David Lowery (The Green Night, A Ghost Story) is set to write and direct Death in Her Hands, based on Ottessa Moshfegh’s 2020 novel of the same name, Deadline reports. Tilda Swinton (Doctor Strange, Suspiria) will star in the “anarchic whodunnit and otherworldly psychological thriller.” She’ll play recent widow Vesta Gul, who comes across a chilling […]
David Lowery (The Green Night, A Ghost Story) is set to write and direct Death in Her Hands, based on Ottessa Moshfegh’s 2020 novel of the same name, Deadline reports.
Tilda Swinton (Doctor Strange, Suspiria) will star in the “anarchic whodunnit and otherworldly psychological thriller.”
She’ll play recent widow Vesta Gul, who comes across a chilling handwritten note in the woods near her home: “Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body.” Except there is no body. No blood.
Unmoored by the death of her husband and armed only with a camera, her dog Charlie, and her vivid imagination, Vesta becomes obsessed with uncovering Magda’s identity and fate. As her inner world begins to eclipse reality, the mystery of Magda threatens Vesta’s grip on her own life – until, in a spellbinding operatic climax, we realize that Magda’s death may finally allow Vesta to live.
See-Saw Films is behind the project. Its in-house sales arm, Cross City Films, is teaming with WME Independent to secure financing at Cannes.
Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, and Jeanie Igoe will produce with Simon Gillis and Ann Phillips as executive producers.
“I am a devoted fan of Ottessa Moshfegh, and the opportunity to translate Death in Her Hands to the big screen has been, in some ways, a subterfuge for getting to spend a great deal of time obsessing over her prose. But now the ruse is up,” said Lowery.
“The script begot by the novel will soon become a film, and I am suddenly aware more than ever that adapting this particular work represents a devious challenge (anyone who’s read the novel will understand why)! But I’m ready for it, and am emboldened to have such wonderful collaborators at my side: the whole team at See-Saw, Jeanie, and of course, the incredible Tilda Swinton, who I know will illuminate Ottessa’s story in ways I could only dream of.”
Canning and Sherman added, “David Lowery is a master of crafting striking, atmospheric stories, and there’s no one better to bring Ottessa Moshfegh’s haunting and brilliant novel to the screen. We can’t wait for audiences to step into the world he creates and be swept away by Vesta’s story, played by the incomparable, magnetic, and endlessly compelling Tilda Swinton.”
