Actress will step behind the camera for psychological thriller.
Deadline’s Mike Fleming has received word that Cate Blanchett (‘Blue Jasmine,’ ‘The Turning,’ ‘The Hobbit’) is set to make her feature directorial debut with an adaptation of Herman Koch’s bestselling novel ‘The Dinner.’ Published in 2009 the psychological thriller is officially described as follows:
“It’s a summer’s evening in Amsterdam, and two couples meet at a fashionable restaurant for dinner. Between mouthfuls of food and over the polite scrapings of cutlery, the conversation remains a gentle hum of polite discourse — the banality of work, the triviality of the holidays. But behind the empty words, terrible things need to be said, and with every forced smile and every new course, the knives are being sharpened.
Each couple has a fifteen-year-old son. The two boys are united by their accountability for a single horrific act; an act that has triggered a police investigation and shattered the comfortable, insulated worlds of their families. As the dinner reaches its culinary climax, the conversation finally touches on their children. As civility and friendship disintegrate, each couple show just how far they are prepared to go to protect those they love.”
Blanchett will be helming the adaptation from a script by Oren Moverman (‘The Quiet Ones,’ ‘The Messenger,’ ‘Rampart’).