Even though Jenny Lumet’s script for Rachel Getting Married didn’t earn her an Oscar nomination it certainly drew the attention of Oscar pundits. I wasn’t one of the bandwagoners, but to dismiss the fact there was in fact a bandwagon would be silly, and it simply means her next project is one that will be looked at closely. Rachel was her debut script, for which she won the New York Film Critics Award, and Variety tells us she has set This Strange Thing Called Prom as her next feature.
The story is an adaptation of the June 22, 2008 article written by Brooke Hauser for the “New York Times” which you can read right here. Hauser’s story describes the experiences of immigrant students as they organize and attend a senior prom at the Intl. High School in Brooklyn.
The article tracked the experience of students who came from widely diverse backgrounds — one served as a nomadic yak herder until age 12 — as they got swept up in a prom ritual that was completely new to them. The students, from locales like Senegal, Venezuela, Tibet, Haiti, Poland and Gabon, had experiences that ranged from magical to miserable.
Lumet is writing the script for Miramax and producer Marc Platt.
