History lesson time: In 1911, an Italian employee of the Louvre in Paris stole Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa in order to repatriate the work back to its original Italian home. This was before security cameras were everywhere, so he just walked out of the building with the painting hidden under his coat. The sensational crime helped make the painting the most famous art object in the world, a reputation that continues over 100 years later. And now there’ll be a movie about it. Based on the Seymour Reit book The Day They Stole the Mona Lisa, the currently untitled drama is set to be directed by Jodie Foster. Producers are already saying the script – still being written by Bill Wheeler (Ray Donovan) – will fictionalize the moment somewhat, because if there’s one thing Hollywood is great at doing it’s making history into something that will cause you to fail the midterm because you watched the film version instead of reading the assigned homework. This news is Sundance fresh, so the finished product might hit screens at any random moment in the near or not-so-near future. Patience, art lovers.
Beanie Feldstein, star of Booksmart and the super ambitious 20-year-long Richard Linklater-meets-Stephen Sondheim project Merrily We Roll Along, and who is also recently casually public about being queer, has another movie rolling our way. It’s called The Humans, and for all you non-theater people, here are the facts: it’s the Tony Award-winning play from Stephen Karam, a comedy about some decidedly non-comedic subjects – depression, dementia, dysfunction – and all of it takes place at a Thanksgiving family dinner. Karam has adapted his stage production for the screen and is also directing a cast that includes Feldstein, Amy Schumer, Steven Yeun (Burning), Richard Jenkins, June Squibb and theater vet Jayne Houdyshell (Little Women). A24 will release it, and we assume it’ll come along this fall, which is conveniently the time of families with problems (aka all of them) celebrating Thanksgiving and of awardsy-sounding films about families with problems hitting theaters.
Romeo San Vicente would love the Mona Lisa in his house.
