Toronto-based ARTEMIS PICTURES has optioned JOANNE PROULX’S sophomore novel, We All Love the Beautiful Girls. A Globe “Best Book of 2017”, published in 2017 by Penguin Canada and soon to be published by Grand Central in the US (Fall 2018), We All Love the Beautiful Girls calls to mind the movie The Ice Storm and television series The Slap and Big Little Lies.
Like the novel, the television adaptation will be a propulsive family drama tackling such provocative issues as misogyny, violence against women, betrayal and loss, with surprising touches of humour and poignant moments of joy and love.
One frigid winter night, the lives of three affluent families begin to unravel when MIA and MICHAEL SLATE discover that their close friend, PETER CONRAD, who is also Michael’s business partner, has cheated Michael out of his share of the business. That same night, the Slate’s teenaged son, FINN, passes out in the snow during a party at the KELLYS’ house, where he is abandoned by his jealous friend and nearly freezes to death. The two events on this single night send shockwaves through the suburban community, leading to acts of infidelity, betrayal, and violence.
Praise for We All Love the Beautiful Girls:
“An emotional thrill-ride that manages to capture the tenderness and rage unique to adolescence and middle-age, the heartbreak of first love, and the fragility of even the most stable-seeming marriage.” – Zoe Whittall, bestselling author of The Best Kind of People
“We All Love the Beautiful Girls has the ability to leave a reader breathless. The plot twists are daring. The characters and their dialogue capture the ways in which adversity can alter people. Lovers’ wounds are plastered across every page and the veneer of civility becomes shockingly thin. And yet, in the end, love, decency, and forgiveness triumph. Think of the 1986 David Lynch film, Blue Velvet, in which brutality lurks just beneath the surface of everyday life, then erupts ferociously before disappearing back into the depths.” – Quill & Quire
ARTEMIS PICTURES, is a partnership between Oscar nominated industry veteran and founding partner of Rhombus Media, BARBARA WILLIS SWEETE, seasoned television executive, JOAN JENKINSON, and international business and economics specialist, SUSANNE RITZAU. The partners have long-established careers in scripted television, feature films and documentaries – with a rich background in the performing arts. Their primary focus is to develop and produce high end scripted content for television and the cinema for an international audience.
“Joanne’s novel is an engrossing page-turner, full of dynamic characters, plot twists and strong emotions. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to adapt it for television,” says Barbara Willis Sweete.
A feature film adaptation of Proulx’s debut novel, Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet, with movie stars CAMERON MONAGHAN (Shameless), PEYTON LIST (BUNK’D) and JULIETTE LEWIS (Natural Born Killers) is currently in post-production and will soon be released. Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet was published internationally by Penguin Canada; Soho US; Picador MacMillan UK; and Arena, Netherlands. It was selected by Borders in 2008 for their prestigious Best New Voices series, was the recipient of Canada’s Sunburst Award for Fantastic Fiction and named a best debut of 2007 by Kirkus and The Globe and Mail.
Praise for Joanne Proulx’s debut novel, Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet:
“Proulx has a sure hand that renders Luke’s experience painfully, viscerally real. He’s funny, convincing and sympathetic, his voice expressing the subtly shifting balance of vulnerable child and diffident teenage boy … the book combines a dry humour with moments that are deeply and unexpectedly affecting. Luke’s is a thoughtful coming of age that is, above all, utterly engrossing.” –Observer