Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke will again tackle teen angst with an adaptation of Martha O’Connor’s The Bitch Posse. Deadline reports that Hardwicke will direct from a script by Tristine Skyler (Getting to Know You). The film covers familiar territory for the director as it focuses on a group of three high school friends. A terrible incident occurs that changes their dynamic forever, and the book switches back and forth between the girls’ high school years and present day, which finds one of them in a mental institution, another in a loveless marriage, and the third a promiscuous failed writer.
Miranda Bailey and Matthew Leutwyler are producing the flick through their Ambush Entertainment banner. Hardwicke most recently helmed Red Riding Hood, which was released last month to middling reviews. Hit the jump for a synopsis of O’Connor’s novel.
Here’s the synopsis for The Bitch Posse:
“You Have Now Entered a Chick-Lit-Free Zone,” O’Connor’s dark, scabrous debut warns. Given the sassy title and the familiar subject matter of female friendship, readers should be forgiven if they expect Bridget Jones—but O’Conner’s heroines resemble that lovable Brit like leopards resemble kittens. The story focuses on three friends, Cherry, Amy and Rennie, as high school seniors and as women in their mid-30s. Compelled by miserable home lives to form the Bitch Posse as teenagers, the three girls ricochet dangerously through their last year of high school, sharing a passionate, almost sinister bond until a terrible secret rips them apart. Still damaged—and separated—by the unspeakable event, the three live equally wretched lives as adults, Cherry in a mental institution, Rennie as a promiscuous failed writer and Amy in a loveless marriage. After pages of vodka, cocaine, “fucking” and “cutting” (in both past and present narratives), the friends’ terrible secret finally comes to light, though it reveals logistical and thematic gaps in the narrative. “[H]er past is like a sore that won’t ever heal, memories are spurting at her like blood and she can’t close the wound” characterizes the level of emotional complexity attained in this heavy-handed novel, but the story fascinates even as it repels.
Post Title → Catherine Hardwicke to Direct Adaptation of THE BITCH POSSE
