In news that’s sure to please “Portlandia’s” feminist bookstore owners, actress, writer, and Sleater-Kinney guitarist Carrie Brownstein has signed on to direct the Chiara Atik-penned “Fairy Godmother.” Deadline broke the story. The film is a comedic revisionist take on the ubiquitous fairy tale character.
MGM acquired Atik’s “Fairy Godmother” spec script after a “competitive” bidding war last year. The film centers on a highly sought-after Fairy Godmother, Faye, who “is hired by a mind-bogglingly gorgeous teenage client, Kenzie, to find her true love with the hottest prince in the land,” according to the project’s official logline. Faye “finds herself facing an unfamiliar challenge when the prince starts falling for her instead.”
Helen Estabrook (“Whiplash”) is producing and Cassidy Lange will oversee the project for MGM.
As the source points out, “Fairy Godmother” is only the sixth film in MGM’s 93-year history to be directed by a woman. The company’s other women-helmed projects are Kimberly Peirce’s “Carrie,” Anne Fletcher’s “Hot Pursuit,” Thea Sharrock’s “Me Before You,” Stella Meghie’s “Everything, Everything,” and Rachel Lee Goldenberg’s “Valley Girl.” All of these titles have been released in the past five years.
This will not be the first time Brownstein steps behind the camera. The “Portlandia” star, writer, and co-creator has helmed episodes of the sketch show, “Casual,” and “Idiotsitter.” She also directed the 2016 short “The Realest Real” starring “Orange Is the New Black’s” Natasha Lyonne and “Moonlight’s” Mahershala Ali. The comedic drama, which centers on a woman’s wish for her idol to be her mother, was a X Award finalist at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival.
The multi-hyphenate published her memoir, “Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl,” in 2015. Discussing her book with NPR’s Terry Gross, Brownstein observed: “One thing that is such a relief about art and creativity is the allowance of that as a shape in which to exist, that can be bigger than oneself, that can act as proxy to our own failings and speak to our own failings and vulnerabilities.”
Brownstein has worked on “Portlandia” since 2011. “Archer,” “Transparent,” and “Carol” are among her other acting credits.
