Ugly Cry Alert: Katie Holmes Tackling Her Directorial Debut With ‘All We Had’

By  · Published on September 12th, 2014

Katie Holmes in Thank You For Smoking

Twentieth Century Fox

Joey Potter, if there was any doubt you’d make it out of the Creek and make it big, that’s rightly been shattered. Katie Holmes is continuing her streak of pushing haters to the left and taking on unique, out-of-character projects by tackling her directorial debut with All We Had. Variety reports the drama, also a starring vehicle for Holmes, is an adaptation of the recently released Annie Weatherwax novel of the same name, scripted by Josh Boone.

Boone’s name may sound familiar, as he just directed the self-refilling teenage pond of tears and despair called The Fault in Our Stars last spring. This means he has ample experience in dealing with misery and emotional mayhem, which will bode well in writing the movie – it’s a story centered upon a mother and her 13-year-old daughter who are struggling to hold their heads above water and escape poverty.

They’re able to do so by finding an “unlikely home” among the strange residents of an odd little pocket of small town America. Is this going to be the harrowing, gritty version of Gilmore Girls the world finally must face? Are we truly ready for a non-charming version of Stars Hallow that leaves our mother and daughter dynamic duo without the quirky cute life experiences and handsome paramours and Melissa McCarthy sidekicks to help them succeed toward all of their fantastical goals and through all their silly problems?

Though Boone’s script may differ from the novel’s content, the novel begins when Rita Carmichael and her daughter Ruthie are kicked out of their apartment. Rita is used to getting by on her movie-star good looks, but it’s not enough to pay the bills (don’t we all know), and they head out in their run-down car to start life anew, settling in a small town called Fat River, as that’s where their car breaks down first. Rita takes up a gig waitressing and their life is now inhabited by the wacky residents of this new place. All fun and crazy, right? Wrong.

They teeter on the edge of being broe and the “price she pays to keep them out of poverty changes their lives forever.” This is going to be a tearjerker, and Boone knows exactly what he’s doing while writing this. Holmes still has to prove herself as a director, but her choices as an actress lately show that she’s stepped up her game and is heading in a new direction. Is this her McConaissance? Holmesian period?

Just this year alone, she portrayed a sweet elementary school teacher who moonlights as a vigilante in Miss Meadows and took on playing the mother of the Receiver of Memory in the adaptation of the beloved children’s classic The Giver. In 2015 we’ll be seeing her alongside Helen Mirren in Woman in Gold, potentially kicking some Nazi ass. It’s been a long time since TomKat was part of our vernacular, and it’s a damn good thing. Katie Holmes is her own person, and she deserves more as an actress and as a filmmaker.