Like all Harry Potter alumnae, audiences have questioned what David Yates will make his first film coming out of Hogwart’s. His name has been attached (no matter how loosely) to The Stand, to the Al Capone biopic Cicero, to an adaptation of the Vertigo comic Fables, to a movie about Alan Turing, to a war picture called St. Nazaire, and to the divisive new Doctor Who movie from BBC.
Now, according to Variety, there’s a new project to add to the list. Yates is reportedly on board to direct Your Voice in My Head- an adaptation of the Emma Forrest memoir of the same name which chronicles her experience with bipolar disorder and the death of the psychiatrist who was helping her cope.
Here’s the money quote from the Guardian review of the book:
“Indeed, there’s a fairytale element to this tale of a bright and attractive 22-year-old from a loving, if eccentric, family who, on contract to the Guardian and with a first novel about to come out, moves to Manhattan to write. Many would envy her, so it’s perhaps not surprising that for some time she keeps her real life (and self) secret. Lonely, bulimic and increasingly self-destructive, she binges, purges and cuts herself with razors, while embarking on a series of casual and abusive sexual relationships.
Finally, having reached the point where “sex didn’t register unless it hurt”, she finds herself in a hospital emergency ward and from there manages to get herself to Dr R, a likeably down-to-earth psychiatrist. Ultimately, with his help, she turns herself around. But that’s not until she’s made a serious suicide attempt, come home and done a spell in the Priory, and spent several more years in damaging relationships, all of it made more disorientating by the fact that Dr R dies suddenly of lung cancer without any of his patients knowing he was ill.
Certainly a departure from the world of wizards and wands. However, that “fairytale element” is echoed by Yates’s comment to Variety that “it’s a small film, hard hitting and with elements of magic realism. Compared to Potter it would cost tuppency ha’penny, and for that reason it would be incredibly liberating to make.”
Does anyone have tuppence ha’penny this guy can have? Variety also claims that Ruby Films, the company producing, is going to Warners for financing, and if they get the money, this film could start filming as early as Summer of next year. Forrest herself is writing the screenplay.