I don’t know about you, but I’ve been waiting a long (long, long, loooong) time to see Little Miss Sunshine herself, that charming tot Abigail Breslin, sign on for some murder action. Just me?
Breslin has joined the cast of The Class Project, which tells the story of two sisters who plot to kill their own mother after years of dealing with both her alcoholism and her abusive boyfriends. Breslin will play one of the sisters in the film. And while that plotline alone sounds titillating to all get-out, it only gets better. It’s based on the true story of two Canadian sisters who got away with the crime for nearly a year. The girls were just 15 and 13 years old at the time.
Toronto Star reporter Bob Mitchell wrote a book in 2008 on the crime, which was committed back in 2003. The book has the much longer (and snazzier!) title of “The Class Project: How to Kill a Mother: The True Story of Canada’s Infamous Bathtub Girls.” Fabrizio Filippo and Adam Till have adapted the book for their screenplay. The “Bathtub Girls” nickname comes from the way the sisters committed the crime ‐ supposedly drowning their own mother in their bathtub (after pumping her full of booze and Tylenol) and making it to look like an accident caused by, you guessed it, her out of control drinking. The girls originally got away with it, until they were found out and brought to trial in what was Canada’s very first instance of matricide committed by sisters. While all that sounds vaguely movie-of-the-week trashy, the casting of Breslin hints at a more serious film. I can’t wait to see who joins up as her sister (pulling for Elle Fanning on this one).
Stan Brooks will direct the film from Filippo and Till’s script. Production is set to start this month. [Variety, Movieline]
