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Alice Munro’s “Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage” to be adapted for screen

Actors Kristen Wiig, Hailee Steinfeld, Guy Pearce, and Nick Nolte have signed on to star in the indie film Hateship, Friendship based on Alice Munro’s short story “Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage.” The screenplay was written by writer Mark Jude Poirier, who previously adapted his own novel Smart People in 2008. Liza Johnson, who wrote and directed the indie drama Return, is set to direct.

The film explores polarizing relationships between three generations. Wiig plays a nanny charged with the care of a rebellious teenager (Steinfeld), who in turn attempts to set up a romance between Wiig’s character and her absentee father (Pearce), who battles drugs and other demons. Further drama unfolds in the form of the girl’s grandfather (Nolte), who blames Pearce’s character for the death of his daughter, the girl’s mother.

This won’t be the first time a story from Munro’s 2001 collection Hateship, Friendship Courtship, Loveship, Marriage has been adapted for screen. In 2006, Sarah Polley turned the short story “A Bear Came Over the Mountain” into the film Away From Her, earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Filming for Hateship, Friendship is set to begin in New Orleans next week.

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