Given his somewhat wandering nature as a filmmaker, it’s never quite clear where Charlie Kaufman will turn up next. It still feels sorta random that he wrote Chaos Walking, for instance, and maybe someday we’ll actually see that movie. With his recent Netflix head-scratcher I’m Thinking of Ending Things still very much in the awards season conversation, Kaufman has already moved ahead on his next project, an adaptation of The Memory Police for Amazon, and he’s added one of the most sought-after directors around.
According to Deadline, Reed Morano will direct The Memory Police based on Kaufman’s screenplay. The film is based on Yōko Ogawa’s novel, a surreal story set on an island in an Orwellian society where objects begin to mysteriously disappear. Here’s the synopsis:
On an unnamed island off an unnamed coast, objects are disappearing: first hats, then ribbons, birds, roses—until things become much more serious. Most of the island’s inhabitants are oblivious to these changes, while those few imbued with the power to recall the lost objects live in fear of the draconian Memory Police, who are committed to ensuring that what has disappeared remains forgotten. When a young woman who is struggling to maintain her career as a novelist discovers that her editor is in danger from the Memory Police, she concocts a plan to hide him beneath her floorboards. As fear and loss close in around them, they cling to her writing as the last way of preserving the past.
Morano is red-hot right now. She broke out as an accomplished cinematographer on films such as The Skeleton Twins and Frozen River. Directing soon followed, earning her acclaim for episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale. Her feature debut was on the 2015 film Meadowland, followed by the post-apocalyptic I Think We’re Alone Now and this year’s big-budget dud, The Rhythm Section. However, that hasn’t slowed Morano down as she has a ton of projects in the works for Nicole Kidman, Zoe Saldana, and Jennifer Lopez.
