Earlier this year, we got wind that Billie Eilish—that reigning maestra of youthful melancholy—will star in a new film adaptation of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar.
Directed by the brilliant Sarah Polley, this project represents Eilish’s first foray onto the big screen. Plathypuses (TM) are divided about her casting choice, but one thing is certain: we’re gonna need to talk about this for a while.
Photos have begun to leak off the film set, so some friendly speculation feels in order. Here’s what we know (so far!) about the brand new Bell Jar.
Eilish is unrecognizable to fans.
Earlier this month, Vogue reported on Eilish’s character transformation. In set photos, the mage known for rocking an androgyne cut and neon hair was seen “wearing a short-sleeved knit top in scarlet red; a full, A-line skirt in a jaunty check print; and, on the beauty front, a tidy side part and bold red lip.” Mad Women, anyone?
The mid-century glow-up comes care of Luis Sequeira, a costume designer known for his work on The Shape of Water.
An old Canadian orphanage is playing the hospital.
Polley, who is Canadian, has apparently pulled a classic move and tapped Toronto to play New York.
Parts of Hamilton, including McMaster University and Ancaster’s Tamahaac Club, will also make veiled appearances. The latter was a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients in its heyday, which feels thematically right somehow.
According to this morning’s Hamilton Spectator, the production is currently shooting key scenes at a Catholic girls’ school and ex-orphanage. Mount Mary Immaculate will play the infamous Walton Hospital, where Esther Greenwood receives her first doomed rounds of ECT.
This setting is also auspiciously eerie. Until recently, Mount Mary was maintained by a Ukrainian Catholic Congregation, and “once contained an orphanage [italics mine], daycare centre and a high school for girls.” The Diocese of Hamilton bought the site in 2019, but nuns continue to live on the premises. Alongside—this reader presumes—ghosts.
The school, unlike Eilish, has also been in a movie before. A scene from 2017’s It was filmed there.
Additional It-people are filling out the cast.
Carey Mulligan is set to play Mrs. Greenwood, Esther’s mother. Which should really send a shiver of age paralysis down every Millennial reader’s spine.
And Deadline reported last week that Ella Beatty—of Netflix’s forthcoming Lizzie Borden biopic, and the parentage you’d guess—is in “final talks” to join the cast in some mysterious friend capacity. (Betsy?!)
The other big rumor centers Connor Storrie, of Heated Rivalry. The recently shorn hockey king/friend to Canada is also purported to be in the jar.