Earlier this month came news that Oscar Isaac had joined Viggo Mortensen in Hossein Amini's Two Faces Of January. Now the film's intimate cast has been rounded off with Kirsten Dunst signing on the dotted line to play Mortensen's on-screen wife in the **Drive **writer's adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's novel.
A high-wire psychodrama, the story sees a con artist (Mortensen) killing a Greek policeman, possibly by accident, sending him on the run with wife (Dunst) and Isaac's American tutor in tow. As with The Talented Mr Ripley, the story's focus is likely to fall as firmly on the shifting dynamics between the two men as much as the fugitive elements, although we can expect Dunst to lend some a complicating factor to the troubled troika.
"This is a really good European-location movie with a quasi-American story," explains producer and Working Title co-head Tim Bevan. "With this sort of movie, and it's not dissimilar to Tinker Tailor, you can get a great cast, a great script, a good director, you can shoot in a sensible amount of time, and in a sensible way."
If it's anything like other Highsmith adaptations Strangers On A Train and The Talented Mr Ripley, or the last Studiocanal / Working Title collaboration,** Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy**, expect something classy - especially with a mooted $30m budget, about the same as Tinker Tailor. Cameras are scheduled to start rolling on October 1 in locations in Greece and Turkey, before rounding off with some studio work in the UK.