In a clear example of how the distribution market is changing everyday, Nikole Beckwith’s Sundance drama “Stockholm, Pennsylvania” has been slated for a run on the Lifetime channel.
Starring Saoirse Ronan and Cynthia Nixon, writer-director Beckwith’s debut will focus on a teenage girl (Ronan) who was kidnapped as a child and the difficulties she and her mother (Nixon) face in adjusting back to “normal” life after her rescue.
In an interview with Women and Hollywood, Beckwith described how she came up with the film’s thoughtfully original premise: “I grew up during a time when there were a lot of focal kidnapping cases. I think the sensationalism surrounding them became part of my worldview very early, both in the vulnerability of being a child and the predatory culture which surrounds growing up as or into a woman.”
She continued, “Part of that sensationalism and our strange voyeuristic hunger towards victimization also gets funneled into our detrimental romance with the notion of a happy ending, whereas I don’t see ‘returning home’ as any kind of ending, really. I see it as more of a beginning. I wanted to look at how fiercely private and complicated something like this is or could be.”
Here’s the press release’s fascinating description of “Stockholm, Pennsylvania”:
“Abducted 17 years ago, Leia (Ronan) is miraculously found and returned home to her parents Marcy (Nixon) and Glen Dargon (David Warshofsky). Having long forgotten her family, after being raised by her captor Benjamin McKay (Jason Isaacs), Leia finds herself unable to connect to those who love her the most. Instead, she yearns for Ben, the only father figure she’s ever known, and the safety of the basement she called home most of her life. Marcy resorts to desperate measures to forge a relationship with Leia, allowing her marriage to unravel as a byproduct. With Marcy’s increasingly erratic actions echoing those of Ben, Leia is left questioning what it really means to be loved.”
[via The Futon Critic]
