There's a baffling lack of fanfare here for something this long in coming. Filming wrapped on The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond in 2008, the first new production of a Tennessee Williams screenplay in 40 years, with a strong cast including Bryce Dallas Howard, Chris Evans, Ellen Burstyn and Ann-Margret, yet it's only being released in the States at the end of the year.
According to Coming Soon, Williams was due to hand the script over to his A Streetcar Named Desire and **Pretty Baby **director Elia Kazan, but Kazan moved onto other projects. The script follows Mississippi socialite Fisher Willow (Dallas Howard), who in trying to get one-up on her corruptive and greedy father, hires her father's employ Jimmy (Chris Evans) to be her escort to a swish family party, which she has to attend if she stands any chance of inheriting money. Borrowing her great aunt's (Ann Margret) diamond earrings - priceless, naturally - she blames Jimmy when one goes missing and it all goes downhill from there, which sounds far more interesting than the generic period simpering in the trailer.
Cutting out most of the interesting info, the trailer looks like a 1920s cross between Fried Green Tomatoes At The Whistlestop Cafe and The Notebook, with enough melodramatic strings to make you think you’d jumped back to the 90s heyday of chick flicks like How To Make An American Quilt. There’s certainly not much of Tennessee Williams in here, with the trailer makers focusing on the ‘feisty’ Fisher (who just seems deeply unpleasant) and her struggle against having too much money rather than the quite interesting rationale behind her behaviour.
It’s not as if Williams is difficult to take: the recent all-black cast revival of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof was a Broadway hot ticket and its London transfer opens next week. So the lack of wit or social unease in this trailer doesn’t bode well. And – oh dear – this closing line: “Fisher, you’re shivering. You must be chilly.” “People don’t always shiver because they’re chilly.”
Is 40 years worth the wait? Why else do people shiver? Watch the trailer and let us know what you think.