Weighty tomes with even weightier issues are a particular favourite for actors after solid roles, so it’s no surprise that Matt Cohen’s novel Emotional Arithmetic is being adapted for the screen.
Gabriel Byrne, Christopher Plummer, Max von Sydow and Susan Sarandon have all joined the movie version, which has been scripted by Jefferson Lewis and director Paolo Barzman.
It follows three people who forged a life-long connection in a concentration camp reuniting for the first time in 40 years at a beautiful farm. Byrne is Christopher Lewis, a British novelist trying to deal with survivor’s guilt, Von Sydow plays Jakob Bronski, a former Soviet dissident who has rescued and lost his family twice in his life and David Winter, whose string of affairs has torn his marriage to his wife (Sarandon) apart. Naturally, this emotional boiling pot spills over when the three men meet up and the results are fatal. Barzman starts shooting the film next month in Canada.