The plot of Wakefield centers on Cranston’s character, a Manhattan lawyer, who has a nervous breakdown after a fight with his wife, and ends up living in the attic of a carriage house-turned-garage for nine months. During the nine month attic stint, his character only emerges at night to rummage through the trash for food to eat, spending his days evaluating himself and his life. The story is based on a short story by E.L. Doctorow of the same name, which itself is a modernized adaptation of a story written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1835.
A project first revealed by Cranston on The Howard Stern Show last month, the new film has already began shooting in Pasadena, CA. The script for the film was written by famed screenwriter Robin Swicord (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Memoirs of a Geisha), who is also directing the project. The film will be his second directorial effort, following the 2007 film The Jane Austen Book Club, for which he also penned the screenplay.
In addition to an excellent screenwriter, Wakefield will be produced by a set of heavy hitters. Hollywood producers Bonnie Curtis and Julie Lynn (Last Days in the Desert, Albert Nobbs) are teaming up with 11-time Tony award winners Wendy Federman and Carl Moellenberg, best known for Broadway productions Hair, Pippin, and Death of a Salesman.
A quirky drama that centers around a main character’s self-investigation, and offset by a very uptight high-class wife, Cranston and Garner should play perfect opposites in the film. And with such an excellent team at the helm, the new film stands a solid chance of grabbing critical attention for 2016’s award season, provided the studio can finish production fast enough.
