Tilda Swinton is set to lead another literary adaptation: Ottessa Moshfegh‘s psychological thriller “Death in Her Hands,” with auteur David Lowery directing. Swinton, who most recently led Pedro Almodóvar’s English feature debut “The Room Next Door,” will star as widow Vesta Gul, who may or may not have stumbled upon a crime scene. The character finds a handwritten note while walking in the woods, with the letter reading, “Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body.” Yet without a corpse in sight, recluse Vesta becomes obsessed with solving the would-be murder.
The book’s official synopsis reads, “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.” The novel was published in 2000.
Lowery will adapt the novel for the screen, with See-Saw Films producing. Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, and Jeanie Igoe are producing, with the executive producers including Simon Gillis and Ann Phillips. See-Saw’s sales division Cross City Films and WME Independent are set to secure financing for the feature at Cannes.
“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!,” Lowery said in a press statement. “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.”
Producers 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.”
Lowery next has “Mother Mary” in the works starring Anne Hathaway, which is currently in post-production. “Death in Her Hands” isn’t the only Moshfegh adaptation in the works: Author Moshfegh, who also collaborated with Hathaway for her adaptation of “Eileen,” told IndieWire that she hand-selects who will adapt her work for the screen.
“I wouldn’t just sign the rights over to a novel to anyone,” she said. “There are people who have some doings around other IPs. I trust them, but that isn’t to say I’m not good at detachment. I don’t actually want to control other people’s work. An adaptation is just an adaptation. It’s not supposed to be a carbon copy. That’s impossible. It’s a reinterpretation, it’s a translation, and it’s a really creative process.”
Moshfegh added at the time that the adaptation of “My Year of Rest and Relaxation,” to which LuckyChap optioned the rights to in 2018 and Yorgos Lanthimos was rumored to be attached to direct, is still “underway.” No director has been announced yet. “I have no idea about the timeline on that, but hopefully sometime,” “Causeway” screenwriter Moshfegh said in 2023.
