The Company You Keep starring Robert Redford ... Have you read the book? #book2movie

Robert Redford's film based on Neil Gordon's book, The Company You Keep, was released in Italy on December 20th of last year...that's the Italian poster on the left.

I may or may not read the book but I really want to see this film. It's the story of a former Weatherman  (the political activists not the guys who tell us it's going to rain) in part because I'm a great admirer of Redford's lifetime of work, both on screen as well as his environmental activism.

                                                     

The movie will be released in quite a few places before it lands here in the states in 'limited' release on April 5th. It's already been screened at the Venice, Toronto and Stockholm International Film Festivals. I'm lucky that living in Los Angeles almost always means we'll have some chance to see the film on a movie screen as the filmmakers intended! Here's when The Company You Keep comes to a movie theater in your country.

Sweden    18 January 2013
Brazil	15 March 2013
Australia	28 March 2013
New Zealand	4 April 2013
USA	5 April 2013	(limited)
Portugal	11 April 2013
France	1 May 2013
UK	7 June 2013

I used to be in love with Robert Redford. Seriously I did. I've probably blogged about how I once sent him a fan letter (my one and only fan letter, ever). I think it was right after The Candidate where he played the idealistic, naive liberal political candidate and at a time when he looked particularly yummy. His fan club sent back an invitation to send a $1 for which I would receive a signed photo. I was furious! I never sent the money of course, but I stayed a fan. He's a little older now and with his fair skin, hasn't really aged that well. The full youthful head of reddish blonde hair contrasted against his more aged facial appearance is disconcerting but I'm still revved up to see what project has inspired him to work again.
Of course, it's a political thriller - this is the synopsis I found on Fandango:

Working from a script by Lem Dobbs, Robert Redford directs and stars in The Company You Keep as Jim Grant, a former member of the Weather Underground who has been hiding out under an assumed identity ever since members of the group participated in a bank heist that ended in a guard's death. When a young reporter figures out the truth, Grant must stay one step ahead of the FBI, who want to bring charges against him for the decades-old murder.

And here's the description from Barnes and Noble:

 Set against the rise and fall of the radical antiwar group the Weather Underground, The Company You Keep is a sweeping American saga about sacrifice, the ecstatic righteousness of youth, and the tension between political ideals and family loyalties. When Jason Sinai, one of the last Vietnam-era fugitives still wanted on murder charges for a robbery gone wrong in 1974, encounters a young newspaper reporter in search of a story, he must abandon years of safe underground life for the dangerous life of the road-traveling across America and deep into his past. It is a vivid re-creation of lives lived underground—of battle-scarred veterans, ideologues, profiteers, criminals, and bystanders.

Redford, as director, has stuffed his cast with stunning talent. The young reporter is played by Shia LaBeouf. The rest of the cast includes Julie Christie, Susan Sarandon, Terrence Howard, Anna Kendrick, Sam Elliot, Stanley Tucci, Chris Cooper and Richard Jenkins. Young Jackie Evancho plays Isabel Grant, Jim Grant's granddaughter daughter! (thanks Chuck Yates, for the heads up). Jackie is the little girl who blew everyone away on America's Got Talent.  THOUGHTS?