It may have a terribly off-putting title (and let’s face it, Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever standard terrible) but ‘Emanuel and the Truth About Fishes’ backs that up with an even more off-putting premise.
Emanuel is a troubled 17-year-old girl who babysits her new neighbour Linda’s “baby,” which is actually a very life-like doll. She goes along with the delusion while befriending Linda, who happens to be the spitting image of her late mother.
After acting in Francseca Gregorini’s egregiously insufferable previous feature Tanner Hall newly appointed movie star Rooney Mara was slated to play the titular Emanuel before scheduling conflicts got in the way. Now Skins alumni Kaya Scodelario has stepped in and news is that Jessica Biel is in final talks to maniacally inhabit the shoes of the nutty neighbour.
Scodelario’s Emanuel was previously described as “a young, troubled woman who becomes obsessed with her mysterious, new neighbour that looks uncannily like her dead mother.” But from the brief plot synopsis available one could easily substitute the words ‘mysterious’ and ‘new’ for ‘batshit’ and ‘insane’.
It all sounds rather distressing but Biel whilst often considered to be a hollow Hollywood model shaped cypher actually does show potential. Whether or not this seemingly hysterical Freudian nightmare will prove to be the subtle underplayed role she’ll need to get respect is a different matter.
The next time she will be gracing our screens she’ll be riding on top of the cash cow Total Recall as they milk it dry in yet another unwarranted ‘reboot’ – a concept which often makes me want to give certain Hollywood producers a reboot up the backside. However whilst it’s abundantly clear she’s picking them as they come (New Year’s Eve springs immediately to mind), I suppose you can’t blame her for that. It’s your typical blockbuster then overwrought low-budget performance cycle that seems to dominate the life of our top actors and actresses. It is a business after all.
Whether her role in ‘Emanuel and the Truth About Fishes’ is as hysterically unbalanced as it sounds is yet to be seen. How much Emanuel will learn about fish is also unclear. However, one thing’s for sure, it doesn’t sound like it’s going to end well.
Source: Variety
