- TRUE STORY
Jonah Hill turned in a solid performance in Moneyball, and
now he’s got another drama on the way, but he’ll be in the lead this time
around.
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| Jonah Hill |
Hill is set to star opposite James Franco in the adaptation
of Michael Finkel‘s memoir True Story. Directed
by Rupert Goold, the story recounts the head-spinning relationship between
disgraced New York Times journalist Michael Finkel (Hill) and accused murdered
Christian Longo (Franco).
The book’s official synopsis does a great job of breaking
down the plot:
“In the haunting tradition of Joe McGinniss’s Fatal Vision
and Mikal Gilmore’s Shot in the Heart, True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa
weaves a spellbinding tale of murder, love, and deceit with a deeply personal
inquiry into the slippery nature of truth.
The story begins in February of 2002, when a reporter in
Oregon contacts New York Times Magazine writer Michael Finkel with a startling
piece of news. A young, highly intelligent man named Christian Longo, on the
FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list for killing his entire family, has recently been
captured in Mexico, where he’d taken on a new identity—Michael Finkel of the
New York Times.
The next day, on page A-3 of the Times, comes another bit of
troubling news: a note, written by the paper’s editors, explaining that Finkel
has falsified parts of an investigative article and has been fired. This
unlikely confluence sets the stage for a bizarre and intense relationship.
After Longo’s arrest, the only journalist the accused murderer will speak with
is the real Michael Finkel. And as the months until Longo’s trial tick away,
the two men talk for dozens of hours on the telephone, meet in the jailhouse
visiting room, and exchange nearly a thousand pages of handwritten letters.
With Longo insisting he can prove his innocence, Finkel
strives to uncover what really happened to Longo’s family, and his quest
becomes less a reporting job than a psychological cat-and-mouse game—sometimes
redemptively honest, other times slyly manipulative. Finkel’s pursuit pays off
only at the end, when Longo, after a lifetime of deception, finally says what
he wouldn’t even admit in court—the whole, true story. Or so it seems.”
The project will also see Hills former co-star Brad Pitt’s
company, Plan B, produce the film.
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