Following his Oscar win for penning Gus Van Sant’s poignant biopic Milk, screenwriter Dustin Lance Black decided to take to the director’s chair himself to helm his next script, What’s Wrong With Virginia. The drama, which co-stars Jennifer Connelly, Ed Harris and Emma Roberts, was completed in 2010, and soon scored a spot at the Toronto International Film Festival. However, there it had a lackluster showing and was subsequently lost amid such high-profile productions as Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan, Mark Romanek’s Never Let Me Go, and John Cameron Mitchell’s Rabbit Hole. From there, it faded from the spotlight and was left with no promise of theatrical release. However, THR now reports that this has all changed thanks to the Toronto-based, indie distribution company Entertainment One, who has just purchased the rights to distribute the feature throughout North America.
The melodrama, now called simply Virginia, centers on the tumultuous relationship between a mentally unstable single-mom (Connelly) and her lonely teen son (Harrison Gilbertson), who is on a desperate quest to uncover the identity of the father he’s never known. Convinced his real dad is the local Sherriff (Harris), who is by all accounts and upstanding family man, the boy begins some amateur detective work that takes him into dangerous terrain as he falls for the Sherriff’s lovely daughter (Roberts). Toby Jones, Carrie Preston, and Yeardley Smith co-star.
Entertainment One (also known as eOne) has announced plans to release Virginia as early as this spring. Dylan Wiley, eOne Films US vp of theatrical marketing and distribution, believes the drama will be a great fit, saying: “We’re excited to add Virginia to our 2012 slate and thrilled to have found a film that complements both our Canadian and US line-ups so well.”
No specific release date has yet been announced.