Keira Knightley can currently be seen playing a trailblazing author in “Colette,” and now the two-time Oscar nominee has signed on to topline another feminist project. She’ll star in Pathé’s “Misbehavior,” a comedy based on the true events of the 1970 Miss World pageant in London. Variety reports Philippa Lowthorpe, a BAFTA-winning director whose credits include “The Crown” and “Call the Midwife,” will helm the feature, which will be introduced to buyers at the American Film Market.
The 1970 Miss World Pageant sparked international headlines. As the source explains, it was the most-watched television show in the world at the time, and that year’s airing was especially memorable. More than 110 million viewers witnessed the “newly formed Women’s Liberation Movement achieve overnight fame by invading the stage and disrupting the live broadcast, hosted by Bob Hope, claiming that such beauty competitions demeaned women. When the show resumed, the result caused further uproar when Miss Grenada became the first black woman to be crowned Miss World, beating the favorite.”
Rebecca Frayn (“The Lady”) penned the script and Gaby Chiappe (“Their Finest”) did revisions.
Gugu Mbatha-Raw (“The Cloverfield Paradox,” “Beyond the Lights”) and Jessie Buckley (“The Woman in White”) will join Knightley on-screen.
During a recent appearance on “Ellen” Knightley revealed that she’s banned her daughter from watching “Cinderella” and “The Little Mermaid” due to what she perceives as their sexist messages — waiting around for a rich guy to save you and giving up your voice for a man, respectively.
“Of course men can direct women brilliantly, but I think that often women storytellers are subtler than men,” she told Elle while promoting “Colette.” “And I think that often their work gets devalued because of the subtlety, and that’s ridiculous. There is also ageism with directors: You want the young, sexy female directors, but you don’t necessarily want the middle-aged female directors. We need all those voices. We need to be talking about how difficult it is for women to work with small children, too. We’re losing loads of women because with the way the industry is set up, they can’t direct and have kids at the same time,” she observed.
Knightley received Oscar nominations for “The Imitation Game” and “Pride & Prejudice.”
Lowthorpe made her feature debut with 2016’s “Swallows and Amazons.” “The director is one of only two women to have won a BAFTA TV Award for direction, having won twice: in 2013 with ‘Call the Midwife’ and earlier this year with miniseries ‘Three Girls,'” the source notes.
