The Handmaid’s Tale star Elisabeth Moss is set to star as Rosemary Kennedy in director Ritesh Batra’s A Letter From Rosemary Kennedy.
The film, based on a Black List spec script by Nick Yarborough, portrays the story of John F. Kennedy’s troubled older sister, Rosemary Kennedy, who was kept from public view and eventually institutionalized. Rose Marie (also known as “Rosemary”) Kennedy, the daughter of Joseph Kennedy Sr. and Rose Fitzgerald, showed signs of mental disability that the family kept hidden.
When she was 23, Rosemary was one of the first people to receive a prefrontal lobotomy, but its failure left her permanently incapacitated.
“The movies about the Kennedy family are deservedly stormy affairs, but here’s a story about the storms within all of us. This is why I am excited to tell this story, and to collaborate with Elisabeth, a fabulously talented actor,” Batra said in a statement.
The producer credits on A Letter from Rosemary Kennedy are shared by Jason Michael Berman of Mandalay Pictures, Kevin Turen of Guy Grand Productions and Moss. Richard Arlook, Allard Cantor and Jarrod Murray will executive produce.
“We are thrilled to be bringing this poignant and true story to life based on one of the hidden gems of the Kennedy family, with a masterful filmmaker in Ritesh Batra, the brilliant Elisabeth Moss and a beautifully crafted screenplay by Nick Yarborough,” Berman and Turen said in their own statement.
Mister Smith Entertainment is handling international sales and is set to unveil the film to foreign buyers at the Berlin International Film Festival. Endeavor Content is selling North American rights.
Moss is also set to star in the reproductive rights drama Call Jane, which will be directed by Simon Curtis and is slated to begin production later this year, and as a punk rocker in Alex Ross Perry’s Her Smell for Bow and Arrow Entertainment.
Moss is repped by WME, Ribisi Entertainment and Independent Talent Group in the U.K.
