Samuel L. Jackson has signed on to star in the drama, Rape: A Love Story.
Based on a searing, harrowing novella by Joyce Carol Oates, the movie – directed by Harold Becker – will tell the story of Teena MacGuire (Maria Bello), a young mother who is brutally gang-raped and left for dead, in an attack witnessed by her 12 year-old daughter (Abigail Breslin).
Jackson will play a cop who, appalled by Teena’s plight and a legal miscarriage of justice, takes the law into his own hands in an attempt to punish her attackers. The cop in the novella is considerably younger than Jackson, so it’ll be interesting to see what other changes will be made for the movie.
The provocative title, by the way, refers to the bond that Breslin’s Bethie forges with the cop in the aftermath of the rape.
The movie will be Becker’s first since Domestic Disturbance, way back in 2001. Before that, he’d made a career out of a series of decent, if largely unremarkable, thrillers, including Malice, **Sea Of Love **and City Hall. But it’s good to see him back behind the camera, particularly on material like this, that requires sensitivity and a director who knows what the hell they’re doing.
Filming will start in June.