If you were planning an indie film and were looking for two actresses considered at the top of their game in that field, you’d be hard pressed to beat casting Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen. Director Naomi Foner had the same thought, and has finally locked them in alongside Anton Yelchin for Very Good Girls.
Though you wouldn’t think either woman likely to struggle getting dates, Girls will find Olsen and Fanning as two lifelong best friends planning to spend their summer after graduating high school finally losing their virginity. Like so many teens before them, they see it as a vital rite of passage into adulthood. But there’s a hitch: they both fall for the same boy (Yelchin), and soon things become very complicated…
Foner has been trying to get the film made for a while now, and with her cast in place can aim to start shooting this June in New York. “The film deals with female sexuality and friendship in a way we haven’t seen before,” she tells Deadline. “These girls will be stunning young women in a couple of years, but they’ve struggled through high school with only each other. Most of us have been there. This is the summer where they finally get to touch real life.”
Olsen is currently enjoying more Sundance acclaim in Josh Radnor’s Liberal Arts and has Martha Marcy May Marle****ne about to hit UK cinemas, and Fanning will crop up at the end of the year as psycho vamp Jane in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2.