Former Kevin (Probably) Saves The World star Jason Ritter has been cast in a key role in Netflix’s straight-to-series hourlong sci-fi family drama Raising Dion, based on commercial and music video director Dennis Liu’s short film about an African-American single mother who discovers her young son has multiple, constantly changing abilities. The project comes from Liu, Creed star Michael B. Jordan, who will have a supporting role, veteran showrunner Carol Barbee, writer-producer Michael Green and Charles D. King’s MacRo (Fences). Kenny Goodman executive produces.
Raising Dion, a Netflix production, follows the story of a woman named Nicole Reese, who raises her son Dion after the death of her husband Mark (Jordan). The normal dramas of raising a son as a single mom are amplified when Dion starts to manifest several magical, superhero-like abilities. Nicole must now keep her son’s gifts...
Raising Dion, a Netflix production, follows the story of a woman named Nicole Reese, who raises her son Dion after the death of her husband Mark (Jordan). The normal dramas of raising a son as a single mom are amplified when Dion starts to manifest several magical, superhero-like abilities. Nicole must now keep her son’s gifts...
- 6/20/2018
- by Denise Petski
- Deadline Film + TV
As a director shooting the HBO movie “The Tale” based on her own experiences as the survivor of childhood sexual abuse, Jennifer Fox faced a special challenge: how to handle the crucial and horrific sex scene between 13-year-old Jennifer (Isabelle Nélisse) and her grown-up track coach (Jason Ritter).
“That scene is so broken apart, we shot-listed it, and we prepared days before of where the cameras would be, that it didn’t have this great emotional meaning for me that people would expect,” Fox told TheWrap.
And Fox and her production team got creative in how they set up the scene to protect Nélisse, who was 11, turning 12, at the time the film shot on location in Louisiana in 2015.
Also Read: Laura Dern: 'We All Felt Wrenched' by Sexual Abuse Story of HBO's 'The Tale'
“Isabelle was on a vertical bed, and there was never any physical contact between her and Jason,...
“That scene is so broken apart, we shot-listed it, and we prepared days before of where the cameras would be, that it didn’t have this great emotional meaning for me that people would expect,” Fox told TheWrap.
And Fox and her production team got creative in how they set up the scene to protect Nélisse, who was 11, turning 12, at the time the film shot on location in Louisiana in 2015.
Also Read: Laura Dern: 'We All Felt Wrenched' by Sexual Abuse Story of HBO's 'The Tale'
“Isabelle was on a vertical bed, and there was never any physical contact between her and Jason,...
- 6/19/2018
- by Beatrice Verhoeven
- The Wrap
This story about Laura Dern first appeared in the Miniseries/Movies issue of TheWrap’s Emmy magazine.
It was one thing for Laura Dern to play a woman who suppressed the memory of her first sexual experience for years in HBO’s “The Tale.” It was another to have the woman who lived through those circumstances in real life sitting in the director’s chair.
“In a word? Weird,” Dern said when asked what it was like playing out director Jennifer Fox’s personal experience with Fox directing. “Super odd. Helpful, healing, weird, confronting, delicate — it was all those things.”
In order to “make it feel just right,” Dern said, she and Fox had had lunches, dinners and phone conversations. “It’s her truth, yes, and I have to play her, but I also have to feel it in my bones and understand it, and that takes its own journey...
It was one thing for Laura Dern to play a woman who suppressed the memory of her first sexual experience for years in HBO’s “The Tale.” It was another to have the woman who lived through those circumstances in real life sitting in the director’s chair.
“In a word? Weird,” Dern said when asked what it was like playing out director Jennifer Fox’s personal experience with Fox directing. “Super odd. Helpful, healing, weird, confronting, delicate — it was all those things.”
In order to “make it feel just right,” Dern said, she and Fox had had lunches, dinners and phone conversations. “It’s her truth, yes, and I have to play her, but I also have to feel it in my bones and understand it, and that takes its own journey...
- 6/18/2018
- by Beatrice Verhoeven
- The Wrap
Image Source: HBO
Long before the #MeToo movement had a name, documentary filmmaker Jennifer Fox was working on The Tale. The film, which first premiered at the Sundance Film Festival before making its way to HBO on May 26, is the devastating true story of the sexual abuse she experienced as a 13-year-old girl. Starring Laura Dern as adult Fox, Isabelle Nélisse as the director at 13 years old, and Jason Ritter as her abuser, The Tale is a searing depiction of rape and the ways in which abuse can impact someone's life without them even realizing it.
The Tale is Fox's first narrative film, and it serves as a memoir of sorts, as well as a graphic depiction of what sex abuse can look like from a child's perspective. According to The Hollywood Reporter, a few difficult scenes in the film showing acts of abuse led some audience members to walk...
Long before the #MeToo movement had a name, documentary filmmaker Jennifer Fox was working on The Tale. The film, which first premiered at the Sundance Film Festival before making its way to HBO on May 26, is the devastating true story of the sexual abuse she experienced as a 13-year-old girl. Starring Laura Dern as adult Fox, Isabelle Nélisse as the director at 13 years old, and Jason Ritter as her abuser, The Tale is a searing depiction of rape and the ways in which abuse can impact someone's life without them even realizing it.
The Tale is Fox's first narrative film, and it serves as a memoir of sorts, as well as a graphic depiction of what sex abuse can look like from a child's perspective. According to The Hollywood Reporter, a few difficult scenes in the film showing acts of abuse led some audience members to walk...
- 6/17/2018
- by Sabienna Bowman
- Popsugar.com
HotstarA documentarian looks back at her own childhood and uncovers startling truths.Sandeep NarayananScreenshot/HotstarHBO’s latest offering The Tale starts with an intriguing disclaimer: “The story you’re about to see is true. As far as I know it.” The Tale takes a close look at director Jennifer Fox’s own life as she navigates through the memories of her childhood to uncover something dark and disturbing. The thing about childhood memories are that they are never completely our own , they are hand-me-downs from people around us, and trying to recollect these memories can be like looking through a kaleidoscope. Colourful and constantly changing, creating a new pattern, a new story, every single time. And sometimes what you discover is not pleasant. Laura Dern plays Jennifer Fox, a 48-year-old documentarian whose life is suddenly and irrevocably turned upside down when she receives a call from her mother who discovers some stories Jennifer had written as a 13-year-old. These letters reveal that young Jennifer (played by a very impressive Isabelle Nélisse) was used as a pawn as part of some perverse sexual fantasy of her track coach Bill (Jason Ritter) and married equestrian instructor Mrs. G ( Elizabeth Debicki). Jennifer refuses to accept that she was sexually abused in the beginning, even after her mother shows her the stories. “It is just a story, Mom,” she says. She truly believes that it was a consensual relationship that she was in. In her mind, she was old enough to make decisions about relationships. In the story she had concocted for herself, she even looked older when the abuse happened. She refuses to believe that she was a victim. Realisation strikes her when her mother shows her a picture of how she looked when she was 13. Thus begins Jennifer’s journey into her past and it takes her down a rabbit hole of despair. The result is a self exploration of sexual abuse, guided solely by the memories of an adolescent girl and a mature person who is in denial. The entire story is constructed in a very interesting way, where the older and younger versions of Jennifer meet up across time to make sense of the way things had happened. The younger Jennifer is constantly at loggerheads with her older self; the more her older self uncovers, the more uncomfortable her 13-year-old self gets. Over the course of the film, we see the disturbing and horrifying truth of child sexual abuse. The director has chosen to show scenes of Bill raping a young Jennifer (a disclaimer informs us that an adult body double was used for these scenes). But, this creates some very intense and dark moments which make us sit up and take notice. The scene doesn’t fade to black, it is not left to the viewers' imagination. As viewers, we are forced to confront the truth, it is not pretty, it is not romantic, it is ugly and one needs to understand that. In the last scene of The Tale, we see Laura Dern and Isabelle Nélisse sitting next to each other and trying to make sense of the horrific ordeal she had been through and why she had chosen to create these myths about her life. Those questions are not answered. It leaves us with a void, a sense of loss. But what this film bravely and effectively does is that it helps start a conversation which is sorely needed. Talking about child sexual abuse is never easy. It is one of those things that often get shoved under the carpet, the victims often bury these memories deep within the recesses of their mind. In a country where a child is sexually abused every 15 minutes, according to the latest government figures, one needs to not only talk but act against abusers and create an environment where children can feel safe and open up about these issues. Because as human beings we effectively try to shut out and forget painful memories and create false narratives that are easier to deal with. Like Joan Didion famously wrote in her 1979 book of essays, White Album, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live." The story of Jennifer is that of many a victim but it is only now in the times of #metoo and #timesup that women are getting an opportunity to tell these stories and be taken seriously. The Tale is an important film; it is an act of courage. It is disturbing and definitely not an easy watch but it is an extraordinary story which deserves to be heard. Note: The Tale is now streaming on Hotstar. Also read: From thundu to 'Kaala' sunglasses: Rajini's style props over the years...
- 6/5/2018
- by Monalisa
- The News Minute
In her first fiction feature The Tale, acclaimed documentarian Jennifer Fox approaches the subject of her own childhood sexual abuse with an unfathomable amount of honesty and unequaled bravery in a film which is set to become a seminal cinematic events in the wake of the #MeToo movement.
Starring Laura Dern as a taller and blonder Jennifer Fox, the film plays on our own perception of memory and what we choose to remember and opt to subconsciously forget from traumatic events. Presenting its audience with a narrative which challenges its own subject’s recollection of events, The Tale is likely to leave a lasting impression on our collective memories as one of the most important stories ever told by a female filmmaker.
Jenny (Laura Dern), is an accomplished documentary director and university professor whose work has taken her all the around the world, and has often put her in some very dangerous situations.
Starring Laura Dern as a taller and blonder Jennifer Fox, the film plays on our own perception of memory and what we choose to remember and opt to subconsciously forget from traumatic events. Presenting its audience with a narrative which challenges its own subject’s recollection of events, The Tale is likely to leave a lasting impression on our collective memories as one of the most important stories ever told by a female filmmaker.
Jenny (Laura Dern), is an accomplished documentary director and university professor whose work has taken her all the around the world, and has often put her in some very dangerous situations.
- 5/31/2018
- by Linda Marric
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
By and large, the 2018 Sundance Film Festival was considered to be one that wouldn’t have much of an impact come Oscar season. Most years, at least one or two movies end up in play for Academy Awards. This year, however, there didn’t seem to be that sort of a lineup, especially once things began screen. Sure, there are contenders that could still surprise, but nothing seemed to be obvious. There was one interesting exception though, and that’s The Tale, which drew incredible buzz for star Laura Dern. The film was then oddly acquired by HBO, which premiered it over the weekend. Now, she’ll contend for Emmy and Golden Globe love instead of the Oscars. The movie is about as dark a drama as it gets. The vague IMDb description is as follows: “An investigation into one woman’s memory as she is forced to re-examine her...
- 5/28/2018
- by Joey Magidson
- Hollywoodnews.com
Editor’S Note: Jennifer Fox’s The Tale airs tonight at 10 Pm on HBO, after a Sundance Film Festival premiere in January, which is where I first saw it. The film is a powerful piece of memoir in which Fox, best known for her work in documentary film, struggles with a revelation that a relationship she had when she was 13 with a much older man had not been the romantic first love as she had framed it in her memory for many years. She is played as herself in the film, by Laura Dern and Isabelle Nélisse, at different ages. At our Awardsline Screening Series panel last weekend, Fox explained that so pervasive is the grooming effect of childhood sexual abusers, it is not uncommon for survivors to live for years without realizing the damaging nature of the abuse they suffered. This is an instructive point for those who might...
- 5/26/2018
- by Jennifer Fox
- Deadline Film + TV
“The Tale” opens with a warning: “The story you’re about to see is true … as far as I know.”
What follows is a painstaking, wrenching examination into exploring what’s “true” and what’s not, what’s imagined and what’s real, the stories we create in order to protect ourselves from the potential wreckage that lies dormant inside us. As written and directed by documentarian Jennifer Fox from her own experiences, “The Tale” follows Jenny (Laura Dern) as she reevaluates the first “relationship” she had with an adult man when she was just 13 years old. Disoriented, she weaves in and out of her own experiences, determined to understand a past she that she’s been revising all her life.
Jenny’s deep dive into herself starts after her horrified mother (Ellen Burstyn) finds a story that 13-year-old Jenny wrote after spending a summer with running coach Bill (Jason Ritter) and equestrian expert Mrs.
What follows is a painstaking, wrenching examination into exploring what’s “true” and what’s not, what’s imagined and what’s real, the stories we create in order to protect ourselves from the potential wreckage that lies dormant inside us. As written and directed by documentarian Jennifer Fox from her own experiences, “The Tale” follows Jenny (Laura Dern) as she reevaluates the first “relationship” she had with an adult man when she was just 13 years old. Disoriented, she weaves in and out of her own experiences, determined to understand a past she that she’s been revising all her life.
Jenny’s deep dive into herself starts after her horrified mother (Ellen Burstyn) finds a story that 13-year-old Jenny wrote after spending a summer with running coach Bill (Jason Ritter) and equestrian expert Mrs.
- 5/23/2018
- by Caroline Framke
- Variety Film + TV
Innocence is a slippery concept: We're never conscious of possessing it, only of having lost it. That's the conceit behind writer-director Jennifer Fox's extraordinary cinematic memoir The Tale (which begins airing May 26th on HBO) – a raw, personal chronicle of the sexual abuse she sustained as a child in the 1970s. More radically, however, is how this tough-to-watch, formally daring look back (starring Laura Dern as the filmmaker's screen avatar) simultaneously details the process through which she came to recognize her experience as abuse – an epiphany arrived at gradually,...
- 5/23/2018
- Rollingstone.com
HBO Films will premiere The Tale, Jennifer Fox’s powerful narrative memoir about her own reckoning with childhood sexual abuse, on May 26th, and Fox joined castmembers Laura Dern, Isabelle Nélisse, Jason Ritter, Ellen Burstyn and Common for a moving panel after Sunday night’s AwardsLine screening of the film at La’s Landmark Theatre.
The film, which started shooting in 2015, came together in advance of the #MeToo and Time’s Up tidal waves that have shifted the conversation on gender equality and sexual abuse, and the courage it took to relate this story was the dominant theme of the evening’s discussion, moderated by Deadline’s Joe Utichi.
Based on Fox’s own life—Dern and Nélisse play Jennifer Fox at different ages—The Tale deals with the moment, years after the fact, that Fox was forced to grapple with the memories of her first sexual encounter aged 13. “It...
The film, which started shooting in 2015, came together in advance of the #MeToo and Time’s Up tidal waves that have shifted the conversation on gender equality and sexual abuse, and the courage it took to relate this story was the dominant theme of the evening’s discussion, moderated by Deadline’s Joe Utichi.
Based on Fox’s own life—Dern and Nélisse play Jennifer Fox at different ages—The Tale deals with the moment, years after the fact, that Fox was forced to grapple with the memories of her first sexual encounter aged 13. “It...
- 5/22/2018
- by Joe Utichi
- Deadline Film + TV
The Tale chronicles one woman’s powerful investigation into her own childhood memories, as she is forced to re-examine her first sexual experience – and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive. Premiering on HBO on Saturday, May 26, the HBO Films presentation is written and directed by Sundance Grand Prize winner and Emmy–nominee Jennifer Fox, who based it on her own true story. It stars Laura Dern (Big Little Lies), Isabelle Nélisse (Mama), Elizabeth Debicki (The Night Manager), Jason Ritter (Kevin (Probably) Saves the World), Frances Conroy (Six Feet Under), and John Heard (The Sopranos), with Common (Selma)
HBO Films’ “The Tale” Premieres on May 26...
HBO Films’ “The Tale” Premieres on May 26...
- 5/3/2018
- by Michael Baculinao
- TVovermind.com
In today’s roundup, HBO sets premiere date for “The Tale” and Tamera Mowry-Housley will host a docu-series on Facebook Watch.
Dates
HBO Films’ “The Tale” starring Laura Dern will debut on May 26 at 10 p.m. Et/Pt on HBO. The movie follows a woman who investigates her own childhood memories to reexamine her first sexual experience. Jennifer Fox serves as writer and director, and the film is based on her own true story. Isabelle Nélisse, Elizabeth Debicki, Jason Ritter, Frances Conroy, John Heard, Common and Ellen Burstyn also star.
Greenlights
Facebook Watch is greenlighting the interactive docu-series “Help Us Get Married!” hosted by Tamera Mowry-Housley, with the show set to launch on May 3. The show will premiere over two nights and feature three newly-engaged couples that are using the Facebook community to help plan their weddings. Facebook Watch viewers can assist the couple through Facebook polling and the results...
Dates
HBO Films’ “The Tale” starring Laura Dern will debut on May 26 at 10 p.m. Et/Pt on HBO. The movie follows a woman who investigates her own childhood memories to reexamine her first sexual experience. Jennifer Fox serves as writer and director, and the film is based on her own true story. Isabelle Nélisse, Elizabeth Debicki, Jason Ritter, Frances Conroy, John Heard, Common and Ellen Burstyn also star.
Greenlights
Facebook Watch is greenlighting the interactive docu-series “Help Us Get Married!” hosted by Tamera Mowry-Housley, with the show set to launch on May 3. The show will premiere over two nights and feature three newly-engaged couples that are using the Facebook community to help plan their weddings. Facebook Watch viewers can assist the couple through Facebook polling and the results...
- 4/30/2018
- by Ariana Brockington
- Variety Film + TV
The most powerful experience I’ve had at a theater this year is during Jennifer Fox’s The Tale at Sundance, but it won’t be the way the majority of viewers experience this harrowing tale of sexual abuse. Perhaps for the better due to the depiction of its subject matter, HBO picked up the Laura Dern-led film and will premiere it next month. Ahead of the release, they’ve now debuted the first trailer.
When letters are unearthed revealing more about a “relationship” when she was 13, Fox (Dern) starts to not only investigate in the present-day, but excavates the memories that she’s repeated since the trauma and opens a dialogue with her younger self (Isabelle Nélisse). What she perceived as a relationship was, in fact, repeated rape. Directed by Fox herself, The Tale is an emotionally debilitating drama, the powerful kind that makes one want to scream...
When letters are unearthed revealing more about a “relationship” when she was 13, Fox (Dern) starts to not only investigate in the present-day, but excavates the memories that she’s repeated since the trauma and opens a dialogue with her younger self (Isabelle Nélisse). What she perceived as a relationship was, in fact, repeated rape. Directed by Fox herself, The Tale is an emotionally debilitating drama, the powerful kind that makes one want to scream...
- 4/25/2018
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
"Why are you so angry?" "Why are you not angry?" HBO Films has revealed the first official trailer for the indie film The Tale, a controversial but still very remarkable, important film from filmmaker Jennifer Fox. This first premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to rave reviews, with many calling it the best of the festival (including me - it really is a stunningly bold work of cinema). The Tale is the true story of a woman who looks back on her youth and a sexual relationship she had with a man who coerced her into loving him. Laura Dern stars as Jennifer, and Isabelle Nélisse plays her as her younger self. The cast also includes Jason Ritter, Ellen Burstyn, Common, Elizabeth Debicki, Laura Allen, and John Heard. This film is unlike anything before it, and is a very courageous, eye-opening look at sexual abuse. It's going to be one...
- 4/24/2018
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Laura Dern won her first Emmy last year after six nominations for her supporting turn in “Big Little Lies,” and she’s back in the television awards race this year in a big way thanks to “The Tale.” Jennifer Fox’s memory drama earned universal acclaim at Sundance earlier this year, becoming the most acclaimed title in Park City and selling to HBO Films in a surprise move.
“The Tale” stars Dern as a version of Jennifer Fox. The character finds a short story she wrote for school at age 13, which forces her to re-examine her first sexual experience and confront life-altering questions about how she members her childhood. The supporting cast includes Isabelle Nélisse, Elizabeth Debicki, Jason Ritter, Frances Conroy, John Heard, Common and Ellen Burstyn.
In an A review out of Sundance, IndieWire’s David Ehrlich called the film “a landmark cine-memoir that’s as powerful and profoundly...
“The Tale” stars Dern as a version of Jennifer Fox. The character finds a short story she wrote for school at age 13, which forces her to re-examine her first sexual experience and confront life-altering questions about how she members her childhood. The supporting cast includes Isabelle Nélisse, Elizabeth Debicki, Jason Ritter, Frances Conroy, John Heard, Common and Ellen Burstyn.
In an A review out of Sundance, IndieWire’s David Ehrlich called the film “a landmark cine-memoir that’s as powerful and profoundly...
- 4/24/2018
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
This morning both the Sundance Institute and Picturehouse announced this year’s programme for Sundance Film Festival: London. Female stories and filmmakers shine brightly in this years line-up as seven out of the twelve films showcased at this year’s Sundance Film Festival: London were directed by women. Along with a thrilling array of female leads on screen, the selection champions female voices and highlights some of the broad and excellent women-led work direct from Sundance Utah.
The Festival, which will take place between the 31st May – 3 June at Picturehouse Central, will open with the UK premiere of Jennifer Fox’s The Tale, starring Laura Dern and Elizabeth Debicki. The festival also honours British talent once again, this time by premiering Idris Elba’s directorial debut, Yardie. Women in Film takes centre stage at this year’s event, as movements such as Time’s Up and #MeToo continue to highlight inequality in the film industry.
The Festival, which will take place between the 31st May – 3 June at Picturehouse Central, will open with the UK premiere of Jennifer Fox’s The Tale, starring Laura Dern and Elizabeth Debicki. The festival also honours British talent once again, this time by premiering Idris Elba’s directorial debut, Yardie. Women in Film takes centre stage at this year’s event, as movements such as Time’s Up and #MeToo continue to highlight inequality in the film industry.
- 4/19/2018
- by Zehra Phelan
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
In today’s roundup, AMC gives a first look at season three of “Preacher” and Hulu releases the first key art for season two of “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
Dates
Netflix announced that season three of “Bill Nye Saves The World” will premiere on the streaming service May 11. This season’s guests include Arnold Schwarzenegger, Karlie Kloss, and Paul F. Tomkins, along with the return of Michael Ian Black for his signature “Mad Scientist” segment.
Own will premiere its fifth and final season of long-running docuseries “Welcome to Sweetie Pie’s” on May 1 at 10 p.m. Et/Pt. The series about the drama that comes with running a family-operated soul food empire will also celebrate its 100th episode on Saturday, June 9 at 9 p.m. Et/Pt with a special 60-minute after-show immediately following the finale.
HBO Films‘ “The Tale,” starring Laura Dern, Isabelle Nélisse, Elizabeth Debicki, Jason Ritter, Frances Conroy and John Heard,...
Dates
Netflix announced that season three of “Bill Nye Saves The World” will premiere on the streaming service May 11. This season’s guests include Arnold Schwarzenegger, Karlie Kloss, and Paul F. Tomkins, along with the return of Michael Ian Black for his signature “Mad Scientist” segment.
Own will premiere its fifth and final season of long-running docuseries “Welcome to Sweetie Pie’s” on May 1 at 10 p.m. Et/Pt. The series about the drama that comes with running a family-operated soul food empire will also celebrate its 100th episode on Saturday, June 9 at 9 p.m. Et/Pt with a special 60-minute after-show immediately following the finale.
HBO Films‘ “The Tale,” starring Laura Dern, Isabelle Nélisse, Elizabeth Debicki, Jason Ritter, Frances Conroy and John Heard,...
- 4/9/2018
- by Kirsten Chuba
- Variety Film + TV
Updated, 2:59 Pm: HBO Films said today that its Sundance pickup The Tale, starring Laura Dern, will premiere at 10 Pm Saturday, May 26, on the premium channel. Here is the new teaser:
Previously, January 26: HBO Films said today that it has acquired exclusive rights to The Tale, Jennifer Fox’s timely drama that premiered last weekend in the U.S. Dramatic competition at the Sundance Film Festival. Written and directed by Fox, it centers on Jennifer (Laura Dern), a globetrotting filmmaker and professor whose mother finds a story Jennifer wrote at age 13 depicting a “special relationship” with two adult coaches. She discovers the coded details she composed 40 years earlier are quite unlike her recollection and sets out to find the coaches. Her gangly yet tenacious seventh-grade self reawakens, and the stories she told herself for decades begin to unravel. Isabelle Nélisse, Elizabeth Debicki, Jason Ritter, Frances Conroy and John Heard...
Previously, January 26: HBO Films said today that it has acquired exclusive rights to The Tale, Jennifer Fox’s timely drama that premiered last weekend in the U.S. Dramatic competition at the Sundance Film Festival. Written and directed by Fox, it centers on Jennifer (Laura Dern), a globetrotting filmmaker and professor whose mother finds a story Jennifer wrote at age 13 depicting a “special relationship” with two adult coaches. She discovers the coded details she composed 40 years earlier are quite unlike her recollection and sets out to find the coaches. Her gangly yet tenacious seventh-grade self reawakens, and the stories she told herself for decades begin to unravel. Isabelle Nélisse, Elizabeth Debicki, Jason Ritter, Frances Conroy and John Heard...
- 4/9/2018
- by Patrick Hipes
- Deadline Film + TV
HBO Films has acquired Jennifer Fox’s drama The Tale, one of the most acclaimed films to come out of Sundance that strikes a topical chord in light of the #MeToo movement and recent sentencing of Us gymnastics coach and sexual predator Larry Nasser.
HBO Films has acquired Jennifer Fox’s drama The Tale, one of the most acclaimed films to come out of Sundance that strikes a topical chord in light of the #MeToo movement and recent sentencing of Us gymnastics coach and sexual predator Larry Nasser.
Laura Dern stars as a globe-trotting filmmaker – essentially Fox herself – whose mother alerts her to a story she wrote as a youngster detailing a “special relationship” with two adult coaches.
Jennifer returns to the horse farm where she spent time in her youth, awakening her seven-year-old self. The cast includes Isabelle Nélisse, Elizabeth Debicki, Jason Ritter, Frances Conroy, John Heard, Common, and Ellen Burstyn.
The Us Dramatic...
HBO Films has acquired Jennifer Fox’s drama The Tale, one of the most acclaimed films to come out of Sundance that strikes a topical chord in light of the #MeToo movement and recent sentencing of Us gymnastics coach and sexual predator Larry Nasser.
Laura Dern stars as a globe-trotting filmmaker – essentially Fox herself – whose mother alerts her to a story she wrote as a youngster detailing a “special relationship” with two adult coaches.
Jennifer returns to the horse farm where she spent time in her youth, awakening her seven-year-old self. The cast includes Isabelle Nélisse, Elizabeth Debicki, Jason Ritter, Frances Conroy, John Heard, Common, and Ellen Burstyn.
The Us Dramatic...
- 1/26/2018
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
What does your life mean if the memories that have defined you are revealed to be false? What if the memories are tied to devastating trauma? For Jennifer Fox (Laura Dern), when letters are unearthed revealing more about a “relationship” when she was 13, she starts to not only investigate in the present-day, but excavates the memories that she’s repeated since the trauma and opens a dialogue with her younger self (Isabelle Nélisse). What she perceived as a relationship was, in fact, repeated rape. Directed by Fox herself, The Tale is an emotionally debilitating drama, the powerful kind that makes one want to scream rage at the events on the screen, but are choked by silence as the credits roll, comprehending the irrecoverable damage caused to the protagonist and the director, as the events are based on her own life.
When Jennifer just became a teenager, she wrote “The Tale,...
When Jennifer just became a teenager, she wrote “The Tale,...
- 1/23/2018
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Backed by strong performances from Laura Dern and Isabelle Nélisse (Mama), Jennifer Fox’s The Tale is a powerful Sundance movie that demands attention as the #TimesUp and #MeToo movements continue to shed light on stories of abuse. Fox’s film is autobiographical in the most exacting detail, to the point that Dern and Nélisse play the character of ‘Jennifer Fox’ at different ages: Dern as the documentary-filmmaker adult who rediscovers ‘The Tale’ a story written by the…...
- 1/23/2018
- Deadline
Few movies at this year’s Sundance Film Festival garnered as much buzz and conversation as Jennifer Fox’s searing narrative debut “The Tale.” Laura Dern stars as a cinematic version of Fox, a documentary filmmaker forced to contend with the realization that she was abused as a child by her beloved track coach (Jason Ritter), an experience she is only able to unravel decades later. Fox utilizes her own documentary background to untangle “The Tale,” aided by a unique narrative style that toys with the very concept of memory.
It also includes some of the festival’s most controversial scenes. In order to best tell the story — again, Fox’s own story — “The Tale” doesn’t shy away from putting the most intimate details of Fox’s abuse on the screen, including the steady “grooming” behavior of Ritter’s character as he breaks down young Jenny’s (Isabelle Nélisse...
It also includes some of the festival’s most controversial scenes. In order to best tell the story — again, Fox’s own story — “The Tale” doesn’t shy away from putting the most intimate details of Fox’s abuse on the screen, including the steady “grooming” behavior of Ritter’s character as he breaks down young Jenny’s (Isabelle Nélisse...
- 1/23/2018
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
“There are no bad horses, only bad riders.” There are any number of unnerving moments in Jennifer Fox’s “The Tale,” a landmark cine-memoir that’s as powerful and profoundly upsetting as any film since “The Act of Killing,” but they all seem to hatch from that tainted pearl of wisdom, passed down from a beautiful riding instructor to her naïve tween student before things go terribly wrong. It’s a coded message from an adult woman to a young girl, a pointed insistence that life is hard for the fairer sex, and that pain is just something they all push through. It’s a sinister ethos that makes victims feel ashamed of the violence they’ve suffered, and inspires them to refashion their worst traumas into badges of honor. It’s biasing the kinds of stories that someone might need to hear from their own body, and allowing for...
- 1/22/2018
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
Laura Dern and Ellen Burstyn are set to play mother and daughter alongside Elizabeth Debicki, Common, Jason Ritter, Frances Conroy and John Heard in Jennifer Fox's "The Tale".
The story centers on a successful journalist (Dern) whose mother finds a story she wrote at age 13 describing a sexual triangle with two adult coaches. Jennifer sets out to find the coaches, now forty years later.
As she delves deeper into her own mystery, the voice of her 13-year-old "Jenny" (played by Isabelle Nelisse) begins to surface and tell her side of the story. What Jenny reveals shatters everything Jennifer thought she knew about herself.
Fox penned and will direct the feature which Lawrence Inglee, Laura Rister, Oren Moverman, Fox, Sol Bondy, Simone Pero, Mynette Louie and Regina K. Scully will produce.
Source: THR...
The story centers on a successful journalist (Dern) whose mother finds a story she wrote at age 13 describing a sexual triangle with two adult coaches. Jennifer sets out to find the coaches, now forty years later.
As she delves deeper into her own mystery, the voice of her 13-year-old "Jenny" (played by Isabelle Nelisse) begins to surface and tell her side of the story. What Jenny reveals shatters everything Jennifer thought she knew about herself.
Fox penned and will direct the feature which Lawrence Inglee, Laura Rister, Oren Moverman, Fox, Sol Bondy, Simone Pero, Mynette Louie and Regina K. Scully will produce.
Source: THR...
- 5/14/2016
- by Garth Franklin
- Dark Horizons
Following its financially successful theatrical run in 2013, the supernatural horror film Mama could get a sequel in the near future from the directors of 2014's well-received Starry Eyes.
News of the Mama sequel comes from The Hollywood Reporter, which reveals that Starry Eyes writers/directors Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kolsch are in "final negotiations to rewrite and direct" the follow-up for Universal.
It's no surprise that Universal wants to move forward with a sequel, as the original film (directed by Andrés Muschietti and executive produced by Guillermo del Toro) was made for $15 million and ended up grossing $71 million domestically.
Mama centered on two sisters haunted by an eerie presence following their rescue from a five-year stay in the woods. The film starred Jessica Chastain, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Megan Charpentier, and Isabelle Nélisse. It's not officially known if the original cast will reprise their roles for the sequel, but TheWrap reports that...
News of the Mama sequel comes from The Hollywood Reporter, which reveals that Starry Eyes writers/directors Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kolsch are in "final negotiations to rewrite and direct" the follow-up for Universal.
It's no surprise that Universal wants to move forward with a sequel, as the original film (directed by Andrés Muschietti and executive produced by Guillermo del Toro) was made for $15 million and ended up grossing $71 million domestically.
Mama centered on two sisters haunted by an eerie presence following their rescue from a five-year stay in the woods. The film starred Jessica Chastain, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Megan Charpentier, and Isabelle Nélisse. It's not officially known if the original cast will reprise their roles for the sequel, but TheWrap reports that...
- 1/29/2016
- by Derek Anderson
- DailyDead
Berlin-based One Two Films is making its first foray into Stateside production as the co-producer on Jennifer Fox’s fiction feature debut The Tale, which begins shooting at locations in Louisiana today (Oct 20).
The $3.5m investigative thriller is being produced by Blackbird Films and A Luminous Mind Productions, with Lawrence Inglee and Laura Rister as producers and Oren Moverman serving as executive producer.
The autobiographical story has a cast headed up by Laura Dern, with Ellen Burstyn, Isabelle Nélisse, Elizabeth Debicki and Jason Ritter.
One Two Films’ Sol Bondy - who was a Screen Future Leader at Cannes 2013 - told ScreenDaily he had been introduced to The Tale as a project when he and Fox took part in the 2013/14 edition of the Transatlantic Film Partners programme.
He subsequently brought public broadcaster Zdf and Arte to the project which is being handled internationally by Mongrel International and is set to wrap principal photography in December.
From Helsinki...
The $3.5m investigative thriller is being produced by Blackbird Films and A Luminous Mind Productions, with Lawrence Inglee and Laura Rister as producers and Oren Moverman serving as executive producer.
The autobiographical story has a cast headed up by Laura Dern, with Ellen Burstyn, Isabelle Nélisse, Elizabeth Debicki and Jason Ritter.
One Two Films’ Sol Bondy - who was a Screen Future Leader at Cannes 2013 - told ScreenDaily he had been introduced to The Tale as a project when he and Fox took part in the 2013/14 edition of the Transatlantic Film Partners programme.
He subsequently brought public broadcaster Zdf and Arte to the project which is being handled internationally by Mongrel International and is set to wrap principal photography in December.
From Helsinki...
- 10/20/2015
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
• Alec Baldwin and Danny Glover will lead the cast of Andron, a sci-fi/action film from writer/director Franceso Cinquemani. The movie follows a group of young men and women who wake up in a dark, claustrophobic maze and struggle to survive, while the rest of the world watches. Also entering the maze are Michelle Ryan (EastEnders), Skin (lead singer from the U.K. band Skunk Anansie), Jon Kortajarena (A Single Man), Gale Harold (Queer as Folk) and Leo Howard (G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra). [THR]
• Dane DeHaan and Rooney Mara are about to get Ziggy with it. The pair...
• Dane DeHaan and Rooney Mara are about to get Ziggy with it. The pair...
- 9/13/2014
- by Jake Perlman
- EW - Inside Movies
★★☆☆☆ With renowned Spanish fantasy-horror maestro Guillermo del Toro - the visionary director behind Cronos, The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth - on producing duty, early signs were promising for the Andrés Muschietti-directed Mama (2013), a tale of two orphaned sisters taken in by the spectral presence referred to in the film's title. However, while del Toro's previous works managed to forge a truly unique vision and arguably a new spin on a tired genre, Mama sadly fails to capture any such innovation; calling on a host of horror clichés and all too familiar tricks of the trade in its bid to pull a few cheap scares.
The story follows Victoria (Megan Carpenter) and Lilly (Isabelle Nélisse), two young, orphaned sister who are mysteriously saved from their crazed father's shooter just before he is about to kill them, thanks to a spectral force later referred to by the girl's as 'Mama'.
The story follows Victoria (Megan Carpenter) and Lilly (Isabelle Nélisse), two young, orphaned sister who are mysteriously saved from their crazed father's shooter just before he is about to kill them, thanks to a spectral force later referred to by the girl's as 'Mama'.
- 6/17/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
Stars: Jessica Chastain, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Megan Charpentier | Written by Neil Cross, Andrés Muschietti, Barbara Muschietti | Directed by Andrés Muschietti
In preparation for watching Mama, I caught up with The Orphanage, the logic being that both come under the ‘presented by Guillermo del Toro’ horror label, are directed by Spanish filmmakers and both deal with paedophobia to certain degrees. As it turns out, the exercise was fairly pointless. Those three assets are almost all they share in common. Fortunately, they do share one other thing – both films are very good.
Mama opens with a father bundling his two infant children into a car, fleeing in desperation. After a crash, the family find themselves in the traditional cabin in the woods with a mysterious creature. Years later, the girls are found by their uncle Lucas (played by Game of Thrones’ Nikolaj Coster-Waldau). They are practically feral and whilst eight year old Victoria retains her language skills,...
In preparation for watching Mama, I caught up with The Orphanage, the logic being that both come under the ‘presented by Guillermo del Toro’ horror label, are directed by Spanish filmmakers and both deal with paedophobia to certain degrees. As it turns out, the exercise was fairly pointless. Those three assets are almost all they share in common. Fortunately, they do share one other thing – both films are very good.
Mama opens with a father bundling his two infant children into a car, fleeing in desperation. After a crash, the family find themselves in the traditional cabin in the woods with a mysterious creature. Years later, the girls are found by their uncle Lucas (played by Game of Thrones’ Nikolaj Coster-Waldau). They are practically feral and whilst eight year old Victoria retains her language skills,...
- 6/10/2013
- by Jack Kirby
- Nerdly
Reviewed by Jesse Miller, MoreHorror.com
Anything that has a “Guillermo Del Toro Presents…” tag above a film, be it horror or otherwise, I know I can get excited about because that man just has an eye for some bizarre and refreshingly original content and he hasn’t let me down yet.
Mama comes from the twisted minds of Andrés Muschietti and Bárbara Muschietti and is the result of Guillermo Del Toro discovering their 2008 short film Mamá and being so impressed by it that he helped the duo develop a feature film around the concept with bigger toys to play with in the sandbox.
I could begin this sentence by going into the plot and setting up the storyline for you all, but Mama is one of those horror films where you are best going into blind and discovering plot details for yourself and even beginning to describe how this...
Anything that has a “Guillermo Del Toro Presents…” tag above a film, be it horror or otherwise, I know I can get excited about because that man just has an eye for some bizarre and refreshingly original content and he hasn’t let me down yet.
Mama comes from the twisted minds of Andrés Muschietti and Bárbara Muschietti and is the result of Guillermo Del Toro discovering their 2008 short film Mamá and being so impressed by it that he helped the duo develop a feature film around the concept with bigger toys to play with in the sandbox.
I could begin this sentence by going into the plot and setting up the storyline for you all, but Mama is one of those horror films where you are best going into blind and discovering plot details for yourself and even beginning to describe how this...
- 3/28/2013
- by admin
- MoreHorror
The movie called Mama, fer pete’s sake. And it gives us Jessica Chastain as a punky dyed-black-haired rock chick who, as our introduction to her, is happily shouting “Guess who’s not pregnant!” to her boyfriend from the totally clichéd “waiting for the pee stick to do its divination in the the bathroom” scene. I figured, This is it for the poor woman. She’s doomed to maternity anyway. Because I already knew what Mama was about: that she and the boyfriend would be taking in his nieces because they’ve been orphaned by teh spooky or something. That’ll learn a rock chick who doesn’t want babies. But oh! Look how just the teensiest of shift in emphasis turns a flick from the trite and tired -- movies are always forcing women into motherhood and making sure they like it whether they like it or not --...
- 2/21/2013
- by MaryAnn Johanson
- www.flickfilosopher.com
Buried somewhere in this supernatural horror is a slyly subversive allegory on mother love. Sponsored by Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth), it spins a creepy tale of loss and possession: two young daughters (Megan Charpentier, Isabelle Nélisse) of a vanished murderer are found in a backwoods cabin, where they have lived on a diet of cherries and moths for five years.
- 2/21/2013
- The Independent - Film
Mama
Stars: Jessica Chastain, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Megan Charpentier | Written by Neil Cross, Andrés Muschietti, Barbara Muschietti | Directed by Andrés Muschietti
In preparation for watching Mama, I caught up with The Orphanage, the logic being that both come under the ‘presented by Guillermo del Toro’ horror label, are directed by Spanish filmmakers and both deal with paedophobia to certain degrees. As it turns out, the exercise was fairly pointless. Those three assets are almost all they share in common. Fortunately, they do share one other thing – both films are very good.
Mama opens with a father bundling his two infant children into a car, fleeing in desperation. After a crash, the family find themselves in the traditional cabin in the woods with a mysterious creature. Years later, the girls are found by their uncle Lucas (played by Game of Thrones’ Nikolaj Coster-Waldau). They are practically feral and whilst eight year old Victoria retains her language skills,...
Stars: Jessica Chastain, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Megan Charpentier | Written by Neil Cross, Andrés Muschietti, Barbara Muschietti | Directed by Andrés Muschietti
In preparation for watching Mama, I caught up with The Orphanage, the logic being that both come under the ‘presented by Guillermo del Toro’ horror label, are directed by Spanish filmmakers and both deal with paedophobia to certain degrees. As it turns out, the exercise was fairly pointless. Those three assets are almost all they share in common. Fortunately, they do share one other thing – both films are very good.
Mama opens with a father bundling his two infant children into a car, fleeing in desperation. After a crash, the family find themselves in the traditional cabin in the woods with a mysterious creature. Years later, the girls are found by their uncle Lucas (played by Game of Thrones’ Nikolaj Coster-Waldau). They are practically feral and whilst eight year old Victoria retains her language skills,...
- 2/18/2013
- by Jack Kirby
- Nerdly
Director: Andrés Muschietti; Screenwriters: Andrés Muschietti, Barbara Muschietti, Neil Cross; Starring: Jessica Chastain, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Megan Charpentier, Isabelle Nélisse; Running time: 100 mins; Certificate: 15
If your idea of a scary movie involves screaming teenagers, serrated edged knives and geysers of blood, Mama will disappoint. But for those who favour a good old-fashioned ghost story, bristling with suspense, this film should be embraced with open arms. Guillermo del Toro is the executive producer, and there's certainly an echo of Pan's Labyrinth in its dark fairy-tale premise.
Zero Dark Thirty star Jessica Chastain anchors the story as Annabel, a goth rocker who gets cold feet at the prospect of minding her boyfriend's two young nieces and quickly finds her spine chilled as well. Victoria (Megan Charpentier) and her little sister Lily (Isabelle Nelisse) are introduced first, as the innocent victims of a car crash in a snowy mountain forest.
Dad (Game of Thrones...
If your idea of a scary movie involves screaming teenagers, serrated edged knives and geysers of blood, Mama will disappoint. But for those who favour a good old-fashioned ghost story, bristling with suspense, this film should be embraced with open arms. Guillermo del Toro is the executive producer, and there's certainly an echo of Pan's Labyrinth in its dark fairy-tale premise.
Zero Dark Thirty star Jessica Chastain anchors the story as Annabel, a goth rocker who gets cold feet at the prospect of minding her boyfriend's two young nieces and quickly finds her spine chilled as well. Victoria (Megan Charpentier) and her little sister Lily (Isabelle Nelisse) are introduced first, as the innocent victims of a car crash in a snowy mountain forest.
Dad (Game of Thrones...
- 2/18/2013
- Digital Spy
Review Ron Hogan Jan 21, 2013
A starry cast and imaginative visuals lift a familiar horror tale. Here's Ron's review of the atmospheric horror, Mama...
Lucas (Nicolaj Coster-Waldau) is a successful financial bigwig of some sort, with a wife and two lovely girls. Everything seems to be going well in his life - at least judging by his awesome house - but one day he just randomly snaps. He shoots two co-workers, then he drives home, murders his wife, and absconds with his daughters who are too young to know any better. They suffer a crash on an icy mountain road, slink through the forest, and find a lovely, filthy abandoned cabin. Or at least they think it's abandoned.
Five years later, Lucas's twin brother Jeffrey (also Coster-Waldau) has spent his entire savings looking for his lost brother and those missing children. It took a lot of time, but after a coincidental...
A starry cast and imaginative visuals lift a familiar horror tale. Here's Ron's review of the atmospheric horror, Mama...
Lucas (Nicolaj Coster-Waldau) is a successful financial bigwig of some sort, with a wife and two lovely girls. Everything seems to be going well in his life - at least judging by his awesome house - but one day he just randomly snaps. He shoots two co-workers, then he drives home, murders his wife, and absconds with his daughters who are too young to know any better. They suffer a crash on an icy mountain road, slink through the forest, and find a lovely, filthy abandoned cabin. Or at least they think it's abandoned.
Five years later, Lucas's twin brother Jeffrey (also Coster-Waldau) has spent his entire savings looking for his lost brother and those missing children. It took a lot of time, but after a coincidental...
- 1/20/2013
- by ryanlambie
- Den of Geek
Academy Award®-nominee Guillermo Del Toro (Pan.s Labyrinth, Hellboy series) presents Mama, a supernatural thriller that tells the haunting tale of two little girls who disappeared into the woods the day their parents were killed. When they are rescued years later and begin a new life, they find that someone or something wants to come tuck them in at night.
Five years ago, sisters Victoria (Red Riding Hood.s Megan Charpentier) and Lilly (Mirador.s Isabelle NÉLISSE) vanished from their suburban neighborhood without a trace. Since then, their Uncle Lucas (Game of Thrones. Nikolaj Coster-waldau) and his girlfriend, Annabel (The Help.s Academy Award®-nominated actress Jessica Chastain), have been madly searching for them. But when, incredibly, the kids are found alive in a decrepit cabin, the couple wonders if the girls are the only guests they have welcomed into their home.
As Annabel tries to introduce the children to a normal life,...
Five years ago, sisters Victoria (Red Riding Hood.s Megan Charpentier) and Lilly (Mirador.s Isabelle NÉLISSE) vanished from their suburban neighborhood without a trace. Since then, their Uncle Lucas (Game of Thrones. Nikolaj Coster-waldau) and his girlfriend, Annabel (The Help.s Academy Award®-nominated actress Jessica Chastain), have been madly searching for them. But when, incredibly, the kids are found alive in a decrepit cabin, the couple wonders if the girls are the only guests they have welcomed into their home.
As Annabel tries to introduce the children to a normal life,...
- 1/7/2013
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.