Whatever Guy Pearce does, we're going to sit up and pay attention. Over the past year and a half or so, the actor has played a charming cad in Todd Haynes' breathtaking "Mildred Pierce," tried on his action hero pants for "Lockout," popped up in "Prometheus" and sneered his way through "Lawless." He's got a number of interesting movies on the way with an equally diverse slate, with everything from "Iron Man 3" to "Like Crazy" director Drake Doremus' next effort on his plate. And now another intriguing movie is being added to his schedule.
Pearce is joining the lovely Rosamund Pike and Bryan Brown for "Violet Town." Based on Steven Carroll’s novel "The Art of the Engine Driver," the 1957-set story follows a couple that attend a neighbor's New Year's Eve party that results in some life altering revelations. Mark Joffe ("Spotswood") is at the helm for this one. Here's the book synopsis from Amazon:
There they are, still as a photograph, listening for the distant thud of the sun as it prepares to drop from the sky …On a hot summer's night, a family of three are off to a party in their bristling suburbia. But nothing is as it seems and soon we are walking with them through the past lives of a bully, a drunk and a disaffected youth. As the story of the neighbourhood unfolds the old and the new, diesel and steam, town and country all collide – and nobody will be left unaffected. "The Art of the Engine Driver" is a luminous and evocative take on ordinary suburban lives told with an extraordinary power and depth.
Production will begin in the second half of 2013, so we'd wager to keep an eye on the festival circuit in 2014 for this Aussie production to appear. [Deadline]
