Momentum is quite clearly on the side of Queen’s Gambit creator Scott Frank and lead actress Anya Taylor-Joy right now. Breaking viewership records and directly instigating a revived interest in chess the world over, Netflix’s period drama about hard-living chess prodigy, Beth Harmon, has even scored the coveted 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. Hoping to preserve the magic formula and recapture lightning, Scott Frank and Anya Taylor-Joy are set to reunite for a brand new project – Laughter In The Dark.
Adapted from the 1932 novel of the same name by Lolita author Vladimir Nabokov, the story follows a married middle-aged art critic Albert Albinus, who becomes obsessed with 17-year-old aspiring actress Margot Peters (read: Lolita lite). When the aforementioned marriage is broken and Albert’s wife is safely out of the picture, that’s when things really become interesting. Margot enlists her former lover Axel Rex to help siphon the Albinus fortune with every intention to discard the older fella once the deed is done.
Speaking to The Watch podcast, Frank has described this undertaking as “a valentine to movies – I’m going to do it as a film noir and a movie within a movie. And it’s a really nasty, wonderful, thriller.” Having proven a joint mastery in slow-burn and psychologically driven narratives, Frank and Taylor-Joy’s take on Laughter In The Dark certainly presents an intriguing – albeit far darker – prospect that’ll undoubtedly have audiences on the edge of their seats.
We’ll be sure to update you with all the details as it develops.
