Elizabeth Olsen, the young sister of the Olsen twins, broke out earlier this year at Sundance with her performance as the titular character in “Martha Marcy May Marlene.” This writer recently saw the film at MIFF and found out exactly why the actress was the talk of the town in Park City with a magnetic, twisted turn in Sean Durkin‘s accomplished debut. One project Olsen soon attached herself to in the post-festival hype was Naomi Foner‘s “Very Good Girls,” which is set to see her star along side fellow talent Dakota Fanning in a dramatic comedy also featuring Peter Sarsgaard, Dustin Hoffman and Sissy Spacek.
The actress, however, now reveals that the planned shooting schedule this fall may not be come together as planned. “It’s difficult,” she told the L.A. Times. “A lot of people don’t want to finance movies like that. Unless, of course, there are vampires or something weird that can animorph.”
“[‘Very Good Girls’] is a very real story of two best friends, about a real and very raw relationship, and the healthy way that young women interact with each other,” Olsen added, going on to dismiss earlier log lines focusing on the virginity losing aspects of the story. “That happens in the movie, and that’s fine for a log line, but that’s not really what it’s about.”
The original synopsis did, in fact, note that the story follows “two teenage girls during a New York summer, on a quest to lose their virginities, who fall-out when they fall for the same man, a street artist” with Foner, the mother of Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal, making her directorial debut with what now sounds like anything but a typical teenage girl coming-of-ager. “A lot of times with female relationships and young women [in the movies], it’s either ‘Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants‘ or catty b—-,” Olsen explains. “I just have a problem with that. They’re supposed to be either as perfect as how they’re portrayed on Disney or as mean as they’re portrayed in high school movies. And in real life it’s neither of those.”
Shame there might a delay on the project but, Olsen fans, fear not: the actress already has roles completed in a couple of upcoming films including Josh Radnor‘s sophomore effort behind the camera, “Liberal Arts,” and Rodrigo Cortes’ “Red Lights” opposite Cillian Murphy, Robert De Niro and Sigourney Weaver.