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The Blunderer starring Jessica Biel, Patrick Wilson, Toby Jones and Imogen Poots filming in Cincinnati

Pierce Brosnan, Imogen Poots and Toni Collette in A Long Way Down

I was really disappointed with A Long Way Down, the adaptation of Nick Hornby's darkly comic novel. It should have been fantastic, funny, full of snide comments, and rude behavior as well as disturbing and heartbreaking reality. Instead, the film fell flat. But I came away with a real appreciation for Imogen Poots, who played Jessie in the film. Poots was really alive, and out there, exactly how author Nick Hornby wrote her. Unfortunately the director let the production down, Poots and the rest of the cast encouraged to go for over the top and to file trite responses. Maybe because I was least familiar with her work, she really stood out for me. I'm excited that she's slated to appear as Dee Moray in Beautiful Ruins, based on Jess Walter's globe and time spanning novel, one of my favorite books ever. Nothing official is happening on that production front yet but in the meantime, Poots has just started filming The Blunderer along with Jessica Biel, Patrick Wilson, Toby Jones and William Willet. Production on the film being directed by Andy Stoddard (Downton Abbey) began this week in Cincinnati, standing in for New York City in the 1960's.


While The Blunderer was written in 1954 by Patricia Highsmith, one of the world's most gifted crime writers, the film is set in the early 1960's.

Here's the lowdown on The Blunderer...
For two years, Walter Stackhouse has been a faithful and supportive husband to his wife, Clara. She is distant and neurotic, and Walter finds himself harboring gruesome fantasies about her demise. When Clara's dead body turns up at the bottom of a cliff in a manner uncannily resembling the recent death of a woman named Helen Kimmel who was murdered by her husband, Walter finds himself under intense scrutiny. He commits several blunders that claim his career and his reputation, cost him his friends, and eventually threaten his life. The Blunderer examines the dark obsessions that lie beneath the surface of seemingly ordinary people. With unerring psychological insight, Patricia Highsmith portrays characters who cross the precarious line separating fantasy from reality.
Jessica Biel is Clara, the deceased wife with the husband and murder suspect, Walter Satckhouse, played by Patrick Wilson. Poots is a woman Stackhouse lusts after with British actor Toby Jones (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) playing another murder suspect.

Highsmith wrote several books which have been made into movies included The Talented Mr. Ripley, Strangers on a Train, and most recently The Two Faces of January which sadly flopped. Really hoping The Blunderer captures Highsmith's psychological insight better. Oh, and long before that comes out, we'll see another Highsmith adaptation: Carol also known as The Price of Salt. also shot in Cincinnati standing in for New York. The film, a story about a young retail clerk who falls for an older woman is set in the 1950's and stars Rooney Mara, Cate Blanchett and Sara Paulson. Or will we? How do you feel about seeing a lesbian love story on screen? Will straight women watch it or do is it a lesbian-only affair? Being made with A-list actors, will Carol meet the same controversial reception as Brokeback Mountain or will it be embraced by mainstream audiences?