Oscar-winning screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher will write the screenplay for the American remake of The Housemaid (Photo: wsj.com) Hanoi (VNA) - Oscar-winning screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher willwrite the screenplay for the American remake of the Vietnamese horrorflick, The Housemaid.
The movie, by Vietnamese-American director Derek Nguyen, is set in1953 during the First Indochinese War. The story follows an orphanedcountry girl who is hired as a housemaid at a haunted French rubber plantation.She unexpectedly falls in love with the plantation’s owner and awakens thevengeful ghost of his dead wife.
“The opportunity to reimagine this compelling story in the context of Americanhistory is incredibly exciting,” Fletcher told the entertainment newswebsite, deadline.com. “Derek Nguyen’s cinematic fable, produced byTimothy Bui, is perfect for Reconstruction Era reinvention, especially today.”
Nguyen, who directed the Vietnamese version, said: “When writing the originalscript for The Housemaid, I became aware of the many parallelsbetween the lives of Vietnamese-indentured servants during the French colonialperiod and African American slaves in the American South. It’s an honour tohave a celebrated screenwriter such as Geoffrey Fletcher shed light on thehorrors of brutal injustice in a new version that will not only entertain butprovoke thought.”
Fletcher was the first black screenwriter to win an Oscar for his work. Hehas also written the script for the drama, Trial By Fire, basedon an article published in The New Yorker by David Grann. Themovie is directed by Ed Zwick and stars Laura Dern and Jack O’Connell.
The original Co Hau Gai (The Housemaid) was released in Vietnam inSeptember 2016. It won the Silver Lotus award in the Best Movie categoryof the 20th Vietnam Film Festival in 2017.-VNA
VNA
