What Alice Forgot: Hey American filmmakers! Leave those books alone.

 Sing that headline to the tune of Pink Floyd's The Wall. 

I just read that TriStar which acquired Liane Moriarty’s book What Alice Forgot (not to be confused with Still Alice) last summer now has Jennifer Aniston attached to play the 39 year old Alice. Remember, she falls and hits her head at the gym only to wake up thinking she’s still twenty-nine, pregnant and still crazy in love with her husband? Oh, what a difference a decade makes!

I am not a Jennifer Aniston hater. Far from it. I rooted for her and carried a grudge on her behalf, hating on Angelina Jolie long after it was healthy on anyone’s part. Having seen her in Cake, I have new found respect for Aniston as an actor and I think she might even be exactly right for the part of Alice. Except of course, she’s not an Aussie. Aye, there’s the rub.

Because I read What Alice Forgot with Alice’s Australian accent in my head, didn’t you? Learning it was going to be a movie, I was all set to go to Sydney, have lunch at one of those busy harbour-side restaurants, and hear children call their mothers mum. While I grudgingly have to admit resetting the film somewhere in the states won’t really have a deleterious effect on the story,—and unlike Moriarty’s Big Little Lies, What Alice Forgot doesn’t emphasize the sunny Australian location quite so much—it will totally bum out my heart that it’s set in the states. I’m a bit of a broken record on this score; I love films that go places, allows us to see more of the world than our day to day vistas. 

Aniston and new hubby Justin Theroux. 

Isn’t it ironic that Theroux has just been cast to play Tom in The Girl on the Train, another book Hollywood insists on making here in the states when it best belongs in the country the author set it in??? 

What do you think, readers? Is Aniston your Alice? Does it matter where the adaptation takes place or, like me, are you disappointed but you’ll get over it. It’s just a matter of time. Lots and lots of time.