaptation of The Bell Jar
Sarah Polley, a former actress and Oscar-winning writer/director of Women Talking, will be helming a film adaptation of Sylvia Plath‘s dark novel, The Bell Jar.
Sarah Polley has had a very interesting career. She was once an indie actress and she moved on to starring in a fairly big-budget horror remake, Dawn of the Dead, in 2004. She won her Academy Award for adapting the book, Women Talking, for the big screen in 2022. Now, she’s attached to finally bring an adaptation of the controversial novel from Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, to the screen. That devastating book zeroed in on depression and mental illness and soon after its release, the author, Plath, sadly committed suicide. It is studied in English classes across the country and sets the standard for books dealing with its provocative subject matter.
The Bell Jar will be a Focus Features release in the United States, but there is much more to this story. Oscar-winning singer, Billie Eilish, will be portraying the lead role in the upcoming dramatic picture. Eilish is a two-time Academy Award winner for the songs she created for the smash hit films, No Time to Die and Barbie.
It has been a long road to the silver screen for the brilliant book, The Bell Jar. There was once a movie planned to star Julia Stiles of Save the Last Dance fame, but that project never came into fruition. There was also once a planned film adaptation that was set to star Dakota Fanning and be directed by Kirsten Dunst, but the plug was eventually pulled on that high-profile project. Even a Showtime series based on the book never managed to get off the ground. It is going to take the ambition and strength of the versatile filmmaker, Polley, to make a film version of The Bell Jar become a reality
Focus Features is also the studio behind the Oscar-nominated film, Hamnet. That film, too, was based on a book so hopes are high that The Bell Jar will be Billie Eilish’s ticket to an Academy Award nomination for her acting this time out instead of for her music. We’ll see if she can bring the complexity of the character, Esther Greenwood, that was so prevalent on the pages of Plath’s novel to the role in this upcoming picture.
The Bell Jar, though extraordinarily well-written, is not a book for everyone and Polley will be adapting it for the screen as well as directing the upcoming project. If anyone can adapt this controversial book successfully, it’s the Oscar-winning Polley who never met a story she has been unafraid to tell either in front of the camera or behind it. She’s truly a talent to be reckoned with.
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