The Green Hornet was a brief interlude into the mainstream (or as far into it as he could go) for Michel Gondry. The director seems far more at home when working with the fantastical, the sweetly bizarre, and the effects that are done in-camera.
Fortunately, he’s got his passport stamped and he’s ready to return to that world. According to Variety, Gondry will be adapting the Boris Vian novel “L’ecume des Jours” for the screen. According to Google Beatbox, that translates to The Foam of Days, but they’ve added another “the” in for good measure.
The plot focuses on a man who invents an instrument that plays both for the ears and nose who falls in love with a woman, but after the two are married, they discover a rare medical ailment which demands that she always be surrounded by flowers. As if that weren’t Gondryesque enough, it also tells the story of another couple and their quirky issues.
Plus, he’s got a hell of a cast lined up.
As luck would have it, Audrey Tautou, Romain Duris, Lea Seydoux, and Jamel Debbouze are all in line to play roles (even though they aren’t contractually final at this point). Tatou is no stranger to American audiences, but it will be nice to see them be further introduced to Duris – who did a phenomenal job with the Spanish Apartment films and with The Beat My Heart Skipped. Seydoux was in Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood, Midnight in Paris, and we’ll see her again soon in Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol. Debbouze doesn’t quite have a household name, but he played the loveable (yet slightly mentally challenged) vegetable seller assistant alongside Tatou in Amelie.
The story sounds fun, and the personnel here is enough to make it one to look forward to. Hopefully at least one character has elaborate dreams…
