Dustin Hoffman will star alongside Paul Giamatti in Barney’s Version, an adaptation of the book of the same name by Mordecai Richler.
Hoffman will play the father of Giamatti’s title character, Barney Panofsky, a TV producer whose colourful life story, including three marriages and a position as prime suspect in the murder of his best friend, is told in flashback.
Intriguingly, Duddy Kravitz – a character featured by Richler in a previous book, The Apprenticeship Of Duddy Kravitz – features briefly in Barney’s Version. It would be quietly beautiful if director Richard J. Lewis, a writer/director on C.S.I. Crime Scene Investigation, could persuade Richard Dreyfuss, who played the role in the 1974 film version, to fill Duddy’s shoes once more.
Filming is scheduled to start in Rome in August on a film that, if nothing else, should be well-acted.