Lynne Ramsay’s newest project, her first since 2017’s You Were Never Really Here, is going to be chockful of reunions. Titled Polaris, the film will reunite her with Oscar-winning actor Joaquin Phoenix. In turn, he will be reunited on screen with his real-life partner, Rooney Mara, with whom he’s starred in Her, Mary Magdalene, and Don’t Worry He Won’t Get Far On Foot. It’s like they can’t stay away from one another or something.
The news was revealed by Ramsay to El Espanol while attending the Valencia International Film Festival aka Cinema Jove.
“He’s crazy, but he’s the best actor I’ve ever met. Everything he does on the set has a reason,” Ramsay said. “It’s much more difficult when you come up with an original idea like this, but it’s impossible not to get excited when you’re preparing a movie with Joaquin.”
It could be a while before we see Polaris take shape, however. Phoenix is busy shooting Disappointment Blvd from Midsommar director Ari Aster, followed by Ridley Scott’s Napoleon biopic Kitbag.
Meanwhile, Ramsay has a lot on her plate, too. An adaptation of Stephen King’s The Girl who Loved Tom Gordon was announced last year, but she’s also added Stone Mattress, an adaptation of the 2011 short story by The Handmaid’s Tale author Margaret Atwood. Ramsay first teased the latter project in 2020 but was reluctant to say anything about it at the time.
Stone Mattress centers on Verna, who has had several husbands die of “natural causes.” She decides to take an Arctic cruise to find a new mate, encountering several possibilities. One of them is a man who raped her when she was 14 years old, but he does not recognize her. Verna decides to kill him using a 1.9 billion year-old stromatolite, which is basically ancient rock and microorganisms compounded over time.
